Automotive HID for home lighting

[yuandrew]

Call me crazy but that's what I'm using for my room right now. I recently bought an HID ballast (Denso/Toyota) and D2R lamp off Ebay for the purpose of building something portable but I ended up putting the ballast on top of my bookshelf with the bare bulb hanging off the side.

For 35 watts (excluding ballast and power supply losses) I get a lot of light; it blinds you if you look at the bare lamp. I find automotive lamps ok for my use; mainly because of the quick warmup time and instant re-strike capability. The only disadvantage I have is the 12 volt ballast; I'm using a old computer power supply to get the 12 volts.

Any comments or concerns?

[igabo]

Could you get a "beamshot" of the entire room? I'd like to see.

[yuandrew]

Here's the ballast

[snakebite]

i built an outdoor light for my 12v system here from a ballast/lamp from a wrecked lexus.
it works very well.
you need to enclose the bulb in case of "non passive end of life "(explosion of the arc tube)
which may throw white hot debris causing injury or fire.

[Handlobraesing]

Not a good idea. Automotive HIDs are only rated for 2,000 hours of life and they cost a bunch, which should be more or less the lifetime of the car, notwithstanding collision damage.

If you use it as a room lighting, which gets left on for hours at a time on regular basis, 2,000 hours is only twice the life of an ordinary 60 watt light bulb. The lamp cost so much that the cost of operation far exceeds that of a 150 watt halogen lamp. You'll get a better efficiency and equal usability out of a large CFL (30-40watt) which are readily availalbe these days.

[bfg9000]

Is the outer envelope on those bare HID bulbs quartz or soda glass? The reason I ask is quartz doesn't filter UV so you may be getting a tan...

[yuandrew]

^
They are made from quartz but the quartz I heard is treated with cerium to block the UV light. Otherwise, the UV from it will degrade the plastic headlight lenses.

I don't use it too often but it actually came in handy last night. The power went out early this morning and I just happened to have a cordless drill. I connected the battery and left it there for some emergency lighting. I only used it for a few mins though, the drill battery dosen't last long but I went back to sleep anyway.

I did have a little trouble with my DSL modem after the power came back on this morning. Took me all day to reconfigure it to work with my router.

[reefphilic]

I have HID lights for my fish tank. Used it once to light up the living room. It was fantastic, the whole room lit up like it was daytime! Hate those dim, yellowish power compact.

Thought of using HID for my living room but couldn't find any suitable light fixture for it.

[Handlobraesing]

Originally Posted by reefphilic

I have HID lights for my fish tank. Used it once to light up the living room. It was fantastic, the whole room lit up like it was daytime! Hate those dim, yellowish power compact.

Thought of using HID for my living room but couldn't find any suitable light fixture for it.

Unless your house has a Wal-Mart high ceiling, why not use fluorescent?

[reefphilic]

Originally Posted by Handlobraesing

Unless your house has a Wal-Mart high ceiling, why not use fluorescent?

HID has a higher efficiency than fluorescent tube so it will take rows of flourescent to have equivalent output of a single 150W metal halide bulb. I don't want my living room's ceiling to look like an office's.

[HEY HEY ITS HENDO]

Originally Posted by yuandrew

Call me crazy

..... crazy? just like the rest of us !! (Nice pics BTW)
i had a similar set up it, was controlled by a timer and would come on 10 minutes before my morning wake up alarm, i found that on dark winter mornings it really did help me to wake up .....
i really did like it at first, but the light colour is very bright white and seems `cold` looking, now i just use a compact fluorescent