HIDS producing HEAT????
 

Before I begin yes I read the HID sticky and didnt see any comment on this. I recently converted from halogen to hids on my LO Beams. Everything works fine but I got done driving I felt of my headlight housing and it was hot. You could feel in front of HID and then front of halogen (HI) and the difference in temp is remarkable. Is this normal for the HID to produce that much heat or is something incorrect?

Any comments appreciated.

HID's should not get hot at all. they don't even produce enough heat to melt snow. so something is definitely wrong there

Appreciate it. I have a feeling I installed a 9006 wire link instead of the 9005. Ill double check today. Maybe thats what I did. Honestly Im not sure though.

Ive had my stock halogens melt snow/frost off them when the car is warming up in my driveway. I put a h.i.d kit in a while ago and they do tend to put off a little more heat. More light output or different light wavelengths i guess are the cause. Its not a ton of heat but it gets warm.

HID's and Halogen are nothing alike at all. Halogen is just a standard incandescent bulb with a filament, which uses an electrical current to heat it up causing light output.

HID's use Xenon gas and special salts to create a chemical reaction once an electrical current is applied it produces MUCH less heat, it will still crate some heat, but it's never even melted snow or ice for me. i've put my hand on my headlight after driving for hours at night and it's still cool to the touch. and i've done that with every HID setup i've ever had. i've had two kits and two retrofit's

Well i also think that its due to the fact that i'm using halogen housings and not projectors. (incorrect i know but the projectors looked weird on my car) so that may have something to do with it. too much light dispersal or something.

Xenon lamps operate at a much higher temperature than halogen bulbs and generally radiate light spectrum according to their Kelvin (K) temperature rating. The higher the temperature of operation or excitation of the gases, the more toward the ultra-violet side of the spectrum the light emitted will be, whereas the opposite is also true. I found this on the phillips/hella lights page. It seems that hid's put off more actual heat than halogens because of the spectrum if light being output. hid's also put off a slight ammount of radiaton, most of which is blocked by the u.v resistant glass tube surounding the electrodes.

That's color temperature, not thermal temperature, there is a difference

Well looks like it goes both ways. After walking around feeling all bulb housings all were hot regardless of hid or halogen. My turn signal housing was about the same temp feeling wise as the hid LOs were. Guess I never really took time to feel my housings. I do believe if my headlights were to ice over that it would melt the ice like the other guy said. Its not super hot like an eye on a stove but warm to the touch.