Osram Nightbreaker Life

G

garywoods

Member
What are peoples experience of the life of the Osram Nightbreakers?

I've had mine in just over a year now. Don't do a vast amount of driving at night with them on, so i suspect the "burn" time has been quite low. And both have just gone within a week of each other (consistent to say the least).

Now I fully expect that the bulb that burns brighter, wont last as long etc.. but just wondered what life was like compared to proper Xenon upgrade etc.

Gary
 
Gary, you can't compare a filament bulb to a xenon tube as they work in a completely different way:

As you say, a traditional filament bulb 'burns' in a specially formulated atmosphere, contained in a glass envelope (a bulb!).

As it repeatedly gets hot and cold, so the filament will burn away, and is also subject to metal fatigue, so eventually, one day, the filament will break during a heating cycle (this is why you almost never have a bulb blow whilst it is on, it's always at start up).

The xenon tube however is actually a spark in a bubble of glass: there are 2 metal contacts at either end of a small glass bubble that contains a few grains of metal salts (these vapourise as the spark is struck and so make a gas, the make-up of which controls the colour of the light).

At start up, there is roughly 23,000 volts put through the contacts to actually make the spark and once established (the metallic gas in the bubble helps to keep the spark going), this voltage drops right back down. Eventually, the contacts will wear from repeated spark generation so the gap becomes too large for the spark to bridge and your bulb is dead.

Average filament bulbs last around 200 hours, maybe up to 4-500 for the better made ones, but this is around a tenth of the value of even the cheapest xenon tube, which normally last for around 2000-4000 hours!

I can't recommend you get a good xenon kit enough - a well made one will be a positive safety aid and will not blind oncoming drivers. I consider them to be as essential as mudflaps for motorway driving (cutting down on spray, so aiding visibility and safety) and as such an essential upgrade.

Cheers,

Mike
 
I've not tried them yet, but I've had the Silverstars which had a very inconsistent life span. The first one broke after 3045 miles and the other after 10155 miles and they had been on for all those miles. Here's more if interested: http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10570


garywoods said:
What are peoples experience of the life of the Osram Nightbreakers?

I've had mine in just over a year now. Don't do a vast amount of driving at night with them on, so i suspect the "burn" time has been quite low. And both have just gone within a week of each other (consistent to say the least).

Now I fully expect that the bulb that burns brighter, wont last as long etc.. but just wondered what life was like compared to proper Xenon upgrade etc.

Gary
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