How does HID high beam work?
 

HID headlights usually take time to brighten up.

While headlights are not already on, you want to flash the high-beam for a fraction of a sec, thus you pull the turn-signal indicator.

It's only a fraction of a sec...so does the HID high-beam have a trick to be effective?

And....what is the story behind the movement of HID bulb upon power-on?

RE: How does HID high beam work?
 

most ppl do not have HID hi-beam...
it's worth just changing the bulb to match your lo-beam and/or fog

RE: How does HID high beam work?
 

yep....that's why i was looking for those blue-tinted halogens, and ended up with Silver Star.

With both low-beams and high-beams on, now my car has white HID low beams....and there is this yellowish halogen high-beam next to it.

Any recommendation?


BTW, MB manual and parts-database say my high-beam halogens are H1. No, actually they are H7.

RE: How does HID high beam work?
 

I'm pretty sure that they must have some capacitor or system of capacitors that hold and release varying amounts of charge while allowing some constant flow of electrons across the circuit and then through the Xenon or other Noble Gas medium. This causes an arch and the excited gas emits light at a specific wavelength. When the HID is turned on I would imagine that a capacitor is dischared into the gas portion of the circuit. Any delay you may experience would be the result of poor electrical design due to a single capacitor "not always charged' that must power up before obtaining enough potential for luminescant discharge. A Halogen will more easily excite and emit light and doesn't require the use of what is basically power up transformer to ignite the light source. Halogens should work faster in this case. Proper electrical engineering should prevent this from being a problem, and no difference should be seen, except for the obvious intensity differences in the light emission.

This is just a guess, I suppose it could be something else, but this answer seems to be plausible.

RE: How does HID high beam work?
 

WTF! Who asked for a lesson in how HID works? Knew about high voltage discharges and all that.

Dude, did you not see K1's answer.

Most cars don't have HID high beams for practical reasons -- one of them being it takes time to warm up. That's what we are talking about.

If you are still sleepy, read up. We are talking about High Beam.

If your car does not have HID, don't try to lecture us here.

You gave us useless answers and you awarded yourself with some positive comment "plausible answers". Good grief!