Making a 6000K a little more yellow?

Hello all,
I have a pair of HIDx HID lights on the front of the Jeep that are 6000K color temp ----- although they are just at the beginning stages of blueness, I'd rather that the color be closer to 3600-4300K. For some reason the difference in color temperature between the HIDs and my headlights is annoying.

Would a coat or two of Duplicolor Metalcast Yellow on the inside of the lens give me the desired results or would I find myself with a pair of green lights? :shakehead

Nice looking ride:twothumbs, could do with one of those over here at the moment, RWD, wide summer tyres and snow don't play well together.:sigh:

Does the product not have any documentation to the bulbs used anywhere? Can you make out the bulbs through the glass, or if not it looks like the glass is easily removed.

With more use the colour is only going to get cooler and more and more blue, true with almost all HID bulbs.

If you can find out the bulb type then you should have some options but unless you want selective (very) yellow (3000K) the lowest HID is around the low 4000s which will be much more halogen-like than what you have.
Also, 6000K HID bulbs are almost always lower output than the 4100K bulbs so I'd be quite surprised if these lights acually have 3200 lumens with 6000K colour temperature, even Philips 6000k have to sacrifice 25% output achieve this colour.

Any sort of coating/colour you add to the glass or reflector is going to reduce output and due to the way HIDs make light (discontinious spectrum, low CRI etc) it may not help much at all.

The other pics you post show your Vision Plus +50 to be very yellow/orange indeed, are these on standard wiring loom or do you have upgraded thicker guage wire harness, this is often overlooked as a way to get more output.

EDIT: Just seen your other post/pics about CANBUS, relays and changing to HELLA 7", looks like you're on the case already!

mrb said:

EDIT: Just seen your other post/pics about CANBUS, relays and changing to HELLA 7", looks like you're on the case already!

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Yes; already trying to get rid of the H13's and the house they live in...

The HIDx lights were so inexpensive that swapping bulbs nearly doubles the price of them; I was hoping for the fast/dirty/cheap method.

And I do like the idea of selective yellow. I just don't want green.

well, if you try the spray, spray it on something clear that you can throw away, in case it turns out green ;-) It very well may do just that :green:

bshanahan14rulz said:

well, if you try the spray, spray it on something clear that you can throw away, in case it turns out green ;-) It very well may do just that :green:

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That's what I've been thinking; use a donor piece of glass or plastic.
I was hoping that somebody already tried it...

It's my own fault for buying cheapo lights that only came in 6000K.

I think if I were going to try experimenting with color shifting on the cheap, I'd head to a theatrical supply house and pick up a few sheets of Roscolux. This is the colored "gel" (as it's called; it's actually acetate or something) used to tint lights for stage and movie productions. There are color-correcting materials designed specifically to shift the CCT of a light source. Spend some time on the right pages of their site, Roscolux and Cinegel and E-color. Don't be scared off by what seem like drastic filtration losses (transmissivity figures); they are counting all light from deep violet through to deep red; much of that is not usable for a vehicle forward-lighting task. I think I'd probably pick up the following somewhat lengthy list of gels to try out and see which one I liked best. Price will probably vary pretty widely, so you may want to narrow down off this list. These materials are very heat-tolerant, so once you find the one you want to stay with, you could put it inside the lens if you can get access. Otherwise you'll have to figure out a workable way to affix it in front of the lens without allowing water in between the gel and the lens.

Roscolux #3411
Roscolux #3408
Roscolux #312 (should give a nice selective yellow that isn't green)
Cinegel #3107
Cinegel #3134
Cinegel #3441
Cinegel #3442
Cinegel #3443
Cinegel #3408
E-color #236
E-color #212
E-color #213

Wow.
That Rosco website has great info; thanks, Scheinwerfermann.

I'm going to try and play with colors next week. Doesn't look like the rest of my toys will arrive until the new year though. :sigh:

I also picked up a can of glass frost spray to use on the globes of my LED Coleman lanterns.
I think I might be a light-ahaulic...

im with you on the color difference. if im playing with two lights on a walk, or if my wife has one and i have another, a blue light mixed with a white or yellow is strangely annoying.

have you considered changing your yellow headlight bulbs to a hid look a like bulb. they're fairly cheap and you can get some bright ones. basically they're white bulbs with blue coloring around them, but it will get your color the same, it will just be a cool color.

