The HIDs will reach out much further than a halogen light too. When mounted side by side, a lit 100-watt halogen bulb seems yellow and dim next to an HID. They can produce a white hot beam that rivals sunlight. Most importantly, HID lights are about 2 1/2 times more powerful than a comparable halogen light. HID lights have many advantages over traditional halogen lights. Most modern HID lights have the ignitor and ballast built into the light housing, but some off-road HID lights have an externally mounted ignitor and ballast, which makes installation more complicated. They require an ignitor and ballast to bump up the voltage. HID lights do not run directly on low-voltage DC current. Once the arc is started, it heats and evaporates the metal salts forming plasma, which greatly increases the intensity of light produced by the arc. The gas facilitates the arc's initial strike. The translucent tube is filled with both gas and metal salts. Instead, light is produced via an electric arc between two tungsten electrodes housed inside an arc tube. HIDs are a type of arc lamp, so there is no delicate filament that heats up. They did find their way onto high-end off-road race vehicles, though. However, their high cost kept them out of the reach of most 4x4 enthusiasts. HID off-road lights have been available since the ’90s. HID (high-intensity discharge) lights are also known as Xenon lights because of the inert noble gas used inside the bulbs. Higher quality halogen lights run around $100 apiece. Halogen off-road lights vary in price but typically cost as little as $20 each. At the very least you could end up melting wires. With this many amps, poor wiring and mismanaged electrical draw can create heat and could cause a fire under the dash of your 4x4. It is unwise to run even one or two 100-watt lights off a simple switch in the dash without the use of a relay. This high-amp draw requires the use of heavy-gauge wiring and relays. Of the three light technologies, halogen lights consume the most power and place the greatest demand on an electrical system. Combine this with the engine ignition, fuel pump, heater blower motor, and the other electronics in your 4x4 and you could be challenging your charging system. However, when you mount four 100-watt lights to your 4x4, they have the potential to consume more than 33 amps. By itself, one light is not all that big of a deal. A typical 12V 100-watt halogen light will draw slightly more than 8 amps. As expected, the higher-wattage lights draw more current too. The higher the wattage is, the brighter the light will be. Halogen lights are available in many different wattages the most common being 55 and 100 watt. So you can forget about duct taping grandma’s vintage desk lamp to your front bumper. However, the design and function of a halogen bulb makes it more vibration resistant and allows it to last longer and shine brighter than an incandescent bulb. Halogen lights function similar to a traditional incandescent light bulb, where electricity is used to heat a tungsten filament and create light. They were the only game in town for several decades because the other off-road lighting technologies had not yet progressed and become affordable. Halogen lights are the oldest and least efficient of the three prevalent off-road light designs.
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