i just got a pair of smoked fog lights. i installed them like the write up said on here and everything look good but now they are not bright enough. so now what should i do. i was thinking that maybe its the bulb or hook them up to my high beams since i never use them........
Not sure I have ever seen the V2 replicas in anything other than clear, so probably you have the 35W version. The original JDM ones are 55W, plus I would imagine that the smoked finish doesn't help.
Hook them up to the high beams? Not sure I get what you mean. It's all 12V. Could try HID's (may melt the housing) or do a projector retrofit.
Thing is though that fog lights aren't supposed to be that bright or at least not light up a large/distant area like driving lights do. Supposed to be a short wide beam bellow your headlights. V1 replicas didn't have a bulb shroud though, so I guess technically they aren't fog lights anyway, probably closest to DRL's.
i just got a pair of smoked fog lights. i installed them like the write up said on here and everything look good but now they are not bright enough. so now what should i do. i was thinking that maybe its the bulb or hook them up to my high beams since i never use them........
The "JDM" fogs really arn't fog lights..more along the lines of a DRL. What I would do is buy an HID kit, that should help with the brightness.
Not sure I have ever seen the V2 replicas in anything other than clear, so probably you have the 35W version. The original JDM ones are 55W, plus I would imagine that the smoked finish doesn't help.
Hook them up to the high beams? Not sure I get what you mean. It's all 12V. Could try HID's (may melt the housing) or do a projector retrofit.
Thing is though that fog lights aren't supposed to be that bright or at least not light up a large/distant area like driving lights do. Supposed to be a short wide beam bellow your headlights. V1 replicas didn't have a bulb shroud though, so I guess technically they aren't fog lights anyway, probably closest to DRL's.
Not sure I have ever seen the V2 replicas in anything other than clear, so probably you have the 35W version. The original JDM ones are 55W, plus I would imagine that the smoked finish doesn't help.
Hook them up to the high beams? Not sure I get what you mean. It's all 12V. Could try HID's (may melt the housing) or do a projector retrofit.
Thing is though that fog lights aren't supposed to be that bright or at least not light up a large/distant area like driving lights do. Supposed to be a short wide beam bellow your headlights. V1 replicas didn't have a bulb shroud though, so I guess technically they aren't fog lights anyway, probably closest to DRL's.
I have the v2 Fogs in Smoke and they are the V2's Metal body 55watt etc etc. They just aren't bright and anyone will tell you the lights the V2's come with are **** anyway. Just got an H3 HID kit from anywhere. I got the DDM Tuning H3 HID kit in 3000k and it made a world of difference. Just remember fogs are supposed to be pointed downward. If your fogs are lighting up road signs they are too high.
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Not sure I have ever seen the V2 replicas in anything other than clear, so probably you have the 35W version. The original JDM ones are 55W, plus I would imagine that the smoked finish doesn't help.
Hook them up to the high beams? Not sure I get what you mean. It's all 12V. Could try HID's (may melt the housing) or do a projector retrofit.
Thing is though that fog lights aren't supposed to be that bright or at least not light up a large/distant area like driving lights do. Supposed to be a short wide beam bellow your headlights. V1 replicas didn't have a bulb shroud though, so I guess technically they aren't fog lights anyway, probably closest to DRL's.
And btw HID's will not melt the housing. They burn at a cooler temperature than regular halogens.
And btw HID's will not melt the housing. They burn at a cooler temperature than regular halogens.
The energy consumed by 35W HIDs is 35W. The energy consumed by 35W halogen bulbs is 35W. The only difference is that halogen bulbs operate at 12V while HIDs operate at around 85V. (The ballasts amplify the voltage for the HID bulbs.)
Think of electric current like water. Voltage is the speed of the flow while amps are the amount (wide nozzle vs. narrow nozzle) of flow. The less speed (volts) you have then you have to make up for it with sheer amount (amps) to get your desired output (watts). Thats another way to think of watts, which is the total energy consumed. You can equate it to your total desired output when thinking electricity as water.
Therefore you can have any combination of volts and amps to result in the same total amount of energy consumed in the form of watts. Since watts are a form of energy, they can therefore be directly related to temperature. Assuming you're keeping all variables constant - that is your air temperature inside the headlight, same glass, stable battery supply, etc - the resultant bulb surface temperature will be the same for HIDs and halogen bulbs. However, there is a small chance that HIDs will be SLIGHTLY cooler depending on the actual efficiency when compared to halogen.
Well the bulbs are converting the electric energy (watts) into light and heat. If HID's produce more light, then presumably they also produce less heat (ie. more efficient), although light being energy can also be converted back into heat as it bounces off the reflector (unless it reflects 100%), passes through the smoked lense, etc.
Also as I understand it the balast provides a higher voltage to start the arc. So for a brief period HID's would be using more than 35W.
Fact is that I have OEM fogs with stock halogen bulbs. I have no personal experience running HID's in replicas (or OEM for that matter). Just I have heard conflicting information, so I said it "may melt". Don't want to suggest someone run HID's and them have them come back saying they melted the lights. Sounds like it is possible that they have V2's anyway in which case it really isn't an issue.
Thats true, upon firing the ballasts draw almost twice the normal operating current in order to charge the capacitors. My brother-in-law used an ammeter to test this and found that during normal operation after warm-up the ballasts were drawing ~3amps. During warmup this spikes to ~6-7amps, which means during warmup a 35w ballast actually draws 75w to charge capacitors. But this isn't exactly a problem since it's for maybe 2-3 mins, where afterwards its an exponential decay to 3amps.
Though the fact that they are more efficient, marginally reduces the heat output. When you compare ratings, the differences make up for the losses. HID bulbs are rated at 35w85v while halogen are 55w12v, and since 1w=1v*a, HID bulbs pull 0.4a while halogens pull 4.6a. Even at 0.1a that arc inside an HID bulb is ridiculously hot. Stadium HID lights are like 400w bulbs, those pull something like 5a. If HID kits pulled 5a you wouldn't be able to stand 5 feet from your headlights.
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