Thread: Drilling the bar for lights...?

Originally Posted by Tombie

No comparison

LED dont have the "punch" but are very bright up close.

HID are glare making machines at best... Delay as they fire up and produce a light much harsher to the eye.

Most people who do seriously long miles at night, suffer eye strain as the light from HID causes "startled" like behaviour in their eyes - its how we process the wavelength...

HID colour rendering also falls away as the bulbs age, so the light changes over time.

I've had 'Filament', HID, LED and now run Fyrlyt with a LED bar for slow work.

Wired properly Fyrlyt has got it sorted

Never used Fyrlyts, but I agree with Tombie's comments about HID. However I still use them and prefer a combination of Halogen and HID - I'm not a big fan of LED.

The biggest mistake people make with HID is going too high up the temperature scale. Anything above 4300k is too blue and exacerbates the glare problem.

I like a combination of halogen for close-up and HID (4300k) for distance. Halogen light is definitely much easier on the eye and I find it gives better contrast than HID making detail easier to pick. This is also why I'm not big on LED - lots of light close-up, but again a bit harsh on the eye. I like the HID for distance, where definition is less important. However, my predominant use is on windy roads in forests. On highways, where there are a lot of reflective surfaces, glare becomes a problem.

All this is seat of the pants stuff, nothing scientific behind it - just what works for me. No lighting solution is the best for every situation and it's worth thinking about what your usage will be.

My usage and Tombie's would be very different, hence my preferred solution is different to his. At the moment, I don't run anything on the Disco, as the standard xenons work well enough for my current use.

Cheers,
Jon

Originally Posted by letherm

Haven't had LED or HID but had Rallye driving lights on my last car. The Fyrlyts are better than those IMO. One of the reasons I bought Fyrlyts was that all parts are replaceable including the front lens. Check out their web site for full info if you're interested. I hadn't heard of them before this forum but am happy with them. BTW they can be changed from driving to spot by turning the silver dial at the rear of the casing.

Originally Posted by Tombie

No comparison

LED dont have the "punch" but are very bright up close.

HID are glare making machines at best... Delay as they fire up and produce a light much harsher to the eye.

Most people who do seriously long miles at night, suffer eye strain as the light from HID causes "startled" like behaviour in their eyes - its how we process the wavelength...

HID colour rendering also falls away as the bulbs age, so the light changes over time.

I've had 'Filament', HID, LED and now run Fyrlyt with a LED bar for slow work.

Wired properly Fyrlyt has got it sorted

Thanks fellas just wanted an idea because i was talking to my dad about them and neither of us had heard of them until a few weeks ago on hear thats why i asked and i haven't seen them around on other cars yet either, which I'm led to believe they haven't been out all that long only a couple of years so thats probably why they are still getting their name out.

Dad and I both loved the idea that you can pull them all apart and service them and so forth as he has a set of Rallye 4000s on his truck now and they have gone milky behind and its a bit of work to get them apart and clean them, he also has a 40" led rigid industries bar on his truck which he loves and i did like how you can change them from spot to spread in one click.

Thanks for the feedback keen to know as haven't seem or heard much on them thats all.

Originally Posted by Tombie

No comparison

LED dont have the "punch" but are very bright up close.

HID are glare making machines at best... Delay as they fire up and produce a light much harsher to the eye.

Most people who do seriously long miles at night, suffer eye strain as the light from HID causes "startled" like behaviour in their eyes - its how we process the wavelength...

HID colour rendering also falls away as the bulbs age, so the light changes over time.

I've had 'Filament', HID, LED and now run Fyrlyt with a LED bar for slow work.

Wired properly Fyrlyt has got it sorted

My theory on this is the combination of HID and Halogen causes this, every time you go from one to the other, your eyes are continually adjusting to the different colour of light, I believe if both your lowbeam and spotties are the same(HID or Halogen) you won't get that, "startled" like behaviour, as you put it

Just my experiences from the travelling we do.

Baz.

Originally Posted by Redback

My theory on this is the combination of HID and Halogen causes this, every time you go from one to the other, your eyes are continually adjusting to the different colour of light, I believe if both your lowbeam and spotties are the same(HID or Halogen) you won't get that, "startled" like behaviour, as you put it

Just my experiences from the travelling we do.

Baz.

I'd agree with this. Have HID low beam on the D4 and HID driving lights and this combination works well for me. I converted the headlights on the D2 to HID for exactly this reason - it was very difficult to adjust the eyes from HID light on hi-beam to the old candlepower of low-beam before I upgraded to all HID.

Would still be keen to have a look at a set of these Fyrlyts working though. There's a lot I like about them, and don't doubt that they'd out-perform many of the HID driving lights out there on the market today. Doubt they'd be any better than the more reputable brands of HID lights though, except for price (think they're about half the cost of Hella Predators from what I've read).

I've never had any real problem with glare off road signs etc using HID - but then I stick with the lower kelvin ratings that are recommended for the job, rather than go for the highest possible "you beaut cool blue" output that the gullible ones fit to their vehicles.

Without going into detail, on light output alone (and focal points etc) they out perform Hella Predators etc

Originally Posted by Tombie

Interesting version Not correct though

Umm, pretty sure that's how the conversation went when I spoke to him.....I guess he might not have designed Lightforce?? Pretty certain he worked for lightforce.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Without going into detail, on light output alone (and focal points etc) they out perform Hella Predators etc

Would love to see a real life comparison.

I remember hearing similar claims about certain Lightforce models when they were all the rage - and have seen those claims disproven more than once with my own eyes.

I agree too with your comment about HID globes losing their "colour" over time. The globes in my Predators eventually went off and were putting out a noticeably yellow light (this after about 10 years of use on a number of different vehicles). The price that Hella wanted for replacement globes resulted in the Predators coming off the bullbar and sitting in the bottom of a cupboard in the shed (where they still are). I've recently sourced a new pair of Hella globes through a work contact / supplier at an "attractive" price, so they may end up back on the bar in the not too distant future.

Currently running Britax X-Ray Vision HID driving lights - they're not bad but not as good as the Hellas were (before they faded out). But the X-Ray Vision lights have nice big blue "halo" rings around the lenses - looks good and maybe makes them go faster ................

But I've also had conventional halogen globes die off in quality / output over time on more than one occasion (after nowhere near as many hours as the HID's lasted for) - so I'm wondering if the Fyrlyt globes will be any different.

I would love to see the FYRLYTs in action I agree everyone says they are awesome but I guess just hard to know until your blown away by them, much the same as you can rave all day about how great a D4 is and people will be like yeah yeah then take them for a drive that's when they fall in love haha.

I did like how easily they came apart and how serviceable they were that's unreal!!