Written by Greg Jacobs, Senior Editor for Jacobs Atv Magazine Back To Main

HID High-Intensity Discharge Lamp vs LED Light-Emitting Diode vs Stock Halogen Headlight Bulb on Your Atv!

Aftermarket lighting is the newest and hottest thing for Atvs. There are a lot  of choices out there, and you can waste a lot of money, or even worse destroy a machine's electrical system. This article will cover all the options, pros, cons, and everything in between. All Atvs from a Grizzly, Sportsman, King Quad, Outlander, Brute Force, and Foreman can be fitted with an aftermarket lighting system. This article will mainly focus on the Outlander's lighting system, since it has, by far the worst lighting system out of all the Atvs out there.

As I mentioned before, if you own an Outlander, you know how awful the stock Halogen 35watt bulb is. You literally have to ride around with the high beams on; and that is still not enough.

So, if you think your stock head lighting is horrible on your own ATV just imagine it's worse on the Outlander. During the course of this review you will see the transformation of the Can Am lighting from being a Double AA flashlight to being a roving flood light. I just want to clarify something before we get into this review. When I say Can Ams have horrible lighting, I mean the Outlanders and not the Renegade. The Renegade has excellent lighting with it's 4 60watt projector beams. Having said that lets get started.

I was going to seperate this review out for each lighting system, but in the end I decided to combine all three lights together.

Everyone really wants to see these lights in action side by side, as well as the pros and cons of each system. I am going to first provide a general overview of each system, as well as a technical description of how these systems work.

I am going to start with LEDs since their popularity has grown significantly, and I believe the lighting of future Atvs. Polaris has already installed LEDs in their new 2011 Ranger Rzr XP900. One of the biggest benefits are the sizes, and color options these LEDs come in, as well as other benefits that I will cover later in this article.

Most Law Enforcement and Public Safety departments use LEDs. Their compact size, the possibility of narrow bandwith, switching speed, and extreme reliability of LEDs make them very appealing for public safety use. The overall benefits far exceed the use of HIDs or Halogen bulbs for these applications. Note: the LED lights featured in this article are produced by Sound Off Signal; a company who supplies many law enforcement and emergency companies LEDs. This company has been in business for over 30 years so they know what they are doing.

Most people are familiar with LEDs for use in aviation lighting, automotive lighting such as brake lamps, turn signals, and indicators, in addition to traffic signals.

Here is where I had to school myself in how LEDs could be used as a headlight, instead of just being used in small flashing light applications. I always assumed you could just take an LED and simply plug it into your headlight housing and you were good to go. Wrong! I soon discovered LEDs must be used in their own self contained units.

Why? If there is one thing that will kill an LED, it is heat. LED's dislike heat build up and it is the quickest way to burn out an LED. That is one of the biggest negatives of LEDs. Many LED chips are built into clear or colored molded plastic shells for four reasons: 1) Mounting the semiconductor chip in devices is easier to accomplish. 2) The tiny fragile elecrical wiring is physically supported and protected from damage. 3) The plastic acts as a refractive intermediary between the relatively high-index semiconductor and low-index open air. 4) The metal or plastic housing helps to dissipate the heat.

This gives you an idea of what a typical LED projected light application looks like. Very, similar to what I am doing a review on.

When I talk about how you just cannot plug an LED into your existing headlight housing this is why. To get the light pattern you want, it can take 1,50 , or hundreds of little LEDs connected to a board.  It is then controlled through its very own self contained circuit board. The housing then acts as a way to protect the LEDs and circuit board, but more importantly the ribbed backside helps dissipate the heat.

