Has anyone replaced the original H4s with better rated bulbs, eg Phillips Power Plus? I appreciate these bulbs have been reviewed and shown to be better than OE, but am reluctant to install them in case the car's reflectors don't actually help in throwing more light onto the road!
Any information appreciated.
Thanks
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Can't speak for the Civic, but I changed the H4's in my Xantia to Phillips Vision Plus. The difference is astonishing! They're only £20 a pair so why not give it a try?
Richard
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Agree with the vision plus; made a big difference on my cav.
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Best place to get them from guys?
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www.powerbulbs.com
£19.95 when I bought mine, next day service, with free (not fitted!) 'blue' sidelamp bulbs.
Richard
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Cheers Richard.
Took a look at the Power blue Xenon effect bulbs. I remember a story in the local paper about a guy being fined £400 for having these type of bulbs. This was about 2 yrs ago and it did read like he had got them from a dodgy outlet.
I like the look of the blue bulbs, anyone had any problems from plod with these bulbs? i.e. when not fitted as standard?
Andy
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Hi Andy,
The blue Xenon effect bulbs are not the ones being discussed here. It is the Vision Plus bulbs that are being discussed. I advise against blue effect bulbs because human eye are more alert towards yellow than blue. There were experimental researches on this topic.
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For the eye to detect the same brightness, the shorter wavelengths (blue) light needs to be of much higher intensity than the longer wavelengths (yellow) light.
(brightness NOT EQUAL intensity)
Another issue is the blue filter which reduces light intensity further.
Hence with a lot of blue filter bulbs, even with the same intensity as an OE bulb, the brightness to your eyes from light reflected off distance objects is less.
Of course, a bulb emits a range of wavelengths, which shifts according to the temperature of the filament. Furthermore, if you isolate a small range of wavelength, each individual range of wavelengths emits different intensity to other ranges of wavelengths.
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Now, if scientist can identify the sets of wavelengths which are most distinguishable to human eyes, and then find the chemical compounds which would emit those particular sets of wavelengths within acceptable (economical) physical environment, then you can have low energy car headlight bulbs which drivers can see for miles ahead. (However, the end product, i.e. the light, may look terrible compare to the blue effect bulbs)
Anyone interested in doing (unpaid) research?
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I was always under the impression that the human eye was more sensitive to green light than any other color. I did (only) a little research by browsing on this and found at least one site that supports this assertion.
Worth a visit, www.abelard.org/colour/col-hi.htm
It maybe that it is not currently practical to produce effective green light for headlamps and that blue is is a practical compromise fot light output vs power in vs eye responseiveness.
The other aspect that I have not researched, is that the light that is seen by the eye is reflected light, how does this have a bearing in real life? (It obviously does because a true black object will absorb all light, no reflected light, and therefore will not be seen!)
The next aspect is that current regulations limit input power to the headlamps (dating from the days of incandescent bulbs only), and as technology changes this is an inappropriate way to limit light output.
PS once upon a time the French thought Yellow was the most effective color for headlamps and look (but do not see) what happened to that!
pmh (was peter)
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