Showing posts with label Lexus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lexus. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
10 Best Car Options For Teen Drivers
I like this post and this is why I going to post in my blog.I hope you guys like to.
If you've been reading our series on teen driving safety closely, you'll remember that just last week we said it's best to force your teen to share the family car. That gives parents the control over when the car is used, and gives you time to check-in with your teen to make sure things are going well.But after 12 months of problem-free driving, your teen may be ready to own their own set of wheels. We've pulled together a list of slightly used cars that would make ideal cars for teens. They score high on safety tests, aren't particularly fast or sexy, and come with enough safety technology to make even the most worried parents feel a little bit safer.
To compile our list, we cross-checked crash tests from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with reviews and test drives from the AOL Autos staff.
read the rest here
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The roads and highways of Massachusetts.
I promised myself not to use my blog to talk about this particular subject. But I can’t avoid it.
I work in a rich town in Massachusetts. The town has huge and gorgeous houses and the businesses run pretty well. Because of these facts, the roads and highways of that town called my attention. They are not as good. Since my job requires constant driving, I realized that the roads have potholes everywhere. Because of these potholes, it makes me think that I am driving in a poor and miserable town.
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| I took this picture near the Lechmere station,Boston,MA |
These roads and highways are in bad condition. Especially for the people who live and work there. Besides potholes it has bad traffic lights. What does the government do with all the taxes that are being paid?
Dear reader, someone has to mention these issues. Think with me, you buy a brand new car that cost you $22,000.00 and you drive it in a town where the roads are filled with potholes. Probably a year later that same car could begin to have problems, when it should actually start to have problems three years or more after you have purchased it. When a car is driving on a potholes, it could ruin the rim, wheels and car suspension. The government does not use the taxes to repair the damages that the potholes cause on your vehicle. The government will never use the money that we pay for taxes to fix our vehicles. And let me say this, Massachusetts gets a lot of money, some people call these state MASSTAX . The question is... where is the money going? Think about it!
Do you live in Boston and you would like to put an HID in your car? Maybe you can see a potholes from far away and you are able to avoid them with your car. Leave a comment and I will get in touch with you.
Thank you for reading it.
Boston HID Team
Monday, October 3, 2011
Why put HID in your car?
THE FIRST AND MORE IMPORT REASON:
The safety. The HID light is 3X stronger than common light sold on the market today, makes theroadblock with greater visibility allowing a wide field of vision and may avoid various types of accidents, for example, the ones involving wild animalsin highways, significantly reducing the chances of such accidents to happen.
Second:
HID light accentuates the markings on the roads due to its color temperature, this way the crosswalks and other markings are easily seen by the driver, and also the signs, which reflects with more visibility.
The safety. The HID light is 3X stronger than common light sold on the market today, makes theroadblock with greater visibility allowing a wide field of vision and may avoid various types of accidents, for example, the ones involving wild animalsin highways, significantly reducing the chances of such accidents to happen.
Second:
HID light accentuates the markings on the roads due to its color temperature, this way the crosswalks and other markings are easily seen by the driver, and also the signs, which reflects with more visibility.
Third:
On rainy days the HID light has great performance allowing you a better visibility of other cars on the highway even from afar.
Fourth and last:The design. Your car gets a new look at night, besides if you try to look for something that brings security and at the same time something that leaves your car with a new look,you will surely do the right thing by installing the HID KIT in your car.
Monday, August 1, 2011
What is the difference between HID and LED lighting?
Understanding HID Lighting
High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting replaces the filament of a light bulb with a capsule of gas. The light emanates from an arc discharge between two closely spaced electrodes. This discharge is hermetically sealed inside a small quartz glass tubular capsule. HID lights require a ballast, which carefully regulates the voltage supplied to the capsule of gas. The amount of light produced is greater than a standard halogen bulb while consuming less power; this light more closely approximates the color temperature of natural daylight.
In all High Intensity Discharge lamps, light is produced by passing a current through a metal vapor. Free electrons colliding with an atom in the vapor momentarily knock an electron into a higher orbit of the atom. When the displaced electron falls back to its former level, a quantum of radiation is emitted. The wavelength of radiation depends on the energy zone of the disturbed electron and on the type of metal vapor used in the arc tube.
