# Automotive HID for home lighting



## yuandrew (Mar 24, 2006)

Call me crazy but that's what I'm using for my room right now. I recently bought an HID ballast (Denso/Toyota) and D2R lamp off Ebay for the purpose of building something portable but I ended up putting the ballast on top of my bookshelf with the bare bulb hanging off the side.

For 35 watts (excluding ballast and power supply losses) I get a lot of light; it blinds you if you look at the bare lamp. I find automotive lamps ok for my use; mainly because of the quick warmup time and instant re-strike capability. The only disadvantage I have is the 12 volt ballast; I'm using a old computer power supply to get the 12 volts. 

Any comments or concerns?


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## igabo (Mar 24, 2006)

Could you get a "beamshot" of the entire room? I'd like to see. :lolsign:


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## yuandrew (Mar 24, 2006)

Here's the ballast


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## snakebite (Mar 25, 2006)

i built an outdoor light for my 12v system here from a ballast/lamp from a wrecked lexus.
it works very well.
you need to enclose the bulb in case of "non passive end of life "(explosion of the arc tube)
which may throw white hot debris causing injury or fire.


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## Handlobraesing (Mar 25, 2006)

Not a good idea. Automotive HIDs are only rated for 2,000 hours of life and they cost a bunch, which should be more or less the lifetime of the car, notwithstanding collision damage. 

If you use it as a room lighting, which gets left on for hours at a time on regular basis, 2,000 hours is only twice the life of an ordinary 60 watt light bulb. The lamp cost so much that the cost of operation far exceeds that of a 150 watt halogen lamp. You'll get a better efficiency and equal usability out of a large CFL (30-40watt) which are readily availalbe these days.


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## bfg9000 (Mar 26, 2006)

Is the outer envelope on those bare HID bulbs quartz or soda glass? The reason I ask is quartz doesn't filter UV so you may be getting a tan...


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## yuandrew (Mar 31, 2006)

^
They are made from quartz but the quartz I heard is treated with cerium to block the UV light. Otherwise, the UV from it will degrade the plastic headlight lenses.

I don't use it too often but it actually came in handy last night. The power went out early this morning and I just happened to have a cordless drill. I connected the battery and left it there for some emergency lighting. I only used it for a few mins though, the drill battery dosen't last long but I went back to sleep anyway.

I did have a little trouble with my DSL modem after the power came back on this morning. Took me all day to reconfigure it to work with my router. :scowl:


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## reefphilic (Apr 2, 2006)

I have HID lights for my fish tank. Used it once to light up the living room. It was fantastic, the whole room lit up like it was daytime! Hate those dim, yellowish power compact.

Thought of using HID for my living room but couldn't find any suitable light fixture for it.


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## Handlobraesing (Apr 2, 2006)

reefphilic said:


> I have HID lights for my fish tank. Used it once to light up the living room. It was fantastic, the whole room lit up like it was daytime! Hate those dim, yellowish power compact.
> 
> Thought of using HID for my living room but couldn't find any suitable light fixture for it.



Unless your house has a Wal-Mart high ceiling, why not use fluorescent?


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## reefphilic (Apr 4, 2006)

Handlobraesing said:


> Unless your house has a Wal-Mart high ceiling, why not use fluorescent?




HID has a higher efficiency than fluorescent tube so it will take rows of flourescent to have equivalent output of a single 150W metal halide bulb. I don't want my living room's ceiling to look like an office's.


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## HEY HEY ITS HENDO (Apr 7, 2006)

yuandrew said:


> Call me crazy


.....



crazy? just like the rest of us !! (Nice pics BTW)
i had a similar set up it, was controlled by a timer and would come on 10 minutes before my morning wake up alarm, i found that on dark winter mornings it really did help me to wake up .....
i really did like it at first, but the light colour is very bright white and seems `cold` looking, now i just use a compact fluorescent


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## bhvm (Jun 21, 2015)

pardon me for 're-striking' the thread. 
I had very similar thoughts where an automotive lamp could be used for low voltage home lighting. my house runs mostly on Solar and hence has 12v DC very conveniently available all around. these automotive hid being nothing but mini metal halide bulbs with 12v DC input ballast makes a mach made in heaven. 