Hilldweller said:

Wow.
That Rosco website has great info; thanks, Scheinwerfermann.

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Great suggestion for the gels, but man, what a long web page. :thumbsdow

I'd rather go yellow than super white; I've already ordered an H4 kit and will have some nice Hellas for the headlights. I'm going to start with the yellow duplicolor paint for the HIDs but can't seem to find it locally. Might just drive over to Summit today...

what about going to a sign store and having them cut you a couple of pieces of yellow vinyl to put over the light housing?

jasonsmaglites said:

have you considered changing your yellow headlight bulbs to a hid look a like bulb. they're fairly cheap and you can get some bright ones. basically they're white bulbs with blue coloring around them, but it will get your color the same, it will just be a cool color.

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Sh-sh-sh-shh...hush, now; the grownups are talking.

TorchBoy said:

Great suggestion for the gels, but man, what a long web page. :thumbsdow

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This is a problem...how, exactly? It's long because they give very detailed info on all their products. You'd rather they gave no info at all? I don't get your complaint.

Scheinwerfermann said:

This is a problem...how, exactly? It's long because they give very detailed info on all their products. You'd rather they gave no info at all? I don't get your complaint.

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I don't get your complaint about my surprise and disapproval at the length of the page, and note you're making a straw man argument by suggesting the alternative is to have no information. I hope this helps you to understand that it could be better:

Imagine, if you will, that you're an automotive lighting designer with the job of sorting out the lighting for a new car. You decide that using fewer bulbs will mean greater simplicity and lower cost, and point out to the design owners commissioning your work that doing it this way will make the cars faster and easier to make. Thus, you decree the headlight bulbs will also get used for driving lights, DRLs, parking lights, and front indicators. Sure, it can be done, and at first glance it's simpler. But (legality aside) is it really desirable?

Unlike automotive lighting, there aren't any regulations about how much information can be shoveled into a single web page, but the information would certainly be more user-friendly if the background information was placed on a separate page from the specs. If they can't figure out a cost effective way to make their colour list more manageable, and can't be bothered making a dedicated info page, then so be it. We'll just have to put up with it because they choose to put their would-be design efforts in other directions. I really do think there is quite enough there with just the absorption specs without information cluttering the page about how the gels are made.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ (a bit suckful itself) has more information about how people get turned off by overly long pages.

I don't think we disagree in principle; good design is good and bad design is bad. I don't agree the Rosco site is particularly egregious. It could certainly be better, but it's just as certainly far from unusable. I've seen a lot of sites that are far, far worse designed and much less useful and/or usable.

Just to be clear, the HIDx units don't have user-replaceable burners?

Imagine, if you will, that you're an automotive lighting designer with the job of sorting out the lighting for a new car

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Big imagination - they don't exist. :ironic:

I agree with your complaints about web design, and wish sites that you refer to with a lot of technical information would simply stick to the basic principal of single page reference and then putting everything else in a downloadable PDF format. Classis example is Cutter's web-site, which is tremendously popular with this forum but looks like it was designed in 98'.

Also note that most people ordering Rosco type gels want them for replacing in their PAR cans, and only know the reference number. Technical descriptions for them don't matter. All they care about is the number.

For the OP's sake, if he wants to fix this with filters he'll need either light orange or yellow, #R07 or #R08. Typically the intensity loss with going lower in kelvin temp isn't is as bad as raising kelvin temp, aka trying to get halogen to mimmick HID.

bshanahan14rulz said:

Just to be clear, the HIDx units don't have user-replaceable burners?

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That sounds like a statement but you finish it with a question mark. Just to be really clear, which is it?

blasterman, don't worry about Scheinwerfermann's imagination. Yeah, Cutter's poor web design is one of the big reasons I haven't bought from them yet.

bshanahan14rulz said:

Just to be clear, the HIDx units don't have user-replaceable burners?

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As it turns out, yes, they do.


I finally took them apart yesterday and shot the inside of the lenses with the Duplicolor Metalcast Yellow. It worked as intended and yields a mellow yellow cast to the light output.
It was very very foggy last night and we drove around for a bit; my wife even said, "wow; I can see..."

I'll snap a photo at the next opportunity to show the comparison to my earlier "before" shot.

Hilldweller said:

It was very very foggy last night and we drove around for a bit; my wife even said, "wow; I can see..."

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Awesome.