HID bulbs produce 5 percent of their output when first ignited, requiring a few seconds (usually 15-20) to reach full output. Also, if power to the lamp is lost or turned off, the arc tube must cool before the arc can be re-struck and light produced. Halcyon HID lights require approximately 5-10 seconds before they can be re-lit.
Understanding LED Lighting
Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) are light sources utilizing diodes that emit light when connected in a circuit. The effect is a form of electroluminescence where LEDs release a large number of photons outward; the LED is housed in a plastic bulb, which concentrates the light source.
The most important part of an LED is the semi-conductor chip located in the center of the light source. The chip has two regions separated by a junction. The p region is dominated by positive electric charges and the n region is dominated by negative electric charges. The junction acts as a barrier to the flow of electrons between the p and the n regions. When sufficient voltage is applied to the semi-conductor chip, the electrons are able to cross the junction into the p region.
When sufficient voltage is applied to the semi-conductor chip, electrons can move easily across the junction where they are immediately attracted to the positive forces in the p region. When an electron moves sufficiently close to a positive charge in the p region, the two charges “re-combine.“
Each time an electron recombines with a positive charge, electric potential energy is converted into electromagnetic energy. For each recombination of a negative and a positive charge, a quantum of electromagnetic energy is emitted in the form of a photon of light. This photon has a frequency determined by the characteristics of the semiconductor material (usually a combination of the chemical elements gallium, arsenic, and phosphorus). LEDs that emit different colors are made of different semiconductor materials. Said simply, LEDs are tiny “bulbs” fit into an electrical circuit. However, unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don’t have a filament. LEDs are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, making them energy efficient and extremely resilient over long periods of time.
LED Advantages
LEDs don’t have a filament to burn out or break; therefore, they last much longer than conventional bulbs. Given that a very small semiconductor chip runs an LED, they are very durable and tend to last many thousands of hours. Moreover, LEDs are “instant on,” much like halogen lamps, and thus convenient for use in applications that are subject to frequent or potential on-off cycling. Conversely, HID lamps are more fragile and have to warm up (15 – 25 seconds) during ignition. However, HID lights are much brighter than current LED configurations. This is because the side-emitting light found with HIDs is much easier to focus; the front-emitting nature of LEDs does not lend itself to a tightly focused beam. HID lighting is still preferred by most divers given the superior intensity and tight focus. However, LED technology is changing rapidly and it is foreseeable that LEDs will eventually surpass the performance of HID lighting.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
H.I.D – The new age LED lighting system
IT flashes, points and lights up puddles. The humble side mirror has come a long way from simply supplying a rearward glimpse of traffic, and it is all because of new lighting technology.
Flashing mirrors are only part of a larger technology push that is changing the look and function of a car’s lights. Carmakers call these lights and lenses jewelry, and cars are increasingly adorned with more of them as new plastics, electronics and manufacturing methods change necessary but dull structures into bright and sexy selling points.
Most noticeable may be high-intensity discharge, or H.I.D., headlights, whose blue-white glow contrasts sharply with the yellow light of ordinary tungsten filament headlights. The xenon-gas-based H.I.D. lights generate a spectrum that is much closer to sunlight, so they appear brighter, giving drivers who use them a visual advantage after dark.
”The H.I.D. is more expensive, but you get two and a half times the light,” said Mark Evans, engineering group manager of exterior lighting for General Motors.
The H.I.D. headlight requires a different design. In one form, it resembles a bulbous round lens deep inside a shiny headlight module. This is called a projector headlight, and it works much like a slide projector. Instead of one light for ordinary driving and a separate high-beam headlight for longer-distance vision, the projector lens uses a single bulb and moves the reflector shield surrounding it to change the light focus.
H.I.D. lights have been common on European luxury cars, and Cadillac cars will soon carry them as standard equipment. Ford’s Lincoln line is also using them.
A BLENDING of North American and European approaches is emerging, too, in the way light is beamed in front of a car. American designers have traditionally used a diffuse focus, with the pool of light created by the headlights fading at the far reaches, while European designers favor a precise cutoff at a set distance for the headlight beam to reduce surplus glare. As headlamps become brighter and more engineered, automakers are tending to the European approach.
Even where the specialty lights are not yet in use, headlight assemblies themselves have been changed significantly. Where once a headlight bulb existed, today there is a multifaceted lens assembly carrying four or more separate bulbs. These can include a low beam, a high beam, a daytime running light and a special turning lamp that throws white light in the direction the car is about to go.
