For HID's ie: 6000K <-- what does the K stand for
 

I was curious to what the K stood for when talking about HID bulb ratings, I thought maybe Kelvin but at 4300~6000K damn immpossible to be that hot

anyone care to enlighten me>>??

It is Kelvin, but it refers to Color temperature - warm (red) or cool (purple)

Its important to note that after a point (4500-5000) as K goes up (cooler color) Lumens (actual light output) goes down-

Look at a black light for example, great color, but you cant use it to illuminate very well


http://www.hidkits.com/images/colortemp.gif

http://www.mccullochhid.com/pics/kelvinlumen.jpg

Do not pay extra for those 6000K-9000K kits.
WASTE OF MONEY!

why is that?

what if it's only 3 dollars more? :)

The higher in the color spectrum, the less light is cast from the bulbs ( Higher K color = lower lumens)


If you are more concerned with bulb color than actual lighting performance, then the color is more important for you. My HIDs are a 4700k variety which is squarely in the phat part of the Color/ lumens output - but they do not look blue/purplish at all - very white


http://home.attbi.com/~fd3stuner/HIDbeam.JPG

That's funny, it's the exact opposite with CRT projection. The higher the color temp, the easier it is to get more light output. This is why modern TVs all come from the factory with horrendously inaccurate color temperatures. Sorry, non-automotive tangent there...