Is HID really worth the extra money?

I was reading the Sam's Club HID thread, Is it really worth the extra money to buy a HID light, like the Sam's HID over a standard spotlight? I have a Vector that seems to work pretty darn good, Just how far will the Sam's club HID throw over a conventional spot like the Vector or Thor? Please comment!!
Thanks,
Heli

many many lumens!!!

Depends on your needs..

What are you looking to do with it?

Depends

Plus: Tons of light with long runtime and great throw
Minus: Warm-up and restrike issues, cost, limited light levels

My opinion is that the lower powered (10-14 watt) HID will be effectively obsolete soon due to capabilities of tri or quad Cree or P4's. In the 35+ watt range there won't be anything for a while that can compare.

Hi Heli,

HID is an improvement over halogen on many fields: Bulblife, efficiency, surface-brightness and color temperature. (tho some do like the 3200K warm colortemp of halogen)

Mostly the electronics that are needed to operate HID-bulbs are very stable and power the bulb WITHOUT fluctuations caused by draining batteries.

If you compare a 35watt HID with a 35watt projection halogen (short filament), you would see about 4-6 times higher lumens output with HID !
Also the surface brightness will be about 4 times higher, this is important for throw: Four times higher surface brightness means two times higher throw!

If you have questions, please ask..


Regards,

Ra.

I don't agree that 10w HID will be obsolete - at least, not until Lumileds proves they really can produce 500+ lumens from a one-millimetre-square die. You can get the lumes out of multi-emitter arrangements, but to the best of my knowledge, that simply does not throw like an HID. You get impressive light, but it doesn't "reach out and touch someone" the same way.

I guess what I'm looking for is a smallest HID that will throw no less than my 2 million CP vector but won't break the bank. Is there somthing in the $100-200 range out that is the size of a 3D or similar Maglight?
Thanks,
Heli

Sable is absolutely right !!

The most powerfull emitters of today still have lower surface brightness compared to halogen !! So they still have a long way ahead to reach the surface brightness of HID !!

EDIT: Maybe you don't know this: Laws of light: For throw, surface-brightness is more important over lumens output ! Ofcource you also need lumens to have decent sidespill, but most of all, you need the light to come from a surface as small as possible. With that, you need a smooth, perfect parabolic reflector.

Increase the diameter of the reflector (with surface brightness unchanged): You increase throw..

Increase surface brightness (with reflector diameter unchanged): You increase throw..

So, with HID, you can reach the throw of a much bigger halogen-spotlight, with the use of a smaller reflector !


And Heli, There are guys that mod Mag's to HID (mostly using 10watt Welch Allyn stuff) But I don't think those will be under 200$..
And everything needs to be perfect if you want to reach the aprox 125,000cp (!!) of the Vector 2Mcp with a 10watt HID-Mag..But it is possible.


Regards,

Ra.

...also be aware that most people underestimate real candlepower because almost all consumer lights are way over rated and most people would be very suprised how little candlepower most consumer lights actually have. A standard should be applied but there is none.

I own numerous halogen and HID spotlights.
When maximum light output that stays the same for the duration of the battery life is important then HID's are worth every penny more then the halogens.

When I know the light will be going on and off a lot I use the halogens.

You will simply get A LOT more light out of an HID of similar size then a corresponding Halogen light.
Sams HID or Amondotech Illuminator vs 10 MCP thors or similar sized halogen lights.

Regarding LED's and lower powered HID's, there are numerous areas where the bright multi-LED lights available are better suited then lower powered HID's. Note I did not say longer throwing or have brighter hotspots. Rather better suited to the application.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

get-lit said:

...also be aware that most people underestimate real candlepower because almost all consumer lights are way over rated and most people would be very suprised how little candlepower most consumer lights actually have. A standard should be applied but there is none.

Click to expand...

The only I can add to this: There is a standard ! But it is widely abused by many manufacturers. They think "who is gona measure it anyway??" But it is exactly the same when I sell a 50 watt halogen bulb saying its a 500 watt bulb!!

The few manufacturers that are honest about the CP-ratings of their products have to post very dissapointing values.

An exeption to this: Peakbeam is honest with the impressive 6,000,000 cp-claim for Maxabeam :duck:
Compare that to the honest claim of 30,000 cp of Maglite with MagCharger !! :candle:

I hope you know that I'm not talking lumens output here: Maxabeam has about 900 torchlumens tops (overdriven..) ! An average 10Mcp halogen-spotlight can easily top that !!


