Comparison between LED and halogen

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bigbutterbean

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I currently have a 6v, 3w LED headlight which puts out about 270 lumens. It runs off a mini-generator, but once I make the impending jump to a 98cc 4 stroke, I'll no longer have that option. I'm looking at a 55w H3 halogen headlight from NAPA. I would like to know if I run it on a 7.2v nicad battery if I can expect at least the same amount of brightness as my current headlight or possibly even a little more? Not worried about how long I can run it on a single charge, as I dont do a lot of night riding anyway and its no problem for me to carry a second battery for it if necessary. Just want to know what kind of brightness I could expect out of it.
 
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mew905

mew905

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Lights usually have brightness ratings on the box (though usually the bulb, the actual housing most likely wont). But in my experience, Halogen are the brightest lights I've seen on a car (other than police LED's), Xenon may be brighter (I'm unsure of this), but they're built for strobes.
 
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bigbutterbean

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mew905 said:
Lights usually have brightness ratings on the box (though usually the bulb, the actual housing most likely wont). But in my experience, Halogen are the brightest lights I've seen on a car (other than police LED's), Xenon may be brighter (I'm unsure of this), but they're built for strobes.
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Thanks for the reply. I know Halogen is brighter than LED. My actual question is this. The light I'm looking at is a fog lamp, so obviously the manufacturer expects that it will be run on a 12v car battery. I would hope to be able to run it on a 7.2v battery. So with running it on a 7.2v battery instead of a 12v, can I still expect a decent amount of brightness? ( I would assume that the brightness rating on the box would be for the expected power supply, in this case 12v, so using less power would probably lower the brightness from the manufacturer's expected rating?)
 
biknut

biknut

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Have you thought about using a 9V? It would probably be brighter than a 7v but I have no idea for how long.
 
mew905

mew905

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It really depends on the bulb manufacturing as to how bright it will be below its rated voltage. Some wont light up at all, others will be very dim. Similar to speakers and other electronics, it depends how sensitive it is to voltage.

However I believe there is a formula, I'm not sure what it is. I imagine that every time you square root the voltage, your bulb will be half as bright (lumens). dont quote me on this as some bulbs I've seen get ridiculously dim until near peak voltage, or maybe thats just how our eyes react to light, but I'd say just try it, worst comes to worse, just get a higher voltage battery. You can get surprisingly small 12v batteries (I've seen some about half the size of a AAA battery).
 
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bigbutterbean

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Someone in the chatbox had mentioned that Halogen bulbs use up batteries very quickly. Since I would have to wall charge, I'm not sure this is the way to go. I'm going to look around a bit and then decide what I want.
 
Harold_B

Harold_B

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I have not done a retrofit using a 55w hid, just replaced a few with LED. There are some issues with the ballast and under voltage but I am not an electronics guru. Perhaps someone can provide some input here or you can search over at the candlepower forum. One way or the other 55w is a lot to drive on a bike with an undersize battery and no generator. The Aleman has suggested what I believe is the better path and that is LED. I suspect they are driving that Amazon XM-L to the 3A max (350% of the rated current) to get that output. It's pretty inexpensive though so if it dies an early death maybe that's no biggie. You might reconsider a 12vdc system with LED.
 
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bigbutterbean

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I am considering a 5w halogen mr11 bulb or an LED light, but I would prefer it not be something I have to build myself (swapping bulbs out is ok), and I really prefer that it run on a 7.2v nicad. I dont want a big bulky battery to try to find room for on my ride. I also prefer it be something that looks good on a pair of triple trees. I dont do a lot of night riding, this is more of a just in case type thing, but I want it to be adequate for the occasional clip to walmart or the convenience store.
 
GearNut

GearNut

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The_Aleman said:
Sure a 55w Halogen is brighter than smaller LEDs, but if you compared Halogen vs LED at same wattages, the Halogen can lose, badly.

IMHO, you should look at powerful (read: >1000LM) LEDs, which will use less than 1/4 the energy a 55w automotive halogen will.

Example I've been eyeing, check out the pics!
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IMHO, that light is awesome! I have one.
Also I got this lens for it:
http://www.amazon.com/Angle-MagicSh...UTF8&qid=1356151128&sr=8-5&keywords=xm-l+lens
I really like the wider flat beam that the lens gives.

As I was searching for the lens, I found this beast:
http://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-HeadL...1356151052&sr=8-29&keywords=cree+xm-l+bicycle
5000 lumen!?!
I want one!!!
 
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bigbutterbean

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Harold_B said:
Something that looks good on a triple tree? Any links you can post?
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Um, What I really meant was, my triple trees (suzuki K10 hydraulic motorcycle forks) came with headlight brackets to mount between the top and bottom tree, so something that would fill up that space would be great.
 
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Deimus

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Regarding halogen bulbs and energy consumption, halogen bulbs produce light and heat. ...a lot of heat. This heat will be eating your charge without giving you light. So a halogen bulb is not the best technology for a limited resource application, ie. a battery source. The halogen bulb is fine for our cars because of the surplus electrical generating capacity available. The LED bulbs are a better suited technology for battery powered lights. ...that is, to get the maximum light from a charge.
 
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blckwlfny1

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i wanted a good looking light that would run for more than 2.5 seconds on my battery. so i made one using a lantern housing and LED's form here. LED's produce very little heat so all of the electricity turns into light.

http://www.ledsupply.com/

the owner is super helpful....it was very easy-no re-do's...before this project, i didnt even know how to solder wire. if i could do it anyone can.

zpt ...as to the amt of time a halogen will last on a battery, most batteries have a milliamp hours rating. the trick is to figure out what your light draws.

light power (watts) / battery voltage = amperage draw

2 watt / 6volt = .06 amps= 60 milliamp/hour...
a stack of 5 AA batteries is 6 volts (1.2v apiece) and 2200 mA/h
.....that gives you 6 and 2/3 h of running time (2200/60)
 
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bigbutterbean

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With a little help from others, I've figured out what setup I'm going to run. I'm going to run this headlight: https://www.treatland.tv/black-headlight-for-all-mopeds-p/moped-headlight-black-guia.htm with this bulb: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002BHSJSA/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?ref_=pd_sim_auto_3. I'm going to wire two 7.2v nicads in series with quick disconnect so I can wall charge them. That bulb draws 5W, at 14.4v, it will run for over 7 hours on 2600mAh batteries. Its costs a little more than I had wanted to spend, but imo its worth it for super bright lights that can run for hours without a charging circuit.
 
Harold_B

Harold_B

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Interesting little bulb replacement. Runs on either AC or DC and a pretty wide voltage range. 6500K will be a little on the blue side but will be nice and bright in low light. Please post an update when you have it wired in. That light/bucket will look great!
 
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bigbutterbean

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I'll start a new thread once I have it wired up. I'm going to try to order the bulb as soon as possible, because that seller only has 10 left in stock. Its gonna be a little while till I can order the light bucket and the batteries, so I probably wont be posting anything else for a little while. But once I have the light wired, I'll take a picture of it at night so everyone can see how bright it is.
 
MotoMagz

MotoMagz

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bigbutterbean said:
I'll start a new thread once I have it wired up. I'm going to try to order the bulb as soon as possible, because that seller only has 10 left in stock. Its gonna be a little while till I can order the light bucket and the batteries, so I probably wont be posting anything else for a little while. But once I have the light wired, I'll take a picture of it at night so everyone can see how bright it is.
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that bulb has a bunch of rice grain leds which are all firing to the sides.You will be seen but you will not be able to see much.You need something that fires forward.I would find a light bucket to fit on ebay and then rig up your own.You can get alot of life out of one high powered led and one battery.
 
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