Another star player of the emerging design revolution is the light-emitting diode, or L.E.D., the same green, amber or red solid-state widget that has been used for decades in computer equipment and home appliances. In the 1990′s, technology advances created reliable high-intensity diodes, and carmakers were charmed.
”The L.E.D.’s illuminate about 200 milliseconds faster than a light bulb, which doesn’t sound like much but equals about a full car length at 65 miles per hour,” said Al Gagne, an engineering spokesman at G.M.
Mr. Gagne said the L.E.D.’s created faster taillights to help prevent collisions, and soon might be bright enough to use in headlight assemblies.
In addition to being fast to light up, L.E.D.’s have other advantages. They use only 20 percent of the electricity it takes to power fragile and failure-prone light bulbs. They generally last longer than most cars. They emit less heat than bulbs, which frees car designers to replace huge, clunky taillight assemblies with slim, elegant ones.
The first L.E.D. taillights were crude industrial chic, mostly for delivery trucks and tractor-trailers. Automakers began using them in the extra taillight called a chimsel, for center high-mounted stop lamp, but as reliability increased, the diodes moved on. G.M. put its first L.E.D. taillights on the 2000 Cadillac DeVille.
”You’re going to see G.M. come out with designs that showcase the L.E.D.’s a little bit more,” Mr. Gagne said.
With the appropriate glues and heat-dissipating design, future taillights might become a stick-on external component, freeing trunk space and simplifying the use of sheet metal, which now must be pierced to hold lamp assemblies.
The diodes have also been popped into side mirrors to function as extra turn indicators. Mercedes-Benz uses L.E.D. technology for both brake lights and extra turn signals — called repeaters — on its S-Class sedan and CL-Class coupes.
Signal repeaters on the front sides of European cars have been required for a long time, but Mercedes-Benz came up with a twist, putting signal repeaters in the front of the mirrors on the 2000 S-Class.
Muth Mirror Systems of Sheboygan, Wis., an auto supplier, has a side mirror that flashes a chevron-shaped line of diodes when a turn signal is activated; they have appeared as original equipment on premium Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles, including the Excursion. The mirrors are sold as ”power safety signal mirrors” on the 2002 Windstar minivan, in which they also flash in the side mirror to show that a sliding door is open and passengers may be exiting.
The Donnelly Corporation of Holland, Mich., has its bulb-based side mirror signals installed on G.M.’s GMC 360 sport utility vehicles, which sell as the TrailBlazer, Envoy and Bravada. Donnelly’s mirrors combine turn signals and ”puddle lights,” an increasingly popular feature that shines a small spotlight on the ground near car doors to help the driver and passengers avoid stepping into a mess after dark. The light is activated by opening the driver’s door or by a remote entry key fob.
THE Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says there is no research yet to indicate that the side-mirror signals improve safety. Not enough cars equipped with the systems are on the road to measure their effectiveness, said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the institute.
But if the signals are even somewhat as effective as daytime running lights or chimsel brakelights, side-mirror signaling and advanced headlight and brakelight systems may end up saving hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in property damage annually.
Though many drivers do not like them, automotive researchers say that daytime running lights have reduced multiple vehicle crashes during daylight hours. A study completed last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 3 percent decline in such crashes in a nine-state area during the time period that daytime running light systems were introduced.
The figures seem to show that lighting cars for visibility is beneficial. The systems have typically used either regular headlamps at half their normal brightness or special marker lamps near the headlights. Carmakers are now experimenting with cutting down the brightness to try to make daytime running lights more appealing to customers.
The same safety logic has led to the introduction of what are called rear fog lights. The lights are actually an amplified version of the typical taillight, and they are meant to brighten the rear marker lamps of a car so that drivers coming up from behind will notice a car sooner in foggy or hazy conditions.
Lighting has become so important, automotive executives say, that lighting engineers are now routinely included during the earliest phases of car design and production. Concept cars that once were displayed with generalized, nonroadworthy head and taillamps are now displayed in all their shining glory.
Flashing mirrors are only part of a larger technology push that is changing the look and function of a car’s lights. Carmakers call these lights and lenses jewelry, and cars are increasingly adorned with more of them as new plastics, electronics and manufacturing methods change necessary but dull structures into bright and sexy selling points.
