I have a Ryobi P716 18V Xenon Hi-Beam flood light and I’d like to replace the bulb with a LED if possible. The HID xenon bulb is rated 35W, 4300 K, and 2800 Lumens. Does anyone have a recommendation?
2 Thanks
Welcome to the forum!
To your question: May I ask why? What do you want to achieve?
Any LED that bright would need sufficient cooling which is hard to implement.
Also you will need some sort of driver in there but that could be done with a cheap constant current buck module from AliExpress
1 Thank
L4M4: Since an equivalent bright LED bulb would run on lower wattage, it would generate less heat and the battery would last longer. I’ve done this with some older flashlights and they’re brighter and last longer.
1 Thank
Welcome to BLF!
To answer your post:
Google suggests it’s a P13.5S base bulb, I’d go with whatever looks least sketchy from the offerings online, if you’re lucky, the colour temperature won’t be 10,000K and the beam will be tolerable.
Slap a circle of DC-Fix window privacy film over the front to smooth up the beam.
I’m not aware of anyone doing reviews/testing of these types of bulbs on this forum, not at least any reviews that are not ancient.
Out of interest, do you own any modern LED lights? Convoy 3X21C (or similar “coke can light”) will blow this thing out of the water and might be better “investment”.
1 Thank
Gravelmonkey: I have several LED flashlights. I just wanted to bring this one up to speed with those on the cheap if possible. If not, I’ll leave it as-is since it’s still a good light.
2 Thanks
Most LEDs have an efficiency of 100lm/W if not pushed too hard.
For 2800lm you’d need about 28W.
Considering you’re using 35W for the OG bulb, that ain’t too bad, plus, the bulb and reflector are designed to go together for the best beam.
I’d leave it.
This line of reasoning doesn’t give you the full picture: it may (or may not) be true that you can find a replacement LED that is more efficient than the HID, but LEDs require heatsinking while HIDs require none. This is the reason for the above remark:
Also:
- HID drivers are completely different in operating principle from LED drivers–you’d have to rip the old driver out and get a new one in.
- The reflector for the HID bulb (an approximately uniform emitter) doesn’t have the right shape to accommodate an LED (a surface-mounted, approximately Lambertian emitter). You’d have to cut off everything from the focal plane to the vertex.
In combination with the fact that the light was built with no heatsinking in mind for the emitter, it’s best to leave the light and get a separate LED light if you wish.
Nowadays LED lights are catching up and performing on par, in both intensity and output, with almost all HID lights–most of them simply don’t have a reflector that is precise enough to correctly focus the arc. The only rare exceptions are dedicated thrower HIDs with specialized high-intensity (low-output) bulbs and high-precision reflectors (e.g., Maxabeam), which easily run you a couple thousands of $$$.
1 Thank
Use a compatible HID bulb, get the PCL661B 18V ONE+ LED SPOTLIGHT, or put a bit of effort into gutting the HID ballast + tricking out the DRM on some ONE+ batteries + inserting a LED/driver.
Honestly, just leave this light as is. HID isn’t too far behind LED, and HID has way more intensity.
HID can run hot, while LEDs cannot. And as mentioned before, the reflector is not ideal for LEDs.
All in all, it’s not worth it. Keep this light
it’ll be a cool rarity in a few years when everything is LED and people collectively forget we even had a competitive technology to LEDs.
And if you want a LED light to work with your battery system consider getting one of this style of lights:
Aftermarket automotive off road lights fitted to a Battery adapter.
or get fancy and DIY fitt a 12-24V automotive light to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/1etweu5/third_party_stuff_battery_with_built_in_light/
Thanks everyone for your feedback! It sounds like it’s best to leave the light as-is so that’s what I’m going to do.