Light proved to be very important from the first time that it was discovered by our ancestors. Now, it has developed to other modern and more complex form of lighting. Nowadays, the most common form of lighting aside from the basic incandescent and fluorescent lamp is the halogen bulb and the HID bulb.
The two bulbs are used to light large areas since they have powerful lighting abilities yet they are also different in many ways. Between the two, the first lighting mode that was introduced to the public was the halogen lamp. A halogen lamp uses a tungsten filament and functions more or less like the incandescent lamp. In fact, a halogen lamp is commonly known as the improved version of the incandescent lamp. The tungsten filament is enclosed in a quartz envelope because normal glass will melt under its conditions. It is called as a halogen bulb since the gas inside the envelope is from the halogen group. The gases in the halogen group have an interesting property in that they tend to combined with tungsten vapor. When it reaches its ideal temperature, the halogen gas, as they evaporate, combines itself with the tungsten atoms and deposits themselves to the filament. This is one of the reasons that makes the filament last longer as compared to ordinary light bulbs since halogen lamps creates a recycling process. Also, more light is produced as the filament becomes hotter. This heating process proves to be one of the disadvantages of a halogen bulb since it can go up to very high temperatures which can cause fires or burns. Another disadvantage of a halogen lamp is that it is not energy efficient since most of the energy used to produce light is wasted as heat.
Moving on to the more recent development in lighting technology and now more preferred by many, the xenon bulb has an advantage over the halogen bulb in that it offer three times its brightness. The xenon bulb amazingly achieves this by consuming only half the power it takes to create such brightness. Also known as an HID (High Intensity Discharge) bulb, it differs from the halogen since it does not make use of a filament, but instead uses a capsule of gas to create light. The light produced by the HID bulb is a result of an arc discharge between closely spaced electrodes that are sealed inside a small quartz envelope capsule. HID lamps require ballast to operate as these supply the proper voltage and gives current control. A major advantage of xenon lamps over halogen lamps is that the color they emit closely mimics the color of natural daylight.
Nowadays, installing a HID kit or getting a HID conversion is very popular among automobile lighting. Since it is very energy efficient, it gives the car additional power because it can create bright light at very low power. Installing an HID kit is also like saving the environment since less power consumption leads to less waste. Also, the natural white color that xenon emits reflect road markings better than other lighting systems. Although, xenon tends to be more expensive than halogen, it is definitely worth the investment because it will last you a lifetime.
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