Most noticeable may be high-intensity discharge, or H.I.D., headlights, whose blue-white glow contrasts sharply with the yellow light of ordinary tungsten filament headlights. The xenon-gas-based H.I.D. lights generate a spectrum that is much closer to sunlight, so they appear brighter, giving drivers who use them a visual advantage after dark.
”The H.I.D. is more expensive, but you get two and a half times the light,” said Mark Evans, engineering group manager of exterior lighting for General Motors.
The H.I.D. headlight requires a different design. In one form, it resembles a bulbous round lens deep inside a shiny headlight module. This is called a projector headlight, and it works much like a slide projector. Instead of one light for ordinary driving and a separate high-beam headlight for longer-distance vision, the projector lens uses a single bulb and moves the reflector shield surrounding it to change the light focus.
H.I.D. lights have been common on European luxury cars, and Cadillac cars will soon carry them as standard equipment. Ford’s Lincoln line is also using them.
A BLENDING of North American and European approaches is emerging, too, in the way light is beamed in front of a car. American designers have traditionally used a diffuse focus, with the pool of light created by the headlights fading at the far reaches, while European designers favor a precise cutoff at a set distance for the headlight beam to reduce surplus glare. As headlamps become brighter and more engineered, automakers are tending to the European approach.
Even where the specialty lights are not yet in use, headlight assemblies themselves have been changed significantly. Where once a headlight bulb existed, today there is a multifaceted lens assembly carrying four or more separate bulbs. These can include a low beam, a high beam, a daytime running light and a special turning lamp that throws white light in the direction the car is about to go.
Another star player of the emerging design revolution is the light-emitting diode, or L.E.D., the same green, amber or red solid-state widget that has been used for decades in computer equipment and home appliances. In the 1990′s, technology advances created reliable high-intensity diodes, and carmakers were charmed.
”The L.E.D.’s illuminate about 200 milliseconds faster than a light bulb, which doesn’t sound like much but equals about a full car length at 65 miles per hour,” said Al Gagne, an engineering spokesman at G.M.
Mr. Gagne said the L.E.D.’s created faster taillights to help prevent collisions, and soon might be bright enough to use in headlight assemblies.
In addition to being fast to light up, L.E.D.’s have other advantages. They use only 20 percent of the electricity it takes to power fragile and failure-prone light bulbs. They generally last longer than most cars. They emit less heat than bulbs, which frees car designers to replace huge, clunky taillight assemblies with slim, elegant ones.
The first L.E.D. taillights were crude industrial chic, mostly for delivery trucks and tractor-trailers. Automakers began using them in the extra taillight called a chimsel, for center high-mounted stop lamp, but as reliability increased, the diodes moved on. G.M. put its first L.E.D. taillights on the 2000 Cadillac DeVille.
”You’re going to see G.M. come out with designs that showcase the L.E.D.’s a little bit more,” Mr. Gagne said.
With the appropriate glues and heat-dissipating design, future taillights might become a stick-on external component, freeing trunk space and simplifying the use of sheet metal, which now must be pierced to hold lamp assemblies.
The diodes have also been popped into side mirrors to function as extra turn indicators. Mercedes-Benz uses L.E.D. technology for both brake lights and extra turn signals — called repeaters — on its S-Class sedan and CL-Class coupes.
Signal repeaters on the front sides of European cars have been required for a long time, but Mercedes-Benz came up with a twist, putting signal repeaters in the front of the mirrors on the 2000 S-Class.
Muth Mirror Systems of Sheboygan, Wis., an auto supplier, has a side mirror that flashes a chevron-shaped line of diodes when a turn signal is activated; they have appeared as original equipment on premium Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles, including the Excursion. The mirrors are sold as ”power safety signal mirrors” on the 2002 Windstar minivan, in which they also flash in the side mirror to show that a sliding door is open and passengers may be exiting.
The Donnelly Corporation of Holland, Mich., has its bulb-based side mirror signals installed on G.M.’s GMC 360 sport utility vehicles, which sell as the TrailBlazer, Envoy and Bravada. Donnelly’s mirrors combine turn signals and ”puddle lights,” an increasingly popular feature that shines a small spotlight on the ground near car doors to help the driver and passengers avoid stepping into a mess after dark. The light is activated by opening the driver’s door or by a remote entry key fob.