I currently upgraded my vehicle HID to 4300k bulbs and I do have a perfectly working set of 5000k bulbs. makes me think.


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## poiihy (Jun 21, 2015)

Aww, just realized this thread is ancient!!

But this is very interesting. Those pictures look really good!! :kewlpics: I wouldn't expect one HID headlight bulb to light up a room like that.

This would be very useful when you have a 12v system,and much cheaper than LEDs yet still efficient. Because HIDs are popular, you can get them easily. Another great way to turn your house into one big solar garden light. :lolsign:



Very interesting. Thank you bhvm for digging this idea up.

------------------------------

How many lumens are the 55w equivalent bulbs on ebay? For $20 you get two bulbs and ballasts. I wonder if it's actually better than LED. Is the light nicer than LED?


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## bhvm (Jun 22, 2015)

poiihy said:


> Aww, just realized this thread is ancient!!
> 
> But this is very interesting. Those pictures look really good!! :kewlpics: I wouldn't expect one HID headlight bulb to light up a room like that.
> 
> ...



mr p, 
I already have LED around my house as they work directly on 12v dc and they're very efficient on a Solar DC setup. I'm almost living off grid these days. 

the problem is, large high Power leds (above 20w ) require 21+ volts and hence a step up converter. 

these 35w hid, being 12v run happily. what's more, the light output is insane. one bulb can light up an entire hall of 16ftx18 ft x 20ft high. also we can worry less about the heat and have a compact fixture.

yes, typical ebay 55w hid lamp is 4000 lumens considering ballast efficiency.


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## poiihy (Jun 22, 2015)

bhvm said:


> mr p,
> I already have LED around my house as they work directly on 12v dc and they're very efficient on a Solar DC setup. I'm almost living off grid these days.
> 
> the problem is, large high Power leds (above 20w ) require 21+ volts and hence a step up converter.
> ...



Wow, so 8000 efficient lumens total for $20.


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## brickbat (Jun 23, 2015)

meh. Mediocre efficiency and unknown CRI. Today, LEDs win for home lighting. CMH hangs on (by a tiny thread...).


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## idleprocess (Jun 23, 2015)

bhvm said:


> mr p,
> I already have LED around my house as they work directly on 12v dc and they're very efficient on a Solar DC setup. I'm almost living off grid these days.
> 
> the problem is, large high Power leds (above 20w ) require 21+ volts and hence a step up converter.


Depends on the LED and how you deploy them. Unless you _really_ need a single package feeding some particular optic or device, you can run anything from LED strips to medium-sized arrays on 12V and some basic current-limiting.


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## poiihy (Jun 24, 2015)

brickbat said:


> meh. Mediocre efficiency and unknown CRI. Today, LEDs win for home lighting



Not by price.


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## brickbat (Jun 24, 2015)

Yeah - I suppose if all you care about is initial price. Go for it - post pics!


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## idleprocess (Jun 24, 2015)

poiihy said:


> Not by price.


You're going to buy a $20 knockoff device off fleabay that utilizes high voltages, operates at tens of atmospheres, requires UV filtering, utilizes hand-formed quartz capsules, runs for a few thousand hours, often experiences violent failures of the lamp, _and run it in your home_? I hope it never goes wrong for you.


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## bhvm (Jun 24, 2015)

what's wrong with a little out of the box thinking?


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## WarRaven (Jun 24, 2015)

ffFFFOOOOMMM, ZZZXXXTT-ZXXXTT....Tinkles in the darkness followed by, 
I think I'm bleeding.

These guys have probably heard of aftermath tales similar to that before here, that's my guess 😀


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## idleprocess (Jun 24, 2015)

bhvm said:


> what's wrong with a little out of the box thinking?


Numerous concrete examples of what could go wrong with this particular _out of the box thinking_ have been presented.


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## poiihy (Jun 25, 2015)

WarRaven said:


> ffFFFOOOOMMM, ZZZXXXTT-ZXXXTT....Tinkles in the darkness followed by,
> I think I'm bleeding.
> 
> These guys have probably heard of aftermath tales similar to that before here, that's my guess 



Not to mention the toxic halides and mercury splattered all over... including yo face.  :green: :sick2:

I was going to say it would be fine in a fully enclosed fixture, but there's also those gases so maybe not such a good idea...


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