# How many lumens in a headlight?



## BillM (Feb 19, 2004)

Somebody out to know this. If you take a standard headlight for an automobile driven on American roads, how many lumens will it put out? Say for the nominal high beam drawing 65 watts. Thanks 

Bill


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## Mark_Larson (Feb 19, 2004)

I believe the max is 1100 lumens. (Sylvania HO bulbs) I don't know if that includes high beams or not, and whether HID systems make more than that or not.


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## iddibhai (Feb 19, 2004)

depending on the lamp assembly, main dipped beam driving headlamps are required by US DOT to put out anywhere between high 800s to 1300s for incandescent, 2800-3200 for HID.


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## Lagged2Death (Feb 20, 2004)

[ QUOTE ]
*iddibhai said:*
depending on the lamp assembly, main dipped beam driving headlamps are required by US DOT to put out anywhere between high 800s to 1300s for incandescent, 2800-3200 for HID. 

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. Any idea why HIDs are allowed to put out so much more light? At first blush, it seems quite ridiculous. It would explain why they're _so_ obnoxious though.


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## BillM (Feb 20, 2004)

Thanks for the help guys. Just wondering how far my LSH-P had to go.

Bill /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif


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## iddibhai (Feb 20, 2004)

well, two reasons for their obnoxsiousity: bright, color, and glare control, or lack thereof. crappy USDOT standards (which absolutely have to be met to be street legal) include a fair amount stray light upwards and on the drivers side. tighter controls in Euro/Oz countries require autoleveling on HID units (REQUIRED, here it is optional!), headlamp washers for the same (again, to prevent scattering), and all cars, regardless of their headlamp mounting height, are required to meet the same beam dropoff (vs USA where a low slung corvette has the same X degree per Y feet drop from the center of the headlamp as a suburban, meaning lights from the latter often end up lighting up the aircon vents of any lower cars ahead of it)

that addresses the big point of sending light where it needs to go.

second is color... as you mention, blue is rather offensive. when HID first came out, mid 90s, still optional on top line cars, the marketing departments made a choice to have HID vs incan. visually distinguisable in order that drivers would immediately know who spent the big bucks. making it different was a selling point.

add the fact that we dont have stringent controls, and then triple the amount of light emitted, and that's recipie for disaster. most domestic and a few foreign HID units go for the "look i have blue lights i paid special for these" whereas a few imports go for the engineering route (good vision) vs marketing.

now, even some projector headlamps that are of incand. source will appear to be blue or green or purple "off axis" (viewed anything but head on), which is a due to diffraction. even good HID units (2001+ BMW 3 series, for example) appear white on axis, blue off axis, same reason, diffraction. it appears that some makers have decided that the blue fringe at the lights' cutoff (due to diffraction) is a notable "feature" to let the driver and other know the nature of the special lighting source, and have actually increased the blue fringe.

bottom line, a *well* sorted out HID assembly is fantastic, and very few cars stateside meet that criteria. and if you want to see a truly atrocious implementation, find yourself a 2004 nissan maxima, and drive ahead of it.


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## Lagged2Death (Feb 21, 2004)

What a pity. There are some situations where American _laissez faire_ tendencies are inadvisable. I guess HID headlights is one of those.

I know this is heresy, but I'm actually a little nostalgic for the old USDOT sealed-beam headlights. They didn't make a whole lot of light, but what light they did produce could be very accurately directed and positioned. When all vehicles on the road used sealed-beam lights, dazzle from other vehicles wasn't much of a problem.

I'm not really sure the benefits of the current situation outweigh the drawbacks. I think I actually have a harder time seeing the road at night, because my eyes never get a chance to properly adapt to the dark any more.


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## NikolaTesla (Feb 22, 2004)

A D2S HID lite used in a Mercedes Benz 500S makes 3200 Lumen. The Phillips brand bulb is like 4100K color. A regular H4 is around 1100 lumens. 
I have a D2S mounted on my Bicycle (X990)!
It always gets a reaction from the non-flashaholic public!
We used to use a Tong-Sol 9 Volt aircraft sealed beam years ago in our cars. Not sure of the lumen but at 500 Watts I'd say about 8 to 10 thousand. Life was 3 hours only. Way to bright- not legal- got some tickets. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
NikolaTesla
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My Lights: ******************* CAREFULL: The last one is NOT UL approved.
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STREAMLIGHTS: KEY MATE, TTL-2D, TTL-3C, TL3-LED(5watt), STINGER XT-HP,
TTL-2L, TL-3AA (1 watt LED). BRINKMAN LEGEND LX. VECTOR SPORT LIGHT 1 MILLION CP.
SUREFIRE: 6P, L6 (5watt)LED. Cygolite 16 watt dual beam.
MAGLITE 2AA, 3C. Acro X990 HID. NikolaTesla 1.5 KW 1.5 Million Volt Arc light (I have Torus
blown 15KW style primary Arc & 175 amp @ 12.5 KV High Q rated .068uf resonating capacitor)


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