Ryobi 35W, 18V HID

[peterharvey73]

Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I was wondering if anyone knows much about these Ryobi One+ CXN180G HID Xenon lights? It is rated at 35 Watts and outputs 2800 lumens. It claims to be 8x brighter than a halogen. How well does it throw and flood?

Also, the Ryobi CML180G Halogen Spotlight rated at [a higher] 55 Watts, but it only has a 6V halogen bulb. At a higher 55 Watts, what is it's lumen output, and how does the throw and flood compare to their HID Xenon light?

How do these lights compare with a more conventional Nitecore TM11 Triple XM-L with 2000 lumens, and 286 meters of throw to ANSI standards?

Ryobi CXN180G HID Xenon with 35 Watts and 2800 lumens.

Ryobi CML180G Halogen with 55 Watts and a 6V Halogen bulb.

I have a whole range of Ryobi products, so I find buying these HID/halogen lights potentially useful...

 

[Phil Ament]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Hi there peterharvey73,


I actually already own both of these lights. I am only a relative newbie, especially when it comes to HID lights (I have 2 other HID lights) and I also do not have any electrical light testing equipment or a good camera (for beamshots) but I can try and answer your questions as best as I can. First off is the Ryobi CML180G halogen light and it looked great when I first saw it in the shop so I bought one but it is not very bright at all. Most of my good quality 2 x CR123 flashlights kill it, so unfortunately there is just no way that I could recommend this light. The Ryobi CXN180G HID light is however a completely different story and even though I have only used it for a couple of brief times, I must say that I am EXTREMELY impressed with it. The whole light and especially the reflector looks very well made and the lamp/bulb is a 4300k H3 and appears to be extremely well centred. It is rated at 2800 lumens but I wouldn't be surprised if it actually even more than this. The beam is a well focussed fairly tight beam and it seems to throw a VERY long way with a nice hot spot. I have also spoken to the Ryobi technicians that actually designed the light and they have told me that when using the smaller BPL1815 1.4Ah "Compact Lithium" battery the run time should be at least 30-40 minutes and with the larger BPL1820 2.4Ah Lithium battery it should be around 60 minutes plus.


About the only thing that I am not that impressed with is the fact that when you look at it from the front the return wire is in the 3 o'clock position which would mean the shadow will be at the 9 o'clock position however I do not recall noticing it very much the few times that I have used it. I would much rather the return wire be at the 6 o'clock position (shadow at 12 o'clock) but at this stage I am pretty sure that you will need to take apart the whole light to get at the bulb to rotate it. I was going to attempt this but the very high quality screws that hold it together (and there are many of them) are Tamperproof T20 Torx screws which I already have a screwdriver bit for, but due to the fact that the screws are so deeply recessed in to the body my short Tamperproof T20 Torx bit was not long enough to reach them. My local Jaycar store sells ones that should be long enough to reach (here) so I am going to purchase one shortly. I am not sure if all the lights come with the return wire like this or if they just come in a random position and I could not check some of the other lights in the store as all the Ryobi One+ boxes are all heavily glued together and there is no way to open them without completely destroying them which is something I didn't really want to do at the time as I didn't think that the store would really appreciate it. I also asked the designers the question about the return wire positioning although for some reason they could not give me a firm answer.


The other good thing is that when the light is fitted with the BPL1815 Compact Lithium battery it weighs just about nothing and it is extremely comfortable to hold an not in the least bit tiring. Further to this and like you, I also own many other Ryobi One+ products and due to this fact I already own seven of the BPL1815 Compact Lithium batteries and I have since purchased one of their BCS618G 18v Dual Chemistry 6 Port Supercharger which I cannot recommend highly enough as I can now keep 6 batteries stored in there 24/7 and all are always fully charged and ready for use at any time. With the standard BCL1418 Mono Port charger you ARE NOT meant to leave the batteries on there once they are charged and we have actually had a couple of batteries completely ruined by leaving them on there for several days, which is something that we were initially told by Ryobi was ok to do. Thankfully Ryobi has replaced them under warranty but have told us that we MUST remove the batteries once they are charged and this is now clearly stated in the BCL1418 Mono Port charger instructions. The other good thing about the 6 Port Supercharger is that once the batteries that are stored in it are charged it completely stops any charging and it goes in to an Energy Star Qualifying energy saving "standby mode" which uses almost no power whatsoever and this mode is shown by a slowly pulsating blue light. The charger will also automatically come back on once every several days or alternatively if it senses that any of the batteries require topping up. It also has another feature which comes in handy if you are about to have a session of heavy battery usage and it is that the pulsating blue light is also a button and if you press it momentarily it will "wake up" the charger which will then go through and make sure that each individual battery is at peak charge. The only slightly down side is that it can only charge one battery at a time however if you are like me and have more than enough batteries this will not be an issue.


