Why have i never though of this.. HID Car headlights are cheaper than HID grow-lights

RyanTheRhino

RyanTheRhino

Well-Known Member
I was reading the forum today and some guys asked a question about the heat reflectors people use in cars to keep the heat out. He was wondering if they were good to use as reflectors for his grow area.(they work). But anyways, the way he worded the question was weird and i though he was talking about car head lights. I was thinking that you could probably make a really good hood out of those reflect lamps. so i started searching the web for some really cheap generic car lamps when i came across the HID-light sections. Like anyone here would do i clicked to take a look. I mean come on it said HID, and thats probably the most said word here other than foxfam..hahah.

CHECK IT

They have HID spectrums from 3000k to 120,000K <----Big number isnt it.:shock:

I clicked on the 3000k lights to find out they sell 55w 3000K lights for 50 bucks.

This includes both left and right head lights to come to a total of 110w of HID light

Each light comes with it own"indestructible" ballast ----I saw a truck run over it, repeated hits from a hammer and then they submerged it in water while the light was still on.:shock:

Heres the web site -----> http://www.ddmtuning.com/products/101/ <-----


The only thing i still haven't looked at yet is the fact that they run off a car battery so i am gonna figure out what voltage a car battery runs at = I think its 120v like a home socket so if thats the case you could just wire it up and plug it into your wall with minor modifications.


aw they run at 12 volts
 

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CypressRyan

Well-Known Member
Those K's you're looking at represent K like Kelvin or a measure of the heat they produce. The lumens produced are equal to to a small cfl and the lumens are what counts.
 
BudReaky

BudReaky

Well-Known Member
dude i bought a 150w hps for 53.24 shipped..i lost the link but it was a fountain shop i believe like large yard fountains and bird baths and shit...it works great and easy to make remote ballast
 
Miss MeanWeed

Miss MeanWeed

Active Member
Car lights run off around 12v DC. Your wall socket is 120v AC. You would need some kind of converter.

Google:

Let's look at AC and DC and see what's up. We'll start with DC. DC is direct current. The voltage of "regular" DC is a fixed value. Like in a car, the battery is about 12 volts. (It's actually a bit higher, but work with me here.) It's a nice, constant 12 volts all the time. The headlights experience a constant 12 volts when they are on. What about AC? Alternating current, or AC, is based on a voltage source that has a changing polarity. For a while it's one way, and then for a while it's the reverse. Also, the voltage isn't constant and then suddenly changing polarity. If we look at the voltage on an AC line, at a certain instant, the voltage is zero. It then rises up over a short time to some maximum value and then decreases to zero again. Then the polarity changes and the voltage goes to some maximum negative value before returning to zero. We usually think of a sine wave, and that's pretty correct. This is how the voltage is actually generated in a generator. It spins, and the voltage output follows a sine wave. Cool so far? Good. Let's jump.
With the AC voltage rising to some maximum value, what is that maximum? And since it rises to the value over a short period of time rather than just jumping straight up there, don't we have to "average out" the voltage over the time it takes for it to get to the maximum? And then "average it out" for the back half of that change as it decreases to zero? Yes, we do. And what we end up with is an "effective" voltage, or a "DC equivalent" voltage. In U.S. houses, the 120 volts AC (again, work with me here) is actually the DC equivalent voltage of the AC sine wave. The sine wave actually has a peak at about 170 volts. We could say that a given sine wave has a peak voltage of 170 volts. Or, since it goes negative as much as it goes positive, the total voltage change from the positive peak to the negative peak is twice the peak voltage, or 340 volts peak to peak. But we like to use the "average" or (mathematically) the root mean square voltage, which is the DC equivalent voltage to measure AC.
So if an incandescent reading lamp on an end table in a house is plugged into a 120 volt wall outlet, it will have the same brightness as if the lamp was hooked up to a 120 volt DC battery. The effective voltages will be the same because the AC voltage is actually based on the DC equivalent voltage.

In other words, unless you are sure you know what you are doing don't mess with it you'll probably blow up the headlights and yourself.

