Old Niterider HID, should I bother troubleshooting it? Does work, sort of.

Got an old Niterider HID light. It is a helmet mounted setup with a 11 cell battery pack (13.2v) and the common 10watt HID bulb and ballast.

The problem is that the light doesn't want to fire. It flickers a tiny bit then goes off.

If I play with it long enough, it will eventually fire on and finally lights up.

Not sure if it is a normal brightness though after it finally fires on.

I was told that the ballast was bad when the light was given to me (it was free).

Since the battery pack and the charger seem to be okay, if the light itself is not worth fixing, then I will use the battery and charger with an old dual halogen setup with dual 10watt 12v bulbs that doesn't have a battery now.

I see the ballast for sale on Ebay for around 28 dollars. If that will fix it, that isn't all that much but just how bright will the light be compared to my Cygolite 350 LED light that I have on my bike now. I like the helmet mount that the light has so I would like to use that.

I think i read 675 lumens,,I had one before it does put out a decent amount of light,,On a review section of MTBR forum some guys said the ARCs were brighter than the seca 700...Go for it a fix it

There's a chance that it's just the bulb. I'd start from cheapest fix, upward. Batt checks out, then bulb (worse case, you have spare), ballast is last.... Unless some electrical error in switch or housing.

Just got another setup off ebay,,they said it was tested and worked,,,I got it and it did not work,,,i came cross a forum which had a 6 page discussion about this,,one place i called was sky high on the price for the bulb,,i am now waiting on a call from USHIO to help me find a vendor who can supply it without the $100 minimum order,,I did not pay that much for the ARC system, so if i can't get the bulb i'll resell the thing,,Heck the charger is $40 alone,,let alone the rest..

More about My light,,,I got it did not work, I let the battery charge then connected the battery and double clicked the button and got a green flashing light on the button that is it,,no bulb flicker at all,,

I'd check the battery under load. May be voltage available but not enough current, or perhaps bad contacts, etc.
Like I said before, start with easy/cheap fixes and work your way up when troubleshooting

How do you suggest i do that it has a sealed plug when it is connected,,furthermore i am not really down on the method of doing a test like that