Head light bulbs

Question

There are lots of head light bulbs manufacturers and types, but I've seen some claim to be able to provide 50% more light. Well, if the voltage that gets to the light bulb is always the same, for more light, the light bulb must have less resistance and the current in consequence will be higher.

Question(s) :

Will this type of light bulbs damage any part of the wiring?

And will their life time be shorter than normal ones? (This might be a silly question)

Answer 1

If the bulb in question is the same fitment as the original (is just a higher wattage or whatever), then it should cause no issues with the wiring. I believe the main differences can be linked back to what type of gas is used inside the bulb and what filament is used to produce the light. Some are going to be hotter than others, no doubt.

Usually, if you look on the back of a pack of bulbs (thinking of Sylvania bulbs), it will tell you how they differ from other bulbs of the same type made by them. Usually I've seen the ones which claim to be brighter show to last less time than OEM style bulbs, but the brightness far outshines the originals. Here is one of the Sylvania charts:

You can see on the left side in the product description how long they are supposed to last. That is a general idea and you'll have a different experience, but it'll let you know what you can expect.

Answer 2

Here is an engineering type answer- with a given technology (don't compare halogen with non-halogen), the lamp brightness will have a strong inverse relationship with the life. The design trade-off of where to put the bulb on a curve is a compromise. Below is a nomograph of what it looks like when you change voltage on an incandescent bulb.

If you make a bulb that is brighter it's like sliding the vertical dotted line over on the horizontal axis. For 40% more lumens the current goes up only 15-20% but the life gets slashed to almost 1/3.

So you can make a bulb that will last a very long time (conspiracy theorists notwithstanding) but it will be very inefficient (lots of watts and not much light to show for it). And very red light, but that's another story- the color temperature is really what temperature the filament is at.

Answer 3

:"Well, if the voltage that gets to the light bulb is always the same, for more light, the light bulb must have less resistance and the current in consequence will be higher."

This is an incorrect assumption - light bulb light output is dependent on the temperature of the filament - the hotter the filament, the higher the light output for a given power consumption.

That's why halogen bulbs give more light for the power consumption - their filaments run hotter than regular incandescent bulbs. A quick measure of this, in the Sylvania chart given by Paulster2, is the light temperature - a 3000K light temperature (typical of a lower power halogen) is 3000 degrees Kelvin (3000K), because that is the temperature of the filament while it is running. A classic incandescent bulb will be about 2300K at most; a higher output halogen perhaps 4100K.

As the filament temperature goes up, the percentage of the power input to the filament that is converted into light goes up (and the percent that becomes waste heat goes down).

However, a hotter burning filament also has a shorter life - you can see this in practical application if you look at the Sylvania chart, but also in the lightbulb aisle of your hardware store - there are 'long life' regular incandescent bulbs, that use the same, say, 100 W as other bulbs, but give less light (lower lumens), and have a lower light temperature (instead of 2300K, perhaps 1800K). They are much less efficient at producing light, but last much longer.