Another positive aspect of LEDs is the efficiency these lights operate at. In 2002, Lumileds made five-watt LEDs available with luminous efficiency of 18-22 lumens per watt. A conventional 60-100W incandescent light buld emits around 15lm/w, and standard fluorescent lights emit up to 100 lm/w. A recurring problem is that efficiency falls sharply with rising current. This effect is known as droop and effectively limits the light output of a given LED, raising heating more than light output for higher current. Of course as time goes on, LEDs are becoming more and more efficient and re-fined.  One of the biggest advantages of LEDs over any other type of light is that it is subject to very limited wear and tear if operated at low currents and at low temperatures. Typical lifetimes are from 25,000 to 100,000 hours however, heat and current settings can extend or shorten this time significantly. The most common LED failure is the gradual lowering of light output and loss of efficiency. Sudden failure is rare. Like other lighting devices, LED performance is temperature dependent. Most manufactures publish ratings are for operating temperature of 68 degree F. LEDs that are utilitzed in climates where the temperature within the luminaire gets very hot, could result in low signal intensities or even failure. LED light output actually rises at colder temperatures.

We are now going to take look at the High Intensity Discharge (HID). The HID lamp is a type of electrical lamp which produces light by means of an electric arc between tungsten electrodes housed inside a transparent fused quartz, or fused alumina arc tube. This tube is filled with both gas and metal salts. This gas facilitates the arc's initial strike. Once the arc is started, it heats and evaporates the metal salts forming a plasma, which greatly increases the intensity of light produced by the arc and reduces its power consumption. High-intensity discharge lamps are a type of arc lamp. Compared with florescent and incandescent lamps, HID lamps have higher luminous efficiency since a greater proportion of their radiation is in visible light as oppose to heat. Their overall luminous efficiency is also much higher: they give a greater amount of light output per watt of electricity input. Like florescent lamps, HID lamps require a ballast to start and maintain their arcs. The method used to initially strike the arc varies: mercury vapor lamps and some metal halide lamps are usually started using a third electrode near one of the main electrodes while other lamp styles are usually started using pulses of high voltage. The down side of HIDs, is the wear, mostly from on/off cycles versus the total on time. The highest wear occurs when the HID burner is ignited while still hot and before the metallic salts have recrystallized. At the end of the life span HIDs begin to "cycle". The lamps can be started with relatively low voltage, and as they heat up, higher voltage is required to maintain the arc discharge. As the lamp gets older to maintain the arc eventually rises to exceed the voltage provided by the electrical ballast. As the lamp heats to this point the arc fails and the lamp goes out. Eventually, with the arc extinguished, the lamp cools down again, the gas pressure in the arc tube is reduced, and the ballast can once again cause the arc to strike. More newer ballasts can detect cycling and gives up attempting to start the lamp after a few cycles. So, that is the biggest downside of HIDs.

Okay, so that is background of HIDs.  HIDs have become very popular in automobiles, and have recently become popular in ATVs.

No doubt HIDs are worth it, and much better than stock lights. Plus, HIDs are fairly inexpensive, and you really get your bang for the buck.

Now, lets get down to real world application and comparisions. Lets answer the real question are HIDs better than LEDs? Here you go, and you can decide. I have put well over 500 miles on both the HIDs, LEDs and stock lights. I am very confident in evaulating these lights.

Out of all my machines the Outlander has the worst lights. So, I have really focused on improving the lighting on this machine, plus it is my #1 Trail Machine. So, this review will mainly focus on the Outlander, but it can be applied to any machine.

The above picture is of the stock Outlander headlights. They are basically as strong as a D battery flashlight.

The first thing I did was add a set of DDM Tuning HID headlights. 6,000 lumes, H4 bulbs, cost $54.00. For the price and benefit you cannot beat them. It really is the best bang for the buck. However, installing them did not come without problems. The biggest challenge was trying to discover why the machine would cut out when the HIDs were turned on. You have to ground the ballast to the frame. Please note, DDM Tuning no longer offers these HIDs.

As you can see the HIDs on the right are signficantly brighter than the stock lights. Bear in mind these are the same machines, which are Outlander Max's. We also have video of all these lights in action, and this video will be posted at the end. Here is a  set of HIDs on a Polaris XP 850 (below picture) on the far left vs stock lights.

