switching 35w and 55w ballasts?

i have an extra set of 55w hid ballasts laying around...my question is, can i swap out the 35w ballast i have in one set of my lights for the 55w?

to my understanding, the bulb only determines the color, and you can hook up either 35w or 55w to it and it will work?

or am i wrong and the bulbs are speciffically made for one wattage or the other?

 

bump

 

When I ordered new bulbs it actually said 35w on it. Im thinking thinking you will blow the bulb if you hook up a 55w ballast to it.

 

you should have matching ballasts to bulbs. the thing that determines the color is the kelvin of the bulb. the higher you go on the kelvin scale the bluer the color and the lower you go the yellower the color. 5000k is a mirror white.

 

cool guys, i gues i'll save the 55w ballasts for when i remount the lights i took them off of. i know how the coloring works, i was just curious about the power ratings. does anyone know what is phtsically different in the bulb that allows it to handle 55watts vs 35?

 

i ran 35w bulbs with 55w ballasts with no issues. in fact, my last set up used a kit that came with 55w bulbs as well. not only did the bulbs(55w) give me a crappy cut off, they cracked my headlight lense. by ditching them and going back to 35w bulbs, the cut was perfect the lenses were fine(i had swapped lenses)

 

you said cutoff, so are you running a projector? did it crack the actuall projector lense? or was it stock housing? doesn't matter as much as i'm not using these in the headlights, just curious. what HID setup (company) were you running?

 

yes i had retrofitted projectors in my subaru. the overwattage/crappy bulb, cracked and damaged the headlight lense, not the projector. the kit was the 55w apexcone setup d2s setup. i'm guessing you are looking to do a pnp kit in your headlights? figured i try to convince you not too. you will blind others due to the wrong reflector setup. they can not correctly focus the light. but its your ride, do what you want. good luck, i'm out

 

well, i actually already have hids in the heads, fogs, and 3 sets of off road lights (I always go first on night time trail runs ). but i just got an all pro bumper and had to loose one of the sets of off road lights, so i was considdering swapping out the 35w ballasts in the fogs with the 55w from the off road lights not in use at the moment. not really worried about overheating as the fog housing has about the same volume as the off road light (it's a slim OR light), and i didn't have any issues with those.

 

yea you can swap them no problem. your color will shift a bit but as long as they're decent quality bulbs youll have no problem. lifespan will be decreased, but who has their bulbs for 10000hrs anyway

 

^^^ thanks Matt

also, perks of a lifetime warranty if a bulb or ballast ever goes