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Hid Spotlight. Is It Worth It?


benh

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i currently own an older spotlight which does seem to be on the way out. i had a look at the lgs and seen a preety impressive HID spotlight the bloke gave it heaps of wraps as expected as it more expensive. i was just wondering if anyone has had any experienc with these hid lights and they are worth the extra cash. cheers

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I use the Lightforce handheld with HID conversion with my Dad and it's brilliant. The 35W xenon puts out more light imo than the 100W it comes with and the colour of the HID light is much better when looking through the scope as the difference in colours is much more apparent. When using a halogen everything seems the same colour.

The only trouble with it is that it picks up the game too far away.

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from what i've been told the HD lights fail to dazzel/stop animals to shoot them

a fair few of the big rigs up here have them and they sure dazzel me from a loooong way away. I'd like to find out more about that.

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As I have posted elsewhere on here it is a very worthwhile upgrade. I upgraded a basic $15 auto shop cheapy to 35W HID. BTW a 35W HID throws out 3 times as much light (3300+ lumens) as a 100W Halogen globe. If that is not going to dazzle an animal, I don't know what will.

I bought a kit off ebay for $69 which came with 2 sets of 35W globes and Ballasts. I used one and the other is in the cupboard as a spare. There are pics of this spotty on 2 or 3 other threads here already.

Just to demonstrate how much light HID's produce. I have upgraded the secondary main beams and the Hella Rally 4000 FF Compact driving lights on my BA Falcon. They are so strong now that a few weeks ago, while driving on the Vasse Highway between Nannup and Busselton in WA, I lit up a road sign from a GPS measured 3.5km down the road. The outboard headlight units run +50 H4 globes. So at full power on high beam, I have two 60 watt halogen and four 35 watt HID globes burning. Did I mention I'm driving across the Nullabor in October for a wedding in Dubbo?? :ph34r:

Oh and one last thing. The HID's produce perhaps a quarter of the heat of the halogen globes.

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I just upgraded the 35w hid globes and ballasts in my driving lights to 100w HID's wow what a difference

but im a big fan of hid lighting i just fitted a 9" pro powabeam HID to my ute shats all over my mates halogen version

definitely worth the money that's for sure

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While i don't own any HID lights, i think the 'colour' of the light would be its biggest advantage. LED's would be in the same boat as well.

I recently swapped the Powerbeam 11" pro on my ute for a spare (and much smaller) old Blazerlight spotty. While the little Blazerlight throws no where neer the light of the big Powerbeam, i am finding it better for the foxes. Its more diffused light would seem to have an advantage over a more intense focused light, you just loose a bit of distance. Where i mainly shoot is very hilly country, so the loss of a bit of distance is not such an issue. While a foxes eyes can still be seen a fair way out, it makes you get to within a safe shooting range for the actual shot.

I want to do a HID upgrade to the car's spotlights soon tho.

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I'm not 100% sure but I heard that HID only throws out one "spectrum" of light which is visible to us, but to animals it might not dazzle them as much becuase they don't detect that spectrum as well as we would. Where as traditional incandescent light throws out a large range of the spectrum because the filament, the air around the filament all give off varying spectrums. This is another reason the HID's are more energy efficient than incandescent because they are only spraying out one band of the spectrum.

Would be interesting to hear from an expert on this.

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Well quite a few people, me included reckon that HID can be too bright for Rabbits

and that they don't "sit" as well in HID Lights (compared to Halogen). One reason may

that they are so much brighter.

The colour effect on animals is because most HID's are in the 5000k - 6000k colour range (temperature)

which is close to natural / normal light whereas Halogen is closer to 4300k (yellowish).

This, combined with the better Contrast allows animals to stand out more - Red fox, brown roo against

a brown grassy background, much easier to see in white light.

Just be aware some "crap" HID Kits can be a problem with some reflectors due to UV given off

so don't buy the cheapest.

Hope that helps.

Edit

Kimosabi

The "Spectrum" you are referring to might be the Colour of the light - ie 3000k (yellowish), 4000k, 5000k, 6000k (White with Blue tinge) all the way up to 12000k (Bluish) etc. The colour of an HID Light changes because of the temp of the Xenon gas and to some extent (so it seems from testing) the type of Xenon gas used (some seem to be better than others ie 5000k in one HID Kit looks more like a 6000k bulb from another in terms of Colour temp).

Edited by 500Nitro
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Guest caveman

i have a few of the new led/cre type lights and they don't seem to hold the rabbit well at all, but s h i t they are bright

Edited by caveman
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Well quite a few people, me included reckon that HID can be too bright for Rabbits

and that they don't "sit" as well in HID Lights (compared to Halogen). One reason may

that they are so much brighter.

The colour effect on animals is because most HID's are in the 5000k - 6000k colour range (temperature)

which is close to natural / normal light whereas Halogen is closer to 4300k (yellowish).

This, combined with the better Contrast allows animals to stand out more - Red fox, brown roo against

a brown grassy background, much easier to see in white light.

Just be aware some "crap" HID Kits can be a problem with some reflectors due to UV given off

so don't buy the cheapest.

Hope that helps.

Edit

Kimosabi

The "Spectrum" you are referring to might be the Colour of the light - ie 3000k (yellowish), 4000k, 5000k, 6000k (White with Blue tinge) all the way up to 12000k (Bluish) etc. The colour of an HID Light changes because of the temp of the Xenon gas and to some extent (so it seems from testing) the type of Xenon gas used (some seem to be better than others ie 5000k in one HID Kit looks more like a 6000k bulb from another in terms of Colour temp).

I was a little concerned about this when I upgraded my spotty. So I bought a 4500K HID kit and the beam is on the yellow side of white. Enough to notice anyway. It is less yellow than the old Halogen globe, but not a stark white light like the 6000K HID's I have in the car.

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My kit arrived in the mail yesterday, waiting for the globe adaptor for the lightforce to arrive now, then it's all systems go B)

What globe adaptor are you using ?

HID Bulbs (the correct one's / size) should drop straight in without any adaptor.

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What globe adaptor are you using ?

HID Bulbs (the correct one's / size) should drop straight in without any adaptor.

The HID globes do, but Lightforce lights do not. Lightforce use a proprietary globe base.

The good news is that you can get adapters off ebay to convert lightforce lights to take H3 globes.

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My kit arrived in the mail yesterday, waiting for the globe adaptor for the lightforce to arrive now, then it's all systems go B)

Be interested in how it all goes together :)

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The HID globes do, but Lightforce lights do not. Lightforce use a proprietary globe base.

The good news is that you can get adapters off ebay to convert lightforce lights to take H3 globes.

epitome

You are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

Yes, if you use an H3 as we used to, we put a heat sink in to adapt it and make it fit

the cavity that the globe goes in.

The even better news is if you use the right HID Globe, you DON'T need to use an Adaptor !!!

Lightforce are not that proprietary. I just checked the 7 finished 170's and 240's sitting here.

It's a much nicer fit, easier to adjust the focal point to get the best light output without

any of the dark shadows or "stars of death" that are common place with badly set up HID's.

Edited by 500Nitro
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