Just to sum it up I really love this light and just how well it is put together and performs, especially considering the price and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone that asked. I usually would of got to use this light much more but we recently had the police helicopter hovering very low over our and our neighbours houses for 50 minutes and shining its "Night Sun" searchlight and there were police everywhere and even though they would not tell us exactly what was happening I did manage to find out a little from one police sergeant who said to me and I quote "It is an emergency situation and all that I can say is that it is something to do with someone shining lights". Now this had absolutely nothing to do with me and I suspect that it may have been a peeping tom shining their lights in someones window or possibly even someone shining a laser at an aircraft but due to this very recent event I have been feeling a little paranoid about shining all my mega bright HID lights everywhere and accordingly I've had to keep a very low profile with my lights for the past few days.


Lastly even though I am a relative newbie and for the above reasons I haven't yet got to use my new Ryobi One+ HID light as much as I would have liked to, I really hope that this information has been both informative and of some assistance to you and if you do have any other questions whatsoever please don't hesitate to ask or even PM me. Due to the fact that I am in Australia and as I finish typing this it is now 2.40am (my wife is gonna kill me) and I better hit the sack now otherwise I would have gone outside with all my HID lights and done a few more tests/comparisons but I will try and do this over the next day or two (police helicopters excepted) and if I can I will post some extra info. I have only got your normal sort of run of the mill automatic camera (good quality Canon Ixus though) and I have never ever attempted to take any "beamshots" or anything like it but if there is something in particular that you would really like to see then just ask me and all I can do is try my best. Once again I hope that I have been of some assistance and I look forward to your response.



Sincerely Yours
Phil Ament :wave:

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Most places have a generous return policy. Buy it, carefully unbox and try it out, then decide whether or not to keep it.

Edit: It's been pointed out to me that opening a Ryobi box will leave it in a condition akin to having gnawed through the cardboard. You wouldn't have an easily-returnable package if you tried this.

 

[Phil Ament]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Hi AnAppleSnail


Whilst what you say is true unfortunately all the Ryobi packaging is very heavily glued together and it is almost impossible to open them without destroying it to some degree. The few places that I went to were very hesitant to open them and I can understand why as when I purchased mine there is absolutely no way that I would have accepted a previously opened one because from past experiences I would have automatically assumed that it had either been already used, or had some part missing from inside the box or that it was a faulty one that had previously been returned by someone else and either way I would not have wanted to unnecessarily take that gamble. I would also be absolutely flabbergasted if someone actually bought one and then tried it out only to decide that it wasn't worth and to then return it. By the way where are you guys (or girls!) located because I was under the impression that they were only available in Australia and New Zealand. Also I would be very interested to know that if someone else does either get to look at one/some prior to purchasing or even actually buys one, what the return wire positioning is in other ones of this particular light and if anyone else has attempted to rotate the lamp/bulb successfully. Once again though I will state that I really love all aspects of this light, so much so that there is every likelihood that I may even go and buy a second one for myself.


Sincerely Yours
Phil Ament :wave:


P.S. The other one that I own, the Ryobi CML180G halogen light reminds me very much of one particular model of my many SureFire flashlights, the E1E. Very nice looking and well made light, total shame about the absolutely dismal output though!
P.P.S. Written on my Apple 27" iMac i7

Most places have a generous return policy. Buy it, carefully unbox and try it out, then decide whether or not to keep it.

 

[peterharvey73]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Thanks for your speedy response Phil.
I have a Panasonic Torch below.
It has a xenon bulb, and it performs like an incandescent Maglite. 🙁
The hotspot is yellow [super warm] and tiny, and the flood is super dim.
However, it throws the hotspot a long long way!
I purchased an $18 led 13.5mm bulb for the Panasonic 14.4V.
Now the hotspot is brighter and pure white, but still pretty useless since the hotspot is way way too small; much smaller than an XP-G emitter's hotspot.
Only having purchased this Panasonic torch and led bulb, do I now realise why LED flashlights must have aluminium bodies, and not plastic hosts.

Back to the Ryobi, thanks for letting me know that the halogen is a dud; you'ed saved me a lot of money - I don't want another dud like the Panasonic Xenon Torch.
If it is that bad, I'm not sure why it is rated at 55W, when the HID is rated at only 35W?

