Quote:
Originally Posted by mrbmwx5
It will not harm the xenon.
|
I'm going to be a little picky here. Harm-as in screw them up-no. Harm-as in shorten the lamp life-absolutely.
I have been a distributor for Osram, Ushio, and GE lamps as well as using arc lamps up to 18,000 watts day to day for the past 20 years. Each one of them will tell you that on/off cycles significantly influences lamp life.
Startup voltages on a cold lamp wear the electrodes much faster than operating a warm lamp. Even worse is hot restriking an arc lamp. Most simply will not turn back on. Automotive lamps need to for safety reasons-therefore the voltages are even higher. Assuming you have just gotten home and are using the pathway lighting, a hot restrike is exactly what you are doing. Eventually the electrodes become far enough apart to not support an arc.
I personally will use the pathway lighting when I need to. I think the auto function is far more destructive to the lamps. Constantly turning on/off while driving through downtown areas-parking garages-etc day after day really does more damage than anything. I think my original owner must have left that on all the time. Got the car with 22k mi & had to replace both lamps at 35K mi. Under warranty-but someone ponied up the $960.