Run from a charged car battery, the headlights would probably make decent emergency backup lights.
 
Buddreams

Buddreams

Active Member
Lights wired to a large truck battery hooked up to a trickle charger. re-charge during the off period. some generators output in 12v dc as well.
 
Miss MeanWeed

Miss MeanWeed

Active Member
Although now I just read this so I'm confused now





HOW HID HEADLAMPS OPERATE
 HID lighting systems use a special quartz bulb that contains no filament and is filled with xenon gas and a small amount of mercury and other metal salts. Inside the bulb are two electrodes separated by a small gap (about 4 mm or 3/16th inch). When high voltage current is applied to the electrodes, it excites the gases inside the bulb and forms an electrical arc between the electrodes. The hot ionized gas produces a "plasma discharge" that generates an extremely intense, bluish-white light.
CAUTION: Once ignited, the pressure inside an HID bulb builds to over 30 atmospheres due to heat (up to 1500 degrees F inside the bulb!). This creates a potential explosion hazard so do not attempt to power a HID bulb outside of the headlamp assembly to "test" it. Also, the bulb must be in a horizontal position when it is on, otherwise it may overheat and fail.
Like street lamps and fluorescent bulbs, HID headlamps require a high voltage ignition source to start. It typically takes up to 25,000 volts to start a xenon bulb, but only about 80 to 90 volts to keep it operating once the initial arc has formed. The normal 12 volts DC from the vehicle's electrical system is stepped up and controlled by an igniter module and inverter (ballast), which also converts the voltage to AC (alternating current) which is necessary to operate the HID headlamps.
The ballast adjusts the voltage and current frequency to operating requirements. The AC ballast frequency is usually in the 250 to 450 Hz range.
Power to the HID system is usually routed through a relay and fused at the power distribution center.
 
F

fdd2blk

Well-Known Member
all those cell phone chargers you have laying around are converters. they convert 110 AC into 9 - 12v DC. you can easily buy them in whatever range you need.
 
RyanTheRhino

RyanTheRhino

Well-Known Member
The lights run at low amps....I am a studying mechanical engineer and its mandatory to know a little sbout electrical engineering before you graduate. That said this simply formula calculates the amps

amps = watts/volts

55w/12 = 4.8 amps

the thing is that thats still a little high for a converter

and i a would feel safe wiring up this thing up if i found the right converter,, or i could but a grow light ahhahahah.... i was simply exploring possibilities


It may be possable to get a 16v convert with higher amps, the ballast say they can handle up to 16 volts
 
RyanTheRhino

RyanTheRhino

Well-Known Member
The register lumes output is 5,300-5,500 per bulb and seeing how average 2700k 150 watts grow lights put out 16,000 thats not bad


grow light per watt = 106.5

car lights per watt = 98
 
RyanTheRhino

RyanTheRhino

Well-Known Member
CypressRyan said:
Those K's you're looking at represent K like Kelvin or a measure of the heat they produce. The lumens produced are equal to to a small cfl and the lumens are what counts.
Click to expand...
Thaks for explaining kelvin, but i knew that already. i just said they had 120,000k lights cuz its a big number and the light is PURPLE
 
ooli

ooli

Active Member
A computer power supply might work, but amperage with vary depending on the size the supply.

~ooli~
 
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bammthis

Member
i was driving at night and thought why cant i go to the auto pick a art yard and get not only the bulbs but the light socket wiring and any other parts needed to make this work.I was thinking that i might be able to pull a power supply to power why buy any of the things needed to build this when you could find most all you would need to make this work.I am not big in to the electric build but with a little info from someone on this forum i just might make it work, i would need to know what parts to pull out of the car and any other parts that i would need to find ,and would the power supply from a old computer also work as the power induction to go from ac to dc. if this would work i think the light output would be enough the amount of power used would be small and the heat output would be much less than one of the bigger lights and any time you need more lights go back to the auto yard , if someone gives me the info needed i just might build one.
 
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