About the Ryobi HID Xenon, it sounds great with 2800 lumens.
About the 4300k tint; does it appear neutral, or warm like a traditional incandescent, or warm like a car's halogen, or warm like a car's xenon HID bulb?
You say the HID xenon has a tight hotspot and very good throw.
How big is the hotspot relative to a typical XP-G, XM-L, or triple XM-L emitter?
Is the spill very bright too? Like an XM-L or triple XM-L emitter?
Or is the spill pretty dim like a Maglite incandescent???
Overall, is this HID Xenon meant to be a flood light, or throw light, or a combination of both?

Also, isn't it confusing how there is a Xenon Incandescent bulb, and a Xenon HID bulb??
It's also confusing because xenon, argon, and krypton - are all "halogen" gases, aren't they?

 

[Dougcov]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I have the Ryobi One+ CXN180G HID Xenon light. It has plenty of power (throw and spill) and isn't too heavy. The only downside is having to buy the batteries. IF you already have the battery for something else, o for it. the light easily out throws my M3X and TK 41

 

[peterharvey73]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I have the Ryobi One+ CXN180G HID Xenon light. It has plenty of power (throw and spill) and isn't too heavy. The only downside is having to buy the batteries. IF you already have the battery for something else, o for it. the light easily out throws my M3X and TK 41

Dougcov, I need the light for house work.
How well does the CXN flood?
Does it flood like a triple XM-L, or hopefully even better like a car headlamp, or the street lights, or lights in a tennis court, or football stadium???

 

[Phil Ament]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Hi again


I have just found another thread (here) about this light where there are a lot of very informative posts including some beam shots and some photos of the inside of one that has been pulled apart and it all looks like very good quality. I also noticed that all the part numbers are very different in the US. One person also said that they are available at Home Depot but he also found them much cheaper at Harbour Freight (Quote: "I have found "Ryobi" tools at Harbor Freight for half of what Home Depot is asking for the same thing") although I haven't verified all of this yet. Make sure that you read right through to the end though as one person who had originally said that these lights were great and that he would highly recommend them but he then changed his mind because he seems to have had three faulty ones in a row. He then said he will not be trying a fourth but he couldn't help himself and did end up going to get another one which he has had absolutely no trouble with it and he now classifies it as, and I quote "a keeper :thumbsup:".


I have also noted that there is some mention of quite a few people having problems with their Ryobi Lithium batteries. I too had a number of faulty ones that Ryobi replaced and I then started to suspect that it was actually the "single port" charger causing the problems so Ryobi ended up replacing that too although I still ended up having a problem or two, however ever since I have purchased the "6 Port Supercharger" several months ago I have had all 6 of my batteries stored in there non-stop and I have not had one problem at all. I am actually about to call one of my contacts who is in a very high position at Ryobi Australia just to try and get some more information about all of this and I will try and post any extra relevant news that I have. Once again I hope that this all helps.


Sincerely Yours
Phil Ament :wave:

P.S. I just added the thread link that I originally forgot to include. peterharvey73 I hope that this information is what you are looking for and I hope that it will assist you.

 

[DIY Lumens]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

If it is that bad, I'm not sure why it is rated at 55W, when the HID is rated at only 35W?

Because it is a halogen incandescent. HIDs are not incandescent; they use a high voltage arc and are much brighter watt for watt than any filament-type lamp.

 

[Phil Ament]

Hi everyone

I have only just discovered this thread about the Ryobi HID light. I have one of these as well as about 10 other Ryobi One+ items including garden and power tools as well as several of their different model lights (Halogen, LED, Fluorescent and HID) and I just wanted to let you know what I have experienced. I too have had troubles with several of my Ryobi One+ Lithium batteries which Ryobi has now replaced under warranty. What would happen was that when some of the batteries were put in to the single port charger they would originally charge but then when I came back to get them both the red and the green charger lights would be flashing which is the indication for a "defective" battery, and once this had happened several times the batteries would either go flat prematurely or no longer work at all. After having the batteries replaced under warranty exactly the same thing started to happen again so I began to suspect that it was actually the charger that was faulty and killing the batteries so I contacted Ryobi who then decided to replace my charger under warranty. Unfortunately the same thing started to happen again and when I contacted Ryobi about it they replaced the charger once again but they told me that I MUST remove the batteries from the charger once they were fully charged and that if I "stored" them on the charger that this problem would likely reoccur. They also pointed out (in a very nice way) that the "single port" charger's instructions clearly state that, and I quote "When batteries become fully charged, unplug the charger from the power supply and remove the battery pack" so after being given this information I never stored the batteries on the charger again.

