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headlight wiring harness


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speed1972 
Member - Posts: 6
Member spacespace
Joined: May 01, 2009
Posted: May 04, 2009 at 6:45 AM / IP Logged  

I'm currently upgrading the lighting on my mk2 mr2 and was wondering whether its worth doing the headlight wiring harness upgrade. After looking around on the net i've found that there can be some voltage drop between the battery / alternator and the actual bulb. Here is an example of what i've read :

In many cases, the thin factory wires are inadequate even for the stock headlamp equipment. Headlamp bulb light output is severely compromised with decreased voltage. The drop in light output is not linear, it is exponential with the power 3.4. For example, let's consider a 9006 low beam bulb rated 1000 lumens at 12.8 Volts and plug in different voltages:

10.5V : 510 lumens
11.0V : 597 lumens
11.5V : 695 lumens
12.0V : 803 lumens
12.5V : 923 lumens
12.8V : 1000 lumens < color=#ff0000>İRated output voltage
13.0V : 1054 lumens
13.5V : 1198 lumens
14.0V : 1356 lumens < color=#ff0000>İRated life voltage
14.5V : 1528 lumens
The Europeans take a slightly more realistic with their voltage ratings; they consider output at 13.2v to be "100%". The loss curve is the same, though. When operating voltage drops to 95 percent (12.54v), headlamp bulbs produce only 83 percent of their rated light output. When voltage drops to 90 percent (11.88v), bulb output is only 67 percent of what it should be. And when voltage drops to 85 percent (11.22v), bulb output is a paltry 53 percent of normal!

I've just checked my cars voltage and the battery is at 14.5 but the power to the bulbs is 13.7. Do you think its worth upgrading the headlight harness or will it make very little difference to my car?

speed1972 
Member - Posts: 6
Member spacespace
Joined: May 01, 2009
Posted: May 04, 2009 at 7:38 AM / IP Logged  

After working out that i'm having about a 5% voltage drop and going by the above figures then i'm probably only getting about 80% light output from the bulbs. I would imagine that this would be a noticeable difference.


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