I just bought some Hella 500 driving lights and was going to buy the 100W bulb for them and noticed there was a 130W Anyone have them? Any issues?

 

i think that you'll melt the casing. Since it's only plastic it can't stand up to the heat. I can't say that'll happen for sure, but be careful. Also you'll need to upgrade the wiring to handle that wattage.

 

I noticed there was about a 6 amp difference from the 55w to the 130w so I was wondering about the wiring. The wiring harness came with a 15 amp inline fuse and the 130w bulbs are 10 amps compared to 4 amps for the 55w.

 

I have Hellas with a 130w bulb, but it is a Xenon bulb. Supposedly the Xenon burns cooler than the halogen bulbs, but I'm not sure how much. Haven't had any problems with melting the plastic.

 

The size of the reflector makes a huge difference in the apparent amount of light produced. Running large wattage in that small enclosure will not give you the same amunt of light as the same wattage in a larger enclosure. Yes you will probably melt the casing. Yes you will need to totally rewire with larger wire, fuses, and possibly a new relay as well. If you really need 130w lights, my advice would be to save for some real ones. My 6" Procomp 130w lights have been worth every penny and then some. My friend ran 100w bulbs in his Hella 500s with no probs but they did get warm. Probably highway use only.

 

I can't offer any help on the 130w , but I've had 100w bulbs in mine for a loooong time now. Pretty big improvement in output, and no problems, same wires. When I tried to run another set of 550s on the roof off of the same switch and relay, I burned out fuses, but that was a dumb idea to begin with.

 

I just installed a set of Hella 500 lights- the bulb mount won't take a 100W bulb (I had a couple left over from KC's) unless you remove a tang from the bulb. The relay and fuze are only 15A. A 100W bulb pulls 7 amps @ 14.2 Volts, so a 15A system would be very marginal. If you changed the relay to a 25W and upgraded the wiring, you might be OK.

I was not very happy with the lights- I don't think they're gonna hold up very well to wheelin'. Prolly should have returned them..........

The bulbs are only retained by a plastic protrusion on the housing and tang on the bulb, and a plastic cap w/ a screw. I upgraded all the wiring to 12G wire from the 16G supplied.

They were quite brite tho- tightly focused beam that reached out about 500+ yards easily. The stock high beams seem pretty dim with them on. They don't have any where near as much punch as my old 6" Dayliters tho, but I was running 100W bulbs in them.

I'll know how they do after next weekend's trip to the Hammers, and I'll update this post........

later

 

[QUOTE=crawler#976]I just installed a set of Hella 500 lights- the bulb mount won't take a 100W bulb (I had a couple left over from KC's) unless you remove a tang from the bulb. The relay and fuze are only 15A. A 100W bulb pulls 7 amps @ 14.2 Volts, so a 15A system would be very marginal. If you changed the relay to a 25W and upgraded the wiring, you might be OK.QUOTE]

I probably should have added in my post that I also completely rewired mine. I don't ever use the included switches or wiring when I do installs. All my electrical stuff is marine grade and oversized since I can get it for cost through work. Makes a big difference when you know the stuff is water and corrosion proof and wired to handle much more power than it will normally draw.

Just make sure you don't mount the lights above anything important so when the casing melts and the liquid plastic drips down it doesn't ruin your paint.