I know LED’s keep getting better and better. But for ultimate output HIDs still seem to take it.
The bulbs are pretty cheap, as are ballast resistors. Anyone who has bought kits for a car know this. So why are there so few budget HID torches?
Wrong budget?
Most modern government-agency budgets won’t notice a $500 “Search And Rescue Light”. My budget & probably yours as well: not-so-much.
Plus, very few hobbyists & homeowners have much need for a “flashlight” (we need a new term for these over-the-shoulder torches) that can start fires and light up passing passenger jets…
That’s sort of my point. Why are HID lights so expensive?? The bulbs and the electronics are cheap, the hosts/bodies are cheap, as are reflectors.
In component form they are no more expensive than an LED or incan light. So why don’t we see affordable ones in the budget flashlight or torch arena?
Probably because the ballasts for flashlights are not cheap. In order to make a ballast small enough for a flashlight tube (C or D sized tube), a special ballast needs to be made and the higher the output, the bigger the ballast, (usually). Also ballast heat is an issue, as well as battery power. In order to make a flashlight, they usually want to have the battery special made too, so it fits in the light and this is all a custom approach, so volume matters. I would think a minimum of 1,000 units would be necessary, to get a Mfg to even do it and probably more units to get it to a reasonable price, (Under $250). I think overall cost and design issues, versus just using a simple led, makes HID kind of out of the picture. I also think LED will be the way to go for automotive, in the long run and you will see HID disappear over time, kind of like the cassette tape. I would take a LED light over HID any day and maybe they don't see enough of a market to bother with HID advancements.
The improvements that LEDs have made over recent years has meant they’ll now do a lot of the jobs you used to need a HID or high power incandescent light for. There is a limit to how small you can make a HID light for example you can’t make one small enough to fit into a pocket. HID is around the 65 lumen / watt mark so it’s been surpassed in terms of efficiency by LED. Efficiency is important when you’re talking about something that is portable and powered by batteries.
That would be the low quality ballast and bulb combos.
The FF4 hid flashlight surpasses 100 lumens per watt in all 3 sellectable output settings.
The officially quoted numbers I’ve seen for the FF4 are 2000, 4000 and 6000 lumens in its 24W, 40W and 100W modes. That’s 83.3, 100 and 100 lumens/watt respectively. I’ve seen people quote 7000 lumens for the FF4, so I’ll be generous and put that number into my calculation, which gives a fairly amazing 116.67 lumens / watt, However there is a catch. HID lamps have a ballast and that ballast consumes power, 25% is typical. That takes the power consumption up to 75W in the 60W mode, which takes overall efficacy down to 93.33 lumens / watt.
I’m guessing at the ballast current consumption because I don’t have any good data on overall power consumption, i.e. nobody has measured “tailcap current draw” and published the numbers, the efficiency could be better or worse than I’m calculating!
I think the comments in this post sum up the drawbacks that HID has quite well!
FF4 with a 100 watt output sure would be nice but it doesn’t exist.