Since then I have purchased one of the Ryobi One+ 18v Dual Chemistry 6 Port Supercharger (US Product Link, Australian Product Link) which listed in the "features" has the following statement and once again I quote "This is the first charger where it is recommended to leave your batteries on the charger without damaging the cells". Since I originally got this item a few months ago now I have had all 6 of my 1.4Ah Compact Lithium batteries stored on the charger 24 hours a day seven days a week and I have NOT experienced even one single problem. This particular charger has several wonderful features and it not only keeps all the batteries fully charged but it also "conditions" them to keep them all at maximum performance and this seems to have cured ALL my problems however I must add what I consider to be two very important pieces of information.

1) I HIGHLY recommend this charger if you want to maximise the life of your Ryobi One+ Lithium batteries but PLEASE NOTE that even though it has ports for 6 batteries it can only charge ONE battery at a time, however most times this is not usually a problem at all.

2) With the many Ryobi One+ tools, batteries and chargers that I have now had for the past 10 months or so I am now of the firm belief that most if not all of my Lithium battery problems have been caused by the "single port" charger. I have now tried at least 7 different ones of this same model charger and I have eventually ended up experiencing the same problems each time. I also feel that this same "single port" charger has done some irreparable damage to several of my Ryobi One+ Compact Lithium batteries that I originally purchased right at the start, but all of my batteries that have only been charged by using the "6 Port Supercharger" have all been performing faultlessly without fail. I have some contacts pretty high up in Ryobi that I am going to touch base with regarding these problems and if I have any extra relevant information I will pass this on to you.

Lastly I do really love my Ryobi HID light so much so that I may even go back just to purchase a second one for myself. About the only thing that I do not like is the fact that the "return wire" is located at the 3 o'clock position and I had planned to open the light up to rectify this and to turn the lamp/bulb around to the 6 o'clock position so that the return wire shadow will be at 12 o'clock, which to me would make it be in the least noticeable position (correct me if I am wrong). I have also noticed in this thread that the member "Jazz" has already pulled his apart and he has included some really excellent photos that will assist me as opposed to having to open mine up "blind" so to speak. I do have several questions though that I would really appreciate an answer to, and they are as follows:


1) For any one that either already owns one of these lights or has just had the chance to only look at one, could you please advise me as to the actual "return wire" positioning of their lights or any of the ones that they have only seen.

2) I am presuming that it is just a matter of revolving the lamp/bulb to the correct position but has anyone actually attempted this. I just wanted to know if it is actually possible to do this or if there are any tabs or anything that may actually prevent this from being done.

3) Can either "jazz" or anyone else that knows please tell me if I actually need to separate the two body halves to get to the lamp/bulb and if so how or what is the best way to remove the rubber bezel surround and if this is actually required to separate the body of the light.

4) Can anyone post any actual run times that they have experienced. I currently only have the 1.4Ah batteries but I would be interested to know what the run times are for both the smaller 1.4 Ah "Compact Lithium" batteries as well as for the larger 2.4Ah batteries.

5) I have had numerous people who are interested in buying one ask me a lot of technical questions about the performance of this light and also descriptions of the beam and what it compares like to other similar lights but being a relative "newbie" I could not really give them the proper answers that they required. Could someone with a little more knowledge/experience please post some descriptive information that I may be able to pass on to them as I (and they) would really appreciate it.

6) I wish that someone with a lot more technical knowledge than me would pull an old "dead" battery apart with the possible view of using part of the casing to make it in to a sort of a "plug-in" lead type arrangement for use with an external power supply, whether it be just a 12v cigarette lighter plug/adaptor or maybe something else. I am not even sure that this is possible but if it is then that would make this light even far far better, and if anyone can achieve this please let me know!


Anyway that is all for now and I really hope that any or all of this information has been of some assistance to somebody!



Sincerely Yours
Phil Ament :wave:

 

[peterharvey73]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Thanks everyone for your help; I'll look into buying this one...

 

[Phil Ament]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

Thanks everyone for your help; I'll look into buying this one...

I truly do believe that you will be extremely happy with this light, especially due to the fact that you already have the other Ryobi One+ stuff so you will only really be outlaying under US$50 just for the light. I have some other HID's that I have paid up to A$250 for and the Ryobi is not only much better made (just look at these pictures of inside the light) but it also kills them in the performance stakes. I hope that some of my information may have been of some assistance to you and I would really love to hear what you think once you actually have the light.


