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My wife has been using my old HID light which I bought 3 or 4 years ago from The Rush, now gone out of business.
When it packed up recently she bought a new bulb (£100!). Lead where it entered rear of the housing was re-soldered by a mate (electrician).
It would appear that the battery and bulb are ok, but the light doesn’t work. When you switch on you get a very faint glimmer from the bulb. Looks like it is trying to fire up but failing.
Feel I ought to try harder to resurrect it now I have another working £100 bulb.
Any pointers or suggest someone who might be able to help?
Or should I just cut my losses and ebay the bulb?
Wow! £100 for a bulb!
I don't know anything about this HID stuff - can you tell me why? Just out of curiosity.
Only item left is the ballast, if you're sure the battery & cable is good - I repaired a few last year but not sure if I can still get parts from the states - email in profile if you want to send me the model or a picture.
Or should I just cut my losses and ebay the bulb?
I gave up on my HID light 2 years ago, unreliable and expensive running costs..... I say give up and switch to LED it's more cost effective!
Cut your losses and buy a cheap Magichsine LED unit. I replaced my Lupine HID with one & am very happy.
Edit: To explain my reasoning, this was after two replacement lamps, over 5 years in my unit. HID lamp fade and die IME, £100 a pop I found this unacceptable now when a Magicshine unit will be as bright as most HID's & is half the price of a lamp alone.
you could look at getting LED's fitted to your existing lamp and keep battery and stuff.
might be worth seeign what you can get for the bulb on ebay.
otherwise it'll be a new ballast.
I still run 2 HID lamps and am very happy with them but I may look to switching them to LED's if they start playing up...
Snaps
Have mailed you
Thanks
lumicycle should be able to supply ballasts?
otherwise, TBH, i'd stick the bulb on classifieds and get a new lamp.
Frankers - MemberI gave up on my HID light 2 years ago, unreliable and expensive running costs..... I say give up and switch to LED it's more cost effective!
Can you explain how the running costs of an LED light are more cost effective than those of an HID light? Surely the cost of charging the battery is still the same regardless of what type of bulb they power.
Replacement parts being cheaper I can understand but I dont see how repairs are a running cost.
[i]Replacement parts being cheaper I can understand but I dont see how repairs are a running cost. [/i]
Do you not see replacing your chainset as a running cost of owning your MTB? Why can you not equate that to replacement lamps or batteries in a lighing system? Both the mtb or light are useless without them...
To me the 2 lamps (bulbs if you like) and battery I replaced on my HID system, were running costs of owning that system.
Given the frequency at which parts on HIDs fail, it seems quite reasonable to consider them as running costs (compared to the amount of failures in LEDs).
z1ppy - Member
Cut your losses and buy a cheap Magichsine LED unit. I replaced my Lupine HID with one & am very happy.Edit: To explain my reasoning, this was after two replacement lamps, over 5 years in my unit. HID lamp fade and die IME, £100 a pop I found this unacceptable now when a Magicshine unit will be as bright as most HID's & is half the price of a lamp alone.
Am I reading that right, HID lamps fade over time? Is that common and over what sort of period do they fade?
Quick preface, I'm not an electical expert, but IME yes HID lamps fade, I've seen it with Lupine, Hope, & Lumicycle units. My experience was particularly bad with the Lupine unit - really bad when you consider there price. HID lamps life is supposed to be limited by the amount you cycle the power on & off (turn it on or off), but you get fade too IME.
What really highlighted it was LED lights (DX torches), we'd gotten used to our faded HID's, when the first LED was used, it blew the HID's into the weeds. I don't think this would have been quite so noticable if the HID's had been new.
This should not be mistaken for the clouding you get on the front glass of the HID lamp, you can remove the glass and clean it (there not an air tight unit).
I dug out my several year old L&M HID for my commute the other night, not only did the light output seem less intense than the 110 lumen Vis 360 I was also using, the RF interference stopped my Cateye cycle computer from working. Time to retire it I think.
I have noticed my HID has been a little dimmer than it was when new. I thought it was just my eyes getting used to the light it was putting out but maybe it's not.
Those magicshines are great VfM aint they. might place an order come pay day
v d I've an old one of these laying about I think The lamp unit is OK, the ballast and battery have stopped working on mine. I'd be happy to send it to you.
It looks like it's the ballast that has given up on mine. Just miffed that the wife went and spent £100 on a bulb! Otherwise I'd find it easier to bin
Emailing Snaps again who thinks he can solve the ballast issue, but finding it hard to identify which of the variants I have in my hand