Fog Light Bulbs

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Time to replace my fog light(driving light) bulbs as one is out. Vehicle is 1997 Olds 88.

I'm thinking the Silver stars at $23 each and the zXe's at $60 each are likely out of the question in terms of really making a difference but let me know.

I'm left with the standard sylvania for $10 each or the sylvania xtravision at $15 bucks each.

I have received some great advice regarding head lights here, so thanks for your input.

On edit:
P.S. These are 55 watt bulbs.
 
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Originally Posted By: John_Conrad
Time to replace my fog light(driving light) bulbs as one is out. Vehicle is 1997 Olds 88.

I'm thinking the Silver stars at $23 each and the zXe's at $60 each are likely out of the question in terms of really making a difference but let me know.

I'm left with the standard sylvania for $10 each or the sylvania xtravision at $15 bucks each.

I have received some great advice regarding head lights here, so thanks for your input.

On edit:
P.S. These are 55 watt bulbs.




the price is per pair, sorry about that.

the originals that came with car are white, as they really are an extra set of driving lights for this vehicle which has a terrible set of low beams due to the small reflector base design.

my personal experience driving through heavy fogs has really not favored the amber or yellow lights, your experiences may differ.
 
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The zXe's are blue-white and have a very short life. If that's OK with you, go for it, but I find the light they produce is heavy on glare and light on usefulness- my personal impression.

Silver Stars are good all around bright lights with a reasonable, but not long, life.

The lighting industry has almost eliminated yellow/amber fog lamps due to some scientific studies on reflectivity of white light in low-mounted driving lights. However these studies are not psychometric just photometric, meaning that they did not study how drivers are annoyed by certain colors or glare versus others. See: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/light_color/light_color.html

Personally, I prefer yellow/amber driving lights, and white headlights that have a sun-like color balance of red, yellow and blue in their makeup. Sadly (for me, anyway) the trend for high end bulbs seems to be heavy on the blue, eliminate the yellow as much as possible, which to me leaves a bright washed-out view of things that look more B&W than color. Bright, washed-out B&W.

The ideal amber driving or fog lamp has dichromatic or dichroic treated bulbs, not just something with a clear yellow paint. If you find the real deal it will have a rainbow or iridescent effect when you look at it. As far as I know, Osram Fog Breakers are the only yellow bulbs that have the correct coating.
 
that is good info about the dichroic bulbs, as my experience with yellow fog lights has been with just a yellow lense!

so i will look into these osram fog breakers.

and i agree with you on the glare(which i have observed on this vehicle) with the high end bulbs not too mention their lower life and higher costs.

thanks all
 
Originally Posted By: John_Conrad
any one try these or have any feed back on them?

http://www.amazon.com/Kingfansion-Lamp-L...eywords=h1+bulb


Haven't tried it, and I won't try it.

LED conversion lighting in conventional reflectors makes for poor beam shaping, because the light source doesn't match the OEM filament position and orientation, which is absolutely critical.

If you want to convert auxiliary lighting to LED, I'd say go for it, but buy a highly rated LED light that includes its own reflector.
 
The yellow bulbs that actually worked were "Select Yellow". These had the glass formed with cadmium. Being toxic cadmium is no longer used to make bulbs. Stick with a clear glass bulb. Philips markets proper LED replacements in limited sizes. Check those out if you want to spend lots of money for a bulb that is not brighter.
 
i have it narrowed down to the basic sylvania H1 or the sylvania xtravision H1 which are readily available at the parts store locally.

does not seem to be much of a difference...the xtravision claims to have a better down road than the basic, but i can't really find anything to substantiate that. the xtavisions cost more and show a lower life hour. so not sure it's worth the extra $5's in this application.
 
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Buy a regular bulb and then put a relay harness on all the bulbs. Those old cars had scrappy wiring, and it's only gotten worse. Putting a battery direct relay harness, or alternator direct, will give you as much voltage across the bulb as is possible, and thus more light.

If you have a volt meter test the voltage across the bulb, chances are it is around 10 or 11 volts. A relay harness and some heavy duty wire should get you around 14 volts across the bulb. Light output is the square of voltage iirc, 4 volts will be a large increase in output.
 
thanks for the tip snoman002,
i have installed the standard H1 bulb. and i agree these driving lights are just plain weak besides their small reflector cases.

i will attempt the voltage test. single wire to the bulb should be hot and then a ground somewhere. (perhaps a cleaning of the ground wire would help too)

can you or anyone explain with a little more detail what is meant by adding a relay harness? Would this be a complete rewire with new switch, new wiring, and a relay, or ?

thanks for your help
 
Originally Posted By: HangFire
The zXe's are blue-white and have a very short life. If that's OK with you, go for it, but I find the light they produce is heavy on glare and light on usefulness- my personal impression.

Silver Stars are good all around bright lights with a reasonable, but not long, life.

The lighting industry has almost eliminated yellow/amber fog lamps due to some scientific studies on reflectivity of white light in low-mounted driving lights. However these studies are not psychometric just photometric, meaning that they did not study how drivers are annoyed by certain colors or glare versus others. See: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/light_color/light_color.html

Personally, I prefer yellow/amber driving lights, and white headlights that have a sun-like color balance of red, yellow and blue in their makeup. Sadly (for me, anyway) the trend for high end bulbs seems to be heavy on the blue, eliminate the yellow as much as possible, which to me leaves a bright washed-out view of things that look more B&W than color. Bright, washed-out B&W.

The ideal amber driving or fog lamp has dichromatic or dichroic treated bulbs, not just something with a clear yellow paint. If you find the real deal it will have a rainbow or iridescent effect when you look at it. As far as I know, Osram Fog Breakers are the only yellow bulbs that have the correct coating.


how do you quote Daniel stern's site, then conveniently ignore:

Quote:
Another technique is to have a dichroic filter on the bulb or the lens. Sold under a variety of names ("Gold", "Irridium", "Ion Crystal", "All Season", "All Weather", etc.), This is an irridescent multilayer interference coating which diffracts the blue-indigo-violet light so as to separate it out from the remainder of the light. That remainder (i.e., selective yellow light) passes straight through the filter. The blue-indigo-violet light, because it is not absorbed (blocked) but merely diffracted (bent to an angle) still leaves the lamp. It does so off axis, So lamps with a dichroic filter on the bulb or lens tend to glow blue when viewed from outside the main portion of the light beam, and there can be objectionable blue haze outside the brightest areas of the beam. The irridescence of these coatings also causes or amplifies second- and higher-order filament reflections, which can cause the lamp to emit more light into regions intended to be dark for control of glare or backscatter—such as above the cutoff of a fog lamp, or into the upward/leftward oncoming-eyes zone of a low beam. In other words, with the mirrorlike dichroic coating reflecting images of the glowing filament, light goes where it doesn't belong.
 
Get Sylvania basic and call it a day. I've had them in my fogs for 5 years and they still work just fine.

Silverstars, ZXEs, not worth the extra money especially if this is for fog lights(distance doesn't matter since fogs are aimed down)

Nokya bulbs are nice but they tend to burn out quick. But for like $20 a pair and a nice color, it's worth it.
 
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