PF spotlight hid conversion

[Blueknight]

I'm going to do an hid conversion to my professional favorite 20m spotlight (Yes I've had this thing for about 10 years without messing with it), my question is- I'm not going to use an sla battery but instead have it where I can just hook up to a car battery or plug into a cigarette lighter plug but still have a switch on the light, is there any special way the ballast needs to be connected to make it work? other than red wire to positive with a switch and black to negative? It'll be around the February time frame before this is done. Oh yea, all the guts (electronics) on inside the light have been removed. So only the bulb,ballast and switch will be the only electronics inside the housing.

 

[BVH]

You've got it covered, no other wiring than what you posted. Be sure that all wiring in the circuit is no less than 14 AWG, 12 AWG being better. That probably eliminates the stock "DC In" input connector. Have fun. Look for a "fast-Start", 55 Watt ballast and lamp combo if you don't already have one. Much more impressive when it gets to full brightness in a few seconds vs 10+ seconds.

 

[Blueknight]

Thanks for the reply, yea I kind of forgot about the dc in plug when I posted. While I don't really need it, it would be nice to have it connected. The kit I'm looking at is a 55 watt single H4 bulb motorcycle kit. It says 5000 luman with the 4300k color, I'm going for the 5000k color.

 

[BVH]

5000K is my "sweet spot" for color. I don't really like the 4300's and lower. I can't over-praise the fast-bright brand of ballast that is, or at least was avail on Ebay. So you're going to have your own input cable coming out of the body somewhere for connection to your power source and not use the stock input pin connector, right?

 

[Blueknight]

Wired to ballast with a long power cord with clips or cigarette plug. The dc in plug won't be used. I'll most likely go with a cigarette plug so if I decide to built a battery pack to go in a back pack or waist pack to be more portable. This setup seems to be the most simple and easiest to do, I like simple.

 

[Blueknight]

Well I got the kit and it's installed. Now I have to wait till dark to see what kind of beam pattern it has, hopefully I won't have to do much bulb adjustment.

 

[Blueknight]

https://www.flickr.com/gp/186607213@N07/DLx7F1

https://flic.kr/p/2ijaNPY

Hopefully this works, it's a couple pics of the beam.

 

[Blueknight]

Just out of curiosity, The 55w hid bulb I have,would it destroy the bulb if I used a 75w ballast with it?

 

[BVH]

Depending on lamp quality/brand, it may not "pop" right away but it will be very short lived.

 

[XeRay]

Just out of curiosity, The 55w hid bulb I have,would it destroy the bulb if I used a 75w ballast with it?

Your "55W" bulb is likely just a 35W bulb no difference, they just adjust the claimed color value "Kelvin" when operated at a higher wattage most likely about 45 true bulb watts.

Most Asian ballasts are rated for the ballast input wattage not the output as is the industry standard. If they are claiming 75 watts on the ballast, chances are its only 60 to 65 watts to the bulb.
Could be its even less, they do tend to inflate their numbers. You can verify the input wattage with 2 meters, one set on volts and the other on amps to the 12 or 24V input feed wires. Measure the actual volts and amps after about 2 minutes being on and things have stabilized. Volts X amps = watts. That ballast is likely only about 83 to 87% efficient so use 0.85 X the input watts to estimate the output watts going to the bulb.

 

[Blueknight]

Thanks for the reply. Yea I read after I posted that the ballast determines the wattage of the bulb or something along that line. Here is a description of the ballast and bulb from the seller--

[FONT=&quot]The ballasts have been improved to require less current on startup to protect the factory wiring and to extend the life of the bulb by not forcing too much power to it at once. Ballasts can also provide constant power to older bulbs which require more voltage to ignite. Output frequency is 250HZ, reducing the chances for electronic feedback which can cause humming in improperly grounded audio systems. Ballasts are more likely to work on vehicles with a Canbus system without additional accessories when compared to the DDM HID kit but still may require additional accessories for some vehicles. These ballasts are virtually bulletproof and are designed to last 10-15 years.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The HID Bulbs are based on the Osram CBI Series HID bulbs to produce up to 20% more light than a standard HID bulb and 50% more light that many HID bulbs on the market which allows you to see further than other HID kits. This is reached by changing the design of the capsule, using higher quality salts and electrodes to produce a more consistent output. Our Ultra HID bulbs warm up 20% faster than the standard HID bulbs. The bulbs use an optically clear quartz glass with UV protection. Our automated manufacturing process removes human error to obtain perfect alignment of the capsule for the best beam pattern available.[/FONT]