What bulb "color" to use with 55w ballasts?

[DefendHawaii]

Ok so now I am going to be eventually building a retrofit kit for my hoe. Ordered two set of headlight housings this morning one with
Diffuser things one without. Here is my query in the meantime I have 55w ballasts and am running them in these terrible ipcw brand projectors. The bulb size is H3 and I am using 6000k bulbs with them at 55w they do not at all look HID. Now this could be because the projector and the bulb size or a combo of both. But I want to use my 55w with the next set of housings and toss in 9006 bulbs. What "color" would you think would be closest to 4300k ? I have my fog 3000K running at 35w if I swap those ballasts also for 55w you think they will do well still in heavy fog? My house is getting a lot of fog and it seems to be sticking around for a while.

 

[THE YETI]

I don't think u can just swap ballasts without swapping bulbs too?

 

[ezdaar]

anything from 4k-6k will be pure white on 55W ballasts.
You can use same bulbs from 35w kit np.
Atleast DDM bulbs will handle it..
Highend bulbs might not.

Main thing with HID bulbs VS wattage is how well they will hold their color.

 

[DefendHawaii]

That was what I was wondering because finding a true "55w 4300k bulbs seem impossible. If i did a 6000k at 55w would they look better as a 9006 bulb since they are longer and different size then the H3 style I have to use now?

 

[Pitz]

... running them in these terrible ipcw brand projectors....

Sorry, I'm not up on the wattage vs color questions is, but I have a question about your housing. It seems like LPCW are one of the most expensive projectors out of the ebay still projectors. What don't you like about them? Do they create beams that will focus or are they as bad at diffusing the light as the stockers?

Thanks and good luck!

 

[DefendHawaii]

They are a great set of housing if you are ONLY going to run halogens. I bought them and they came with PIAA Xtreme 55w halogen bulbs. Those were actually quite good for being halogen. It is upgrading to HID in the lowbeam that is not good. I recently even rigged up the small corner DRL style light with a set of LED's.

I upgraded from a 35w ballast to a 55w ballast since the bulbs from PIAA were 55w. I thought that maybe that would help but due to likely size of bulb and being 6000k they look just like really bright halogen and not HID.

I am going to be upgrading to a set of Retrofitted Mini H1 Morimoto HID Projectors with CCFL angel eyes. It seems smarter and more solid of a set up. However in the mean time I will just use a set of clear euro style with diffusers but want to keep my 55w ballasts as the lowbeams and the 35w as my highbeam fog set up.

 

[Done Deal DR]

I applaud that you are looking for a real improvement and not just jamming 8k or 10k HID's in there without even questioning what kind of light output that will ultimately provide. You're 100% correct in that realistically 55w 4300k bulbs/ballast will provide the best light output more than likely, but I also see where you're coming from in that there doesn't seem to be any available for this set up. The highest I would ever go is 6k, preferably quite a bit less.

I've got some plans for mine down the road, right now I can't even see 15 feet in front of me in the dark. I'll be watching this thread for tips.

 

[DefendHawaii]

Thanks. I definitely had learned the hard way. I went from always having vehicles that were factory HID equipped to my Tahoe as my project. Now I have a buddy that owns an HID shop locally. I might see if he will let me just borrow a set of 6000K 5000K and maybe a set of 8000K just to see what the difference in light provides from the bulbs combined at 55w.

I did order all my retrofit stuff this morning. I will probably start that when I get back in a few months from the Sand.