Headlight housings under vacuum?

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unity

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Hope everyone is doing well!

Was thinking the other day about my Benz lights and a slight condensation issue. They are new, but I must have put them together with sufficient humidity in the air.

Then I was thinking about using a vacuum to evacuate the air and this excess moisture. Such as one does for AC systems.

Which lead me to think about the Mark VIII housings. They should be air tight when a lamp is installed. Or if not, easy to make air-tight (I think mine might have had an air port thing). The thought is to installer a proper check valve on a housing that is also air tight. Then vacuum the air out (along with moisture). Without air in the housings there should, in theory, be less potential damage to the reflective material since there will not be air to aid in the transfer of heat. I also realize IR will still generate heat and a perfect vacuum would be impossible to make. Also I suspect moisture can play a role in damaging the material.

Just a thought. What ya think?
 
unity said:
Hope everyone is doing well!

Was thinking the other day about my Benz lights and a slight condensation issue. They are new, but I must have put them together with sufficient humidity in the air.

Then I was thinking about using a vacuum to evacuate the air and this excess moisture. Such as one does for AC systems.

Which lead me to think about the Mark VIII housings. They should be air tight when a lamp is installed. Or if not, easy to make air-tight (I think mine might have had an air port thing). The thought is to installer a proper check valve on a housing that is also air tight. Then vacuum the air out (along with moisture). Without air in the housings there should, in theory, be less potential damage to the reflective material since there will not be air to aid in the transfer of heat. I also realize IR will still generate heat and a perfect vacuum would be impossible to make. Also I suspect moisture can play a role in damaging the material.

Just a thought. What ya think?
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They are not vacuumed nor air tight. You need to check the foam or rubber gasket that goes on the bulb housing. If that is bad, then you are going to get moisture developed. Even with a good seal on the bulb housing the housing is not going to be pressurized. So either you have a bad seal or there is a leak at the seam where the two pieces that make up the housing is.
 
I just put in aftermarket HID's in my 98' headlight housings. I did notice that the chrome was going away in one of the lenses but it is doing so at the front of the housing?

Not by the bulb or section where the heat would be. Only one housing is doing this but the one that is loosing chrome has a lot of moisture in it too :confused:
 
Same problem. At times the headlight fogs up and stay like that for days. Mostly after rain. Not always after car wash.
I resealed the headlight 2 times now.
 
The gen 2 housings have vents on both the inner and outer ends. There's a small plastic L shaped "hose" that attaches to the vent, with the end pointing down. The hose can sometimes fall off, which allows water an easy route into the housing. In other words, the housings were ever meant to be air tight, let along able to hold a vacuum.
 
I think some are missing what I read (or not reading it all). The thought being to MAKE them air-tight to extend the life of em. That was all.
 
unity said:
I think some are missing what I read (or not reading it all). The thought being to MAKE them air-tight to extend the life of em. That was all.
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Wouldn't that make em explode if you drove from sea level up into the mountains?
 
kaha said:
Wouldn't that make em explode if you drove from sea level up into the mountains?
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if they are under the vacuum, no, the opposite.
they might implode at low elevation. but i sorta doubt it. they're pretty chunky plastic.
 
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