Regards,

Ra.

Thanks for the great insight. It sounds like HID may have some limitations. Dollar for Dollar, would you say the Sam's 35 watt HID is a good deal? the Wolf and other 20-24 watt light look really nice, but very pricey.... Maybe the Sam's light would be a first good venture into the world of HID???
Thanks for your time and quick responses,
Heli

twentysixtwo said:

Depends

Plus: Tons of light with long runtime and great throw
Minus: Warm-up and restrike issues, cost, limited light levels

My opinion is that the lower powered (10-14 watt) HID will be effectively obsolete soon due to capabilities of tri or quad Cree or P4's. In the 35+ watt range there won't be anything for a while that can compare.

Click to expand...

HID's will never be obsoleted You will never get the throw out of an LED you can get out of the HID at this time.

If you want a Flood light then you maybe correct.... but for throw nothing beats an HID due to the nature of the beast. Also HID's are much more effecient. 12v at 1 amp draw gives me around 600+ bulb lumens.


Mac

I own a variety of nice HID lights and also nice incandescents. The only problem with the HID's is you'll never have the beautiful and even beam that the nicest halogens like the SF M6 provide. You'll also have a variety of colors in the beam. You might be surprised at this but my SF M6 with 600 lumens sometimes beats my Microfire K2000R with its 1200 lumens at a distance in the green. The beam from the M6 is much more even in light intensity and color.

heliyardsale said:

Thanks for the great insight. It sounds like HID may have some limitations. Dollar for Dollar, would you say the Sam's 35 watt HID is a good deal? the Wolf and other 20-24 watt light look really nice, but very pricey.... Maybe the Sam's light would be a first good venture into the world of HID???
Thanks for your time and quick responses,
Heli

Click to expand...

I do not seem to remember any post where somebody already owned a Thor 10 MCP or similar light and bought an Amondotech Illuminator or Sam's HID and did not think it was worth the extra money.

The consistent, through it's entire run time, light output alone is worth the extra for me.
Add to that the fact that they put out more light over all, have significantly more throw, and are smaller. I personally think the cost for these two lights is a very reasonable price to pay.

Take Care,
mtbkndad :wave:

Depends on what you task is, HID's make nice durable lights that are much more effiecient with the exact same battery way more runtime same output. HID is easy on the battery.

With lumiLEDS bringing out their 502 lumen light chip soon, is it possible that HID will have had its days. 7 of these in an array is going to give 3500 lumen output, which is HID standard. Team that up with LED shock-resistance, efficiency and instant-on capability, HID may soon have had its day.

LED and laser technology will surely have some very amazing developments. Even with the higher output each new Luxeon continues to pump out, I would bet money that they still suffer extremely poor light quality with low color rendering index and mountainous color spectrums. Eventually these must be overcome in order to surpass HID and incandescent in real world lighting applications. I would be surprised if that would happen any time soon even if their efficacy soon supercedes HID and incandescent, but it would be nice to be proven wrong. Imagine a day when a little piece of plastic losslessly converts energy into any kind of light you wanted without failure.

MikeSalt,,

Please carefully read posts #7 and #12 !!!

On lumens output, even nowadays an array of Cree-emitters is capable of reaching impressive values.

But it is the surface-brightness that (hugely..) stayes behind !! (compared to HID) Only a revolutionary breakthrough can solve that within a few years !!!

And for throw you need surface-brightness !!!!!!

For a few years now, we enjoy the power of HID. It still is the best compromise between lumens-output and throw. But take a look at the incandenscent section of CPF.. its still huge !! This means that there are quite a lot of members that still go for incands !! Indeed there are a few incan-advantages HID does not have..

As for led's.. I think they will stay in their seperate section too !! Even when they surpass HID on efficiency, due to their voltage-behavure, they are very much suited for very small-, small- and medium-sized flashlights !

Each lightsource has its ad- and disad-vantages.:huh2: But what are we whining about ?? WE ARE FLASHAHOLICS !!! WE CAN HAVE ALL OF THEM !!!

I almost have all: Fluorescent, led, halogen, HID, Xenon short-arc and Mercury short-arc !!!



Regards,

Ra.

How about the advent of a cross between a LED and a laser... That would be something. Also consider the development of a readily available high power white laser that can be focused or flooded. Of course some sort of diffusion would have to be implemented to prevent eye damage. Just throwing out ideas.

my new Mag85 with the FM 2" bezel has sort'a taken the desire of a HID away from me... dont' worry... i'm sure it'll be back