Sincerely Yours
Phil Ament :wave:

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

HID flashlights have some slight UV exposure concerns. The bulb glass and front glass both remove a lot of UV, so:

If you spend a lot of time around this lamp, you may feel like you have sand in your eyes. This is the beginning of UV exposure (sort of like sunburn on your eyes). I have only experienced this while working with an HID 35W lamp pointed at me, and yours may filter better.

Also, these are darn bright. Don't fire it inside or else your wife may exile you. The concentrated light alone can melt carpet.

 

[Echo63]

My wife bought me a new cordless drill today - i managed to convince my wife to add the Xenon (HID) one+ system light in too

I got it all home charged the batterys - plugged one into the light and fired it up
Its a perfect partner to the maxabeam - a nice floody worklight that will still punch out a couple of hundred metres

 

[Chrontius]

The spill is crushingly bright up close - I can practically flatten grass with the photon pressure; it's brighter than the hot spot of lesser lights.

The beam has a fairly broad corona that's effective at middle ranges - think of the longest line of sight you're likely to get in a suburban backyard, and it's plenty adequate for that. The hot spot has an effective range measured in blocks. I can trivially light up stop signs further than I can read them.

I've never run the battery (I have one large lithium shared among four tools) dry, even with the circular saw. Do I believe the published 60 minute run times? Yes I do. The biggest problem I have is it's brighter than I'd like frequently, and I don't have a diffuser nearly big enough for that crazy rubber shock bezel.

Phil, facing directly into the business end, the return wire is at more or less exactly the 3:00 position.

I've yet to try taking mine down for service, and I'm a bit gun-shy about doing so for kicks while this is still under warranty. Deeuubee had problems, there was apparently a bad batch, and I don't want to get burned. At some point, I'll probably try mounting a 120v step-down transformer and rectifier inside a dead pack, but I have no idea when I'll wear out a pack. Perhaps I'll ask the local battery refurbisher if they have one.

 

[tonnygarden]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

The Ryobi one+ 18V HID lamps have high intensity beam for nice lighting in dim area which can help for the drivers at the night time.

 

[Echo63]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I have a Ryobi Hid (xenon 35w)

I love it, it's a great light, especially around the house.
i recently installed a vice on my bench, and I just bounced it off the wall behind the bench (underneath the bench) and it lit up the bottom of the bench nicely so I could see what I was doing.
same with the i inside of the roofspace when I was putting boxes of junk up there.

As a work light it is great.

Once it's warmed up it will happily reach out across the lake near work, at least 200metres and floods a nice wide area (I was comparing it to a Maxabeam though, so I felt it was very floody, but that is in comparison to the Maxabeam's 1 degree needle of light reaching out all the way across the lake.)


The return wire shadow on both of mine has been on one side of the beam (I can't remember which side at the moment) its not a problem In use though.
my first one had an issue with the trigger lock, causing it to turn off, Bunnings happily replaced it.

All in all, I'm very happy with it, and I would buy it again.
I will try and get some beamshots next time I have a quiet night shift at work.

Fwiw - I have 2 of the compact lithium battery's, a drill, impact wrench, circular saw, chainsaw, jigsaw, multitool, palm sander and angle grinder along with the light.
i bought the light originally, and bought the drill (which I needed anyway, as my old cordless was on its last legs) to get the batteries to run it, and have continued collecting tools as I need them.
I am pretty happy with all of the one+ range that I have used

 

[DutchR]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I have one, but want to pencil the beam to as small as possible. I use it to hunt, and need the light to focus the light as far as possible, and to try and not have any washout around the light. I am a light n00b, so any help is appreciated. in the mean time i use it at work (mechanic) and its REALLY bright looking at stuff under a car lol

 

[idleprocess]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

I've been looking to replace my expired B&W weedeater with one of the ONE+ cordless models and happened to notice the HID spotlight.

From what I'm reading elsewhere, there are no provisions for bulb replacement by the user and it seems prone to breakage (perhaps why the design was seemingly revised). I see in the other thread that someone opened one (presumably with an "I void warranties" bit set), but I'm not seeing any information about replacement bulbs or the like.

Looks really interesting. Suspect I'll plunk down the money anyway since the weedeater needs replacing anyway and it would be nice to have cordless power tools that work...

 

[DutchR]

Re: Are Ryobi One+ 18V HID Lamps any good?

1 or 2 year warranty IIRC on these things.......