Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerry_129
I don't follow an HID (or any current draw less than the starter) would cause a battery issue, but there may be something I'm not aware of.
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It's the amps you are hammering on the battery, while not enough to finish your battery quickly, it decreases the life of your battery drastically. Say you are getting 3-5 years out of a battery, you may see 1-2 years out of it with the HIDs. An incandescent bulb does have an in rush current, but it's not nearly as much as the chinese HID ballasts, you can find ballasts that are much lower current draw at start up, but the thin ones tend to be high current draw ones. Not only are you putting this extra current on the battery before start up, but during startup so you are hammering the battery twice with this extra current. Where as you really only do it once with a Incandescent because the temp of the bulb doesn't really change all that much during start so the inrush is not an issue on the incandescent, where as the ballast has to recharge to fire again.
As for the Imax of those HID ballasts being 15A, I may test mine and see what it actually is. I got an old battery and an ammeter. My ballasts are sitting in the garage not being used.