Osram Night Breaker Laser D2S

[Bitter]

Planning to buy a fresh pair of bulbs since one or my old Night Breaker Unlimited decided that this summer pink is in style. Are these new NBL really all that and a bag of chips vs standard 85122 or 66240? What's all this marketing speak "200% brighter" and "250M further", I'm wondering how they arrive at these frankly astonishing sounding marketing numbers. 200% brighter than what, a Bic lighter? 250M further beam than.....a Maglite? I'm probably getting the NBL's anyway, this is more for my own curiosity and I feel like I could use a good laugh.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

Are these new NBL really all that and a bag of chips vs standard 85122 or 66240?

Yes.

What's all this marketing speak "200% brighter" and "250M further", I'm wondering how they arrive at these frankly astonishing sounding marketing numbers.

It's not "250M further", it's "light up to 250M" (dependent on correct aim and lamp design).

200% brighter than what, a Bic lighter? 250M further beam than.....a Maglite? I'm probably getting the NBL's anyway, this is more for my own curiosity and I feel like I could use a good laugh.

The "200% brighter" means that within the main beam you get twice as much light. This is done not by making the bulb twice as bright (which would mean a noncompliant bulb) but by improving the beam focus through extreme precision, whether in the filament (for halogen bulbs) or in the electrodes' shape and positioning (in an arc-discharge capsule). It can also include the tinting on the envelope to reduce the total output while leaving that portion of the filament/arc the optics focus on exposed to those optics.

 

[-Virgil-]

Alaric is right about the what and how. You have to read the fine print to see what is actually being claimed on any given bulb. Some of these claims compare a new high-performance bulb versus a new standard bulb (that's the most honest kind of claim). Sometimes it's a comparison of a new high-performane bulb versus a used/worn standard bulb (maybe a little less completely candid, but still reasonable). Sometimes it's a statement of the amount of light produced by a headlamp, at some point in the beam, versus the minimum legal requirements at that point (useless advertising claim). Sometimes there's a mix of these different claims all on one bulb. So read the fine print!

That said, yes, the performance-boosted HID bulbs from legitimate makers (Osram Night Breaker family, Philips Xtreme family -- this doesn't include the blue tinted ones) do give genuinely better performance than the standard bulbs.

 

[Bitter]

Thank you to both of you for a really good explanation. The capsule shape does look a little different on these than standard bulbs, slightly smaller inside and with a little different shape. Otherwise I can't discern a visible difference. On initial lighting they weren't super impressive but after about 10 hours I saw a large difference in color and brightness from first light. I'm feeling pretty good about my choice now.

Somehow I didn't get notifications that this got replied to, but by coincidence I came to ask a question about my old bulb and saw the replies. I ran the new bulbs in a spare headlight in the basement for about 10hrs each to start the 'wear in' process so I'd have a leg up on brightness over out of the box bulbs. I just got the worst bulb replaced and I didn't realize just how worn the old bulbs were. I have a hot spot again and overall the apparent difference in brightness is at least 50% greater for the new bulb vs the old bulb. I feel kind of stupid not changing these out sooner seeing what I see now.

I may as well just ask here, when I parked my car last fall both headlights were normal. When I turned it on this spring the passenger bulb was pink and flickering. I removed it and saw this weird band around part of the outer glass. I've changed a few worn HID bulbs in my life and I've never seen a sharp line like this before. I can't find my welding goggles at the moment to look at it lit up, but just what in the HID was going on? Arcing to the outer glass? Ballast seems to be running fine on the new bulb and it only ran the pink bulb for an hour tops because the car had to be driven some.

 

[-Virgil-]

This looks like a question for @XeRay to answer.

 

[Bitter]

Ah ha, I took a closer look at the bad bulb and while I can't get a photo of it there are two white spots on the inner glass 'stem' below the capsule that are where the weird opaque line and area are on the inner side of the outer glass. I'm going to guess it was arcing from the inner to outer somehow for some reason. The amount of salts inside the capsule also look much much less than what's in the other side bulb so perhaps we had a 'warp core containment breach' and that white coating are some salts and vaporized glass that escaped when it struck. At least it failed when I was home and not out on the road since changing bulbs requires me to pull the bumper off, all 10mm bolts and not difficult just not something I'd like to do laying in a parking lot. I would of course since a bulb at retail and R/R the bumper is a lot less painful than trying to replace the ballast in the headlight. Denso ballasts with long output cord can be harder to find.

 

[XeRay]

I would agree with your conclusion an internal arc Chamber breach, deposited on the inside of the outer UV stop quartz glass.
Also one typical end of life sign a pinkish output.