HID Technology Terms
Because we’re frequently asked about various words related to HID technology, we decided to create this post of HID technology terms. Let’s start with HID. HID stands for (high intensity discharge). This is what occurs when dc voltage is applied to Xenon gas inside of an HID bulb causing it to produce light.
Also, it should be noted that HID bulbs have different color ranges. For instance, 4300K – 5000K refers to a color that’s yellowish/golden like most of the non-HID Halogen headlights you see commonly. Whereas 6000K like ours below, have a bright white appearance. Some manufactures of HID bulbs state their 6000K bulbs to be a true 6000K color temp, when in fact, they’re blueish purple. Ours are bright white.
What is Xenon?
Xenon refers to the type gas inside of an HID bulb, but it also refers to whether an HID headlight is Xenon or Bi-Xenon. A Xenon HID headlight is one headlight that controls either one high or one low beam. Vehicles can have either 4 Xenon HID headlights, two for low beam and two for high beam, or Bi-Xenon headlights like ours are below.
Bi-Xenon
Bi-Xenon headlights control both high beam and low beam in the same headlight. This requires what’s called a projector inside of the headlight, pictured below.
Projectors
A projector has an electrically controlled solenoid inside that moves a shutter that changes position inside of the headlight when the vehicle’s high/low switch is activated. This switches the position of the light to either the low or high beam positions.
Projectors also have a thick glass lens to magnify the light being omitted by the HID bulb to focus and project light to long distances.
If you have any other questions about HID technology or our HID headlight conversion kit, please contact us. To view our 7″ HID Bi-Xenon headlight conversion kit, click here.