At 01:58 AM 1/16/97 -0600, James Cohen wrote:
>>Hello all,
>>OK, I'm looking for a definitive answer here, from someone who has
>>experience or who knows pretty well what will happen:
>>
>>I have a set of Hella 500 driving lights mounted on my van.  These
>>lights came with the H3 12v/55W halogen bulbs (these bulbs are a pain in
>>the ass compared to the other H bulbs).  Anyway, I was wondering if when
>>these burn out I could safely replace the 55W H3 bulbs with 100W H3
>>bulbs or if this is a really bad idea.
>>Anyway, don't forget the original question :)  .  Can I safely put 100W
>>H3 bulbs in a light made for 55W H3 bulbs?
>>
>>Thanks all,
>>Sean
>
>I believe you can.  Hella does sell 100w bulbs for the 500s.  However, the
>consequenses would be that the glass lens would crack if the bulbs were too
>hot.
>
>Call Hella and ask them: 800-247-5924.  They're very helpful with technical
>questions.
>
>But I'm not sure why you'd want to do this.  Unless you're exclusively
>using the lights off-road, you won't be able to turn them on without
>seriously blinding oncomming traffic.  EVen the 55W are so blinding that a
>second's exposure to them can cause severe vision problems for drivers.
>It's downright dangerous.
>
>James
>
Yes they are brighter, but I don't believe they are any more dangerous that
the new aerodynamic headlamps that are currently on the market. If you park
a car with these type of lights, that is the 6014, 6052, 4001 & 4002
headlight replacements, up to a wall you can see a definite pattern created
from the prisms built into the lense. The higher quality of glass along
with the higher quality of engineering and manufacturing allows no more
light to shine towards the opposing traffic's lane than the halogen sealed
beams on allot of vehicles we see on the road. IMHO

Greetings from Michigan's Upper Peninsula
Jeff & Jean-Marie Diebolt
mailto:jdiebolt@up.net