Upgrading to Osram Night Breakers

[fattail95]

Hi Guys,

Want to upgrade my lights to Osram night breakers. How many bulbs do I need? I'm assuming it's four H7? Two for low beam and 2 for main beam? Or are they the two in one bulbs?

Bit confused!!

Ben

[Doggy]

Four H7, if you want to do them all, but I'm pretty impressed with two in the dips and standard bulbs in the mains.

[GingerMagic]

Don't forget to change the correct bulb when you do the swap, the bulbs nearest the grill are the main beam, the ones that are hard to get to are the ones to swap.
It's a schoolboy error but I've got it wrong many times....

[fattail95]

Don't forget to change the correct bulb when you do the swap, the bulbs nearest the grill are the main beam, the ones that are hard to get to are the ones to swap.
It's a schoolboy error but I've got it wrong many times....

Can't I change both the make beam and dipped beam both to H7 night breakers?

[dirtydirtydiesel]

Don't forget to change the correct bulb when you do the swap, the bulbs nearest the grill are the main beam, the ones that are hard to get to are the ones to swap.
It's a schoolboy error but I've got it wrong many times....

Can't I change both the make beam and dipped beam both to H7 night breakers?

YES! , I did & I'm glad I did

[GingerMagic]

Yes, you can change both with 4 new H7 bulbs, I was only saying if you just want to change just the dip beam make sure you swap the correct one - if you decide to do all 4 ( like I will shortly as got a good price on mine ) then it doesn't matter.
I think the fog lights are H1 if you want to do the full monty......

[KozmoNaut]

Don't get the Nightbreakers, Osram has bowed down to boy racer/tuner trends and tinted the bulbs blue. This is blatantly idiotic, as obviously any kind of tint on a lightbulb will only reduce the total light output. To compensate for this, the bulbs are designed to run hotter, thereby reducing their lifespans.

Get Philips Vision Plus or Xtreme Vision instead. They output more light than standard bulbs and they are untinted.

Uprated bulbs should never be the first resort when unsatisfied with the light output of your headlights. Check the glass for yellowing first, then check for wiring faults. High resistance anywhere in the supply wires or ground connections will cause lower light output, and better bulbs will not help.

[Doggy]

Don't get the Nightbreakers, Osram has bowed down to boy racer/tuner trends and tinted the bulbs blue. This is blatantly idiotic, as obviously any kind of tint on a lightbulb will only reduce the total light output. To compensate for this, the bulbs are designed to run hotter, thereby reducing their lifespans.

Not true, they have a blue band round the base of the glass envelope, the light looks very white, no bluish tinge.

Get Philips Vision Plus or Xtreme Vision instead. They output more light than standard bulbs and they are untinted.

Again inaccurate - they all have an output of 1200 lumens, the difference is in the distribution of the luminous flux

Uprated bulbs should never be the first resort when unsatisfied with the light output of your headlights. Check the glass for yellowing first, then check for wiring faults. High resistance anywhere in the supply wires or ground connections will cause lower light output, and better bulbs will not help.

Agreed, but 406's have very little tendency for yellowing of the lenses.

[rwb]

I was reading about bulb colours (selective yellow and all that) a couple of weeks ago (after Alex had to replace a HID bulb) and the conclusion I reached was that I should prefer yellower bulbs to bluer ones because blue light is harder for us to see.

I had Osram Nighbreakers on the 406 -- both before and after the put the blue band on them -- and I was certain they were much better than the standard bulbs I'd been putting in.

I wouldn't bother with the main beam.

[GingerMagic]

I normally wouldn't get posh bulbs for my car, but I am running low on my scrapyard stash and the nightbreakers were on offer.....

[steve_earwig]

Where was that then?

[GingerMagic]

Here but it was a while ago;

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/osram-n ... ts-1878577

[KozmoNaut]

Don't get the Nightbreakers, Osram has bowed down to boy racer/tuner trends and tinted the bulbs blue. This is blatantly idiotic, as obviously any kind of tint on a lightbulb will only reduce the total light output. To compensate for this, the bulbs are designed to run hotter, thereby reducing their lifespans.

Not true, they have a blue band round the base of the glass envelope, the light looks very white, no bluish tinge.

They seem 'white' because of the blue tint, a significant amount of light still passes through the blue band. What you're saying is that they're not as bad as other boy-racer bulbs, but that doesn't automatically make them any good.

An untinted high-performance 55W automotive halogen bulb will have a slightly warm color temperature with a slight yellow cast to it. A blue-tinted "high-performance" bulb will have the same wattage and total light output, but it will tend towards a colder color temperature, whiter or even slightly blue.

This will make it seem brighter, but that is an optical illusion. They only appear brighter because they output more blue light. The human eye prefers reds and greens to blues. Blue light is harder for the eyes to focus correctly, as you've probably noticed with the very common blue LEDs that have become so popular for consumer electronics. Thus, the light with a blue cast tends to irritate the eye more, giving the illusion that is is brighter, when in fact it is the same brightness.

This actually reduces the efficacy of the light, since the pupil contracts more than it would have for a light with a yellow cast, thus negating the benefit of buying a higher-output bulb.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech ... d/bad.html
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech ... /good.html
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech ... white.html

Get Philips Vision Plus or Xtreme Vision instead. They output more light than standard bulbs and they are untinted.

Again inaccurate - they all have an output of 1200 lumens, the difference is in the distribution of the luminous flux

Quite true that they also produce the same 1200lm output. However, the blue-tinted bulbs actually have to produce more light than the untinted bulbs. This is because the blue tint filters out some of the yellow/red light that is produced by the filament. You can never add anything by tinting a bulb, only take it away. Thus, in order to have the same total light output, they have to put a hotter filament in the bulb. Hotter filaments are thinner and more fragile, which means the blue-tinted bulb will have a shorter lifetime than the untinted bulbs.

In conclusion: Blue-tinted bulbs actually reduce your ability to see, they cause more glare and irritation and they burn out faster.

Get the untinted Philips bulbs instead. Or just standard Osram/Philips/etc. bulbs instead, honestly I have never felt like anything was lacking with the 406 headlights.

[fattail95]

I agree with you with regards to lamp life. However, many people are willing to accept the reduced longetivy in favour of a higher (whiter) colour temperature. I think perhaps you are being a little to enthusiastic about getting the Philips bulb. A large portion of the reason I decided to go for these bulbs is due to the whiter appearance.

[dirtydirtydiesel]

fattail95, don't worry to much about KozmoNaut he tends to get his nickers in a bunch over all kinds of stuff.
just ask him his views on high performance diesel / diesel addatives

Autoexpress voted them best buy & gave them 5 stars out of 5 stars, Quote miles ahead of the opposition giving up to 35mtrs more penatration (:supafrisk:)
& they last up to 50% longer due to an improved gas & design.

I for one don't think you can see too much at night & these bulbs are road legal unlike most HID kit's hence why when two of my bulbs blew I bought a set of four