Hmm, what’s the “texture” on the front lens of the Polarion?
It’s a factory diffuser. It just clips in the grooves of the bezel ring. They work amazingly.
I call the diffused light from this a big ol ball of cotton beam, removes the hotspot completely.
Recently saw this Czech company, they make 4 models all HID, top one -> throw 4 kilometers…
hid has advantages on throw, but in many situation a sililar sized light like the BLF GT with LED is more useful
Awesome shot. HID not worth it anymore imho
Does the Title of this topic still hold true? Have LED tech advanced where HID is being forgotten?
I ask cause I don’t have any HID lights and would be interested to have one. what are the major brands out there?
Is this headlamp stable?
I doubt it. LEDs are nowhere close to the luminance for the size of the light source as HID, though LED is likely far better when a wider view of illumination is needed. A few marine large searchlight makers use both now for both spot and flood.
Just saw this thread and i had to stop by. They are less in use due to AWWW LED’s these days but i spoke with some high end torch makers they start thinking about drivers similar to AW and AlanB regulators. I don’t have any HID but i do have dozen incan mods from 1x16340 up to 8x18650 versions.
My latest build is CPF Fivemega Elephant II with 3” head and AlanB regulator which will run Osram 64657 bulb (250W - 11000lm).
Don’t have pictures but i’ll be happy to post after i get home from a trip.
Yes. Pictures.
Realistically HID was dead back in at least 2009. I know because at that time irrc the best thing going was the xevision 75W. Which could be blown away by a few hundred dollar diy mod.
Still to this day nothing goes over true 70-80watts handheld. From what i understand there are no quality high wattage long life bulbs and that is the main reason. All quality offroad hid lights max out at just 60-70watt by looks of it. HID is beyond dead because it is simply to expensive to make a quality reliable longlife high wattage monster for such a small demand, in a world full of mass produced leds. 800bucks for a reflector??
Military handheld lights are fine 70watts is plenty i would say, the lemax can throw 4km so that would be plenty for law enforcement, rescue etc. But flashaholics would like 200watts minimum.
When i think of hid, what comes to mind is old fashion awful things. Cheap slapped up large reflectors, massive body and ballast, useless pencil beams which are not even perfect. Long gone those days led is the only way.
I’m confused. My car has HID’s and I love them to death. Is this strictly a hand variant death wail I’m reading about?
I believe so.
The last two cars that I have bought 2015 Lincoln Navigator and 2015 Audi A3 both have HID. My daily driver is a Jetta TDI wagon with standard halogens, and they are barely passable. HID projectors are such a significant upgrade over regular halogen reflectors that they aren’t even comparable. When I bought the Audi LED was an option, but I wasn’t sold on automotive LED tech at the time. I feel that when you need multiple point sources to generate enough light for a headlight, then the technology wasn’t there yet. I know know with some of the matrix really cool things are possible. But I really like the ability to change tint in the HIDs with easy vs a lot more involvement with the LEDs. Also, most factory HIDs seem to be sold with the brightest HIDs in the NW range vs LEDs in the CW. I also don’t know if LEDs are going to melt ice from freezing rain or snow as well as HIDs, so that is another consideration.
HIDs still have their place in certain high performance flashlight applications. The Lemax lights are very, very good if you want continous performance. They have large batteries (with modern cells) and never overheat. There is no compareable LED light on the market.
Similarily the Maxabeam and Megaray still don’t have any rivals in stock form. Only the more compact, stamdard HIDs from companies like Polarion will be replaced in the near-term.
I just got my first HID light - Firefoxes FF5. Blows away any of my LED’s. Beautiful white beam with a massive amount of light.
I bought a second FF5. Really like this light. It’s similar in size to a TN42 but had 2x the lux and 4 times the output. Plus the output doesn’t sag in the way led lights do on turbo.
I totally agree! I got the 4300k and I love how it barely gets warm even after being on turbo for 15 minutes. I keep an extra battery carrier loaded with Samsung 30Q’s. Need to come up with a good shoulder strap solution. A guy on a different thread made his one using paracord
Can’t imagine what the FF6 will be. Maybe it’ll use the new Tesla 46800 battery or 12 21700’s for 1 kilowatt with a bigger reflector (:
I’ve never had an HID, mostly just incandescent or those garbage zoomie flashlights. 
But…I still want to wield the power of an HID flashlight in my hands!
Dude you should totally get the FF5 then! If you point it at any kind of plastic from a few feet away it starts to melt. I zapped an old t shirt (blue) and I could smell it starting to Burn before I came to my senses (: going to do that experiment outside