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Originally Posted by TIGGER
Oh yea? Well my ballasts were made in Germany for your information AND I'd like you to do an amps test on a halogen bulb. I found one goofy site that says they pull 17A and another that claims 6-8, either way, I'm not sure how pulling a few more amps for a minute or less and then going down to about 3 amps for the rest of the time is WORSE than pulling 6-17 amps ALL OF THE TIME!!!  Besides, I've had HIDs on my bike since it was almost new and I don't have any problems in 30,000+ miles on the stock battery. Heck, before HIDs I had Osram Xtra bulbs which pull a truckload of amps. I think it's 8-10 but I'll have to check. Regardless, you have to concede my original premise that HIDs pull less power no matter how you slice it! Shit man I don't claim to be an engineer but how does a 55W/9A draw compare to a 35W/15A draw anyway? I'd also imagine that you also believe that 100W bulbs are battery killers as well since they must dram a butt load of amps, right?
Oh and everyone with HIDs turn on your bike and wait for the bulb to heat up. Time it. Now turn the key off and right back on and see if it takes that long the second time.... |
If you install a non OEM bulb that uses a substantial amount of amperage on start up, than you should put in a switch or timer delay. This is one of the reason why dirt bikes and dual sport bikes have these switches installed on their extra lights.
55W bulbs don't pull 9A or they aren't 55W. If it is labeled a 55W, it's going to be close to the standard I = V/R ohm's law. So it's probably going to be in the neighborhood of 5A. If you have a 35W HID system you are running in the neighborhood of 3A. If you run 55W HIDs, you are going to be using about the same amperage as a 55W OEM. The efficiency comes in when you are able to get more light out of less wattage. If someone is putting out a 55W bulb that is 9A, it's not 55W. 9A may be the in rush current.
All in all with a Halogen and Incandescent, you are still running across a filament which will be higher resistance til the filament heats which is pretty instanteously, but you still have a path. Where as the HID system requires an electrical arc, which is know as a fault in a lot of applications. This requires high voltage and current which can serious stress a battery and decrease it's life.
Electrical systems don't need minutes or hours to fuck something up. A few cycles can seriously fuck the world of an electrical system tigger. A cycle is 1/60 seconds. Basically you have a major lack of understanding in this topic and it's best to just take your chances that you aren't overstressing your battery with no delay than argue you aren't. Some batteries can take it if they are designed to handle a lot more starting current, Harleys usually have better batteries for this reason because it takes a lot more to start them. Not a lot of sportbikes are made stock with a decent battery to handle over the stock starting amps without shortening the life of the battery.