THE Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says there is no research yet to indicate that the side-mirror signals improve safety. Not enough cars equipped with the systems are on the road to measure their effectiveness, said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the institute.
But if the signals are even somewhat as effective as daytime running lights or chimsel brakelights, side-mirror signaling and advanced headlight and brakelight systems may end up saving hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in property damage annually.
Though many drivers do not like them, automotive researchers say that daytime running lights have reduced multiple vehicle crashes during daylight hours. A study completed last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 3 percent decline in such crashes in a nine-state area during the time period that daytime running light systems were introduced.
The figures seem to show that lighting cars for visibility is beneficial. The systems have typically used either regular headlamps at half their normal brightness or special marker lamps near the headlights. Carmakers are now experimenting with cutting down the brightness to try to make daytime running lights more appealing to customers.
The same safety logic has led to the introduction of what are called rear fog lights. The lights are actually an amplified version of the typical taillight, and they are meant to brighten the rear marker lamps of a car so that drivers coming up from behind will notice a car sooner in foggy or hazy conditions.
Lighting has become so important, automotive executives say, that lighting engineers are now routinely included during the earliest phases of car design and production. Concept cars that once were displayed with generalized, nonroadworthy head and taillamps are now displayed in all their shining glory.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Why to have a GOOD headlight on in your car?
Your headlights are an essential safety system for nighttime driving & visibility. If your headlights are not working, or are not aimed properly, you might not be able to see the road clearly.
Whenever visibility is poor or it rains, headlights are a good way to let other drivers know where you are. It's both helpful to other travelers and makes you more safe. Remember, you are not the only one affected by poor visibility. You may be able to see cars without their headlights on but others may not have vision or windshield wipers as good as yours. Many states require headlights to be turned on when it is raining or when visibility is reduced to less than 500 feet.
Whenever visibility is poor or it rains, headlights are a good way to let other drivers know where you are. It's both helpful to other travelers and makes you more safe. Remember, you are not the only one affected by poor visibility. You may be able to see cars without their headlights on but others may not have vision or windshield wipers as good as yours. Many states require headlights to be turned on when it is raining or when visibility is reduced to less than 500 feet.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
HID
Definition of HID
High intensity Discharge is light from a plasma discharge rather than a filament. The system involves a ballast to start the light and certain gasses to create the light. Overall the system uses less energy than halogen , while producing 3 times more light.
How HID lights work
High Intensity Discharge Lights do not have a filament. Instead light is created from an electrical discharge between two electrodes in a micro-environment of xenon gas and metal halide salts. The light is emitted by an electrically energized gas -- a plasma discharge-- formed and sustained between the two electrodes.
The distinctive blue-white light of HID lamps stimulates the reflective paints in road markers and signs creating a safer driving environment. Additionally, the increased light output is designed to illuminate a wider area in front of the vehicle, improving visibility and safety, without disturbing the vision of oncoming drivers.
XENARC® HID lamps have over three times the lumens per watt of traditional halogen light sources and are more efficient at converting electrical energy into light. They produce at least 70% more light than traditional lamps, and use less power while producing less heat. This gives designers new freedom to explore the frontiers of front end design. By creating more compact headlights to fit smaller spaces, better aerodynamics are possible.
High intensity Discharge is light from a plasma discharge rather than a filament. The system involves a ballast to start the light and certain gasses to create the light. Overall the system uses less energy than halogen , while producing 3 times more light.
How HID lights work
High Intensity Discharge Lights do not have a filament. Instead light is created from an electrical discharge between two electrodes in a micro-environment of xenon gas and metal halide salts. The light is emitted by an electrically energized gas -- a plasma discharge-- formed and sustained between the two electrodes.
The distinctive blue-white light of HID lamps stimulates the reflective paints in road markers and signs creating a safer driving environment. Additionally, the increased light output is designed to illuminate a wider area in front of the vehicle, improving visibility and safety, without disturbing the vision of oncoming drivers.
XENARC® HID lamps have over three times the lumens per watt of traditional halogen light sources and are more efficient at converting electrical energy into light. They produce at least 70% more light than traditional lamps, and use less power while producing less heat. This gives designers new freedom to explore the frontiers of front end design. By creating more compact headlights to fit smaller spaces, better aerodynamics are possible.
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