Lighting thread.
- Thread starter johnrunner
- Start date
About the only thing HID has going for it is cost. You can reuse the bikes existing headlight and you just replace the bulb. Since you pretty much have to do a dc conversion no mater what so that cost is basically the same. My current HID was about $25.
Maybe a little more heat with HID, but not much. A lot less than a old school hot filament. Only recently have LED's exceeded HID efficiency. The HID that I have in my bike is about 80 lumens per watt and while the best LEDs are 100 lumens per watt, the ones you will be getting are more like 80.
My headlight has a nice "DOT" indication. Now placing a HID in there kind of invalidates that, but in sure that it has an edge compared to a 100% non DOT LED if cops get involved.
Don't get me wrong I like LED's. I plan on adding a some to my bike.
Wish I could afford that light CDA. It's a little out of my price range.
Maybe a little more heat with HID, but not much. A lot less than a old school hot filament. Only recently have LED's exceeded HID efficiency. The HID that I have in my bike is about 80 lumens per watt and while the best LEDs are 100 lumens per watt, the ones you will be getting are more like 80.
My headlight has a nice "DOT" indication. Now placing a HID in there kind of invalidates that, but in sure that it has an edge compared to a 100% non DOT LED if cops get involved.
Don't get me wrong I like LED's. I plan on adding a some to my bike.
Wish I could afford that light CDA. It's a little out of my price range.
About the only thing HID has going for it is cost. You can reuse the bikes existing headlight and you just replace the bulb. Since you pretty much have to do a dc conversion no mater what so that cost is basically the same. My current HID was about $25.
Maybe a little more heat with HID, but not much. A lot less than a old school hot filament. Only recently have LED's exceeded HID efficiency. The HID that I have in my bike is about 80 lumens per watt and while the best LEDs are 100 lumens per watt, the ones you will be getting are more like 80.
My headlight has a nice "DOT" indication. Now placing a HID in there kind of invalidates that, but in sure that it has an edge compared to a 100% non DOT LED if cops get involved.
Don't get me wrong I like LED's. I plan on adding a some to my bike.
Wish I could afford that light CDA. It's a little out of my price range.
Yep, I would have done that but my stock housing and reflector were so cheesy...
Im getting an advertised 125 lumens a wart.
125 lumens per watt? I don't think so. The current best LED for these applications is the Cree XM-L. Cree actually recently released an upgraded second version called the XM-L2 that is 15% to 20% better and is less expensive. They are sold in different efficiencies called "bins." Most lights are made with the T5 or T6 bin which. I picked up a helmet light and it still has one of the old XM-L's in it. The best commonly available is the next step above which is called U2.
The advertising on LED lights is way optimistic for the most part. A Cree U2 might actually do 125 lumens per watt if down below freezing and only lightly driven. Neither of those apply in your light unless you ride in the winter and the light has a low setting. High power and high temps reduce the lumens per watt.
The other thing is not all the light makes it out the front of the assembled headlight and the power supply that drivers the LED is not 100% efficient. Between the optical and power efficiencies you can lose 20% to 30%. That's how you can start with a LED that does 100 lumens per watt, but only end up with 75 lumens per watt for the entire system.
What does all that mean? Don't believe marketing and all you can never have enough light. Oh and LED's are future.
All lighting seems to suffer from this. My HID vendor claims 3200 lumens. Uh, no. I have a feeling it's more like 2700 and only 2000 or so make it out the front of the headlight.
For comparison a typical halogen car headlight is about 1000 lumens on low and 1500 on high. There is a lot of variability though.
I'm kinda tree jumping in the middle of your topic so forgive me if I'm totally off.
The cree LED's put out crazy light.
I have one I can put on my dirt helmet that puts out 1800 LM(lumens). That's on two photo optic batteries that last a good 6 hours.
I use it like a spot light, you can go 50 without out driving the light, and I haven't tried on the street.
I got extra batteries and a charger for less than $20. It takes about 10 seconds to swap the batteries.
As far as a mounted on board system, even for a dirt bike you usually done need to bother with the stator.
You can get a aftermarket regulator/rectifier(thats what changes the AC to DC) fro $50 from Ricky Stator.
I put a lighting kit on a 2001 WR250, and a 1999 WR400. I havent ever had to recharge the little 1000mah battery that came with the kit.
it will power the stock 35w headlight, but if you're OK with that much power for the headlight you can get a HID kit that will throw as much as 8 - 10kLm of light at 6000k(k) intensity.
That's crazy bright blue light, 5000k is accepted "white" hid intensity.
I haven't had time to start with my street bikes lighting, but LED uses less power than a halogen and the technology is getting LEZ to perform as well.
The cree LED's put out crazy light.
I have one I can put on my dirt helmet that puts out 1800 LM(lumens). That's on two photo optic batteries that last a good 6 hours.
I use it like a spot light, you can go 50 without out driving the light, and I haven't tried on the street.
I got extra batteries and a charger for less than $20. It takes about 10 seconds to swap the batteries.
As far as a mounted on board system, even for a dirt bike you usually done need to bother with the stator.
You can get a aftermarket regulator/rectifier(thats what changes the AC to DC) fro $50 from Ricky Stator.
I put a lighting kit on a 2001 WR250, and a 1999 WR400. I havent ever had to recharge the little 1000mah battery that came with the kit.
it will power the stock 35w headlight, but if you're OK with that much power for the headlight you can get a HID kit that will throw as much as 8 - 10kLm of light at 6000k(k) intensity.
That's crazy bright blue light, 5000k is accepted "white" hid intensity.
I haven't had time to start with my street bikes lighting, but LED uses less power than a halogen and the technology is getting LEZ to perform as well.