As you can see the popularity of the HIDs have really taken off, but there is something else that is the next hottest thing, and that is LEDs. As discussed and shown above the benefits of LEDs are greater than HIDs. LEDs are fairly new to the ATV  market, but I believe are going to be the next hottest lighting feature. I have Sound Off Signal's two PAR 1,000 and two Ghost LED lights.

The next set of photos were taken by my main Magazine photographer, Roger. Roger did an excellent job in captuering the lighting of the different systems.

Below are several pictures of the Ghost LEDs in action. Before we get to the lights in action, I want to give some details on this light. The Ghost Rock Light is the newest additon in Sound Offs White Illumination product line with ultra powerful and bright LED illumination in a small, compact size. Light features a Heavy Duty, anti-crush bracket. Adjustable light head can be moved up or down to angle the light exactly where you need it. It is available in white or solid or split warning colors.

This light is built with 6 powerful Gen3 LEDs. The light includes 18" of 3 wire shielded cable for hard wire installation of any kind of vehicle. 10-30 volt operating range.

I choose these lights to act both as a day light running light, and to illuminate the ground directly in front of my machine. Almost like a set of fog lights. As the pictures and videos show this light system does both, and I could not be happier.

I am also running the PAR 1,000, in the trapezoid pattern. The trapezoid pattern is a pattern that is between the spot light, and flood. It offers pretty good distance, and a pretty good flood pattern. It is sort of a in between pattern. This pattern works very well.

The Par is 1000 Lumen, LED work light and are built for the most demanding work environments. These lights are built in the USA. These lights are designed for 30,000 hours of use. The mounting bracket is made of stainless steel and can be tilted forward or back 180 degrees. It has a waterproof o-ring sealed designed with a rugged die cast metal housing to protect the LEDs from dust, vibration, and moisture. The color temperature is 6500K, and it has a no hassle 3 Year Warranty.

The following pictures will show the illumination pattern, and you will see how well it lights from low to mid range, and from top to side. It really fills in where the headlights do not.

The following pictures will show the illumination pattern of all the lights together and by themselves.

As you can see from the above pictures the LED and HID lights are tough to beat, much better than stock lights. Which is better? That is tough to say as far as  light output. To me both sets of lights are equal, EXCEPT, when you get to long term wear, durability, and overall benefits. For me if I had to choose between one or the other, I would choose the LEDs since they put out the same or more light output of the HIDs, and their long term benefits are better than the HIDs. However, if you want the total combination, and maximum light output, I would run both HID and LED. Especially, since you can pick up the HIDs for only $50 to $80, and the LEDs for $104 to $120. Remember, LEDs will cost more since their overall benefits are greater than the HIDs.

Remember the pattern you choose is very important. Again, I had the Trapezoid pattern, which is a middle of the road pattern between Spot and Flood. You will notice your headlights are more of Spot pattern, and tend to shine further. If you are looking for an LED pattern that will do the same thing be sure to choose the Spot pattern, and if you are looking for upclose illumination top and side, then choose the flood. As I mention I love my above setup. The HIDs provides great illumination for mid to far distance. The Two Ghost lights provides great illumination from low to mid range. The Two Pars provide great side and high illumination. When you combine all three systems together you can see everything from immediate ground to the height of the trees.

If you want to see these lights in action, and tired of looking at photos here you go. I have to warn you this is a large file and is 18min long. LED vs HID vs Stock Light Video - 124mb - 18min - MP4 format

If you are interested in purchasing the LED lights that were featured in this article or other LED setups you may contact Rob at RAlsup@ARlightingplus.com or purchase them directly from High Lifter or Maxim Honda of Allen.

As a side note; Rob introduced me to these LED lights, and he really is the LED guru. Rob has been operating these lights on his ATV for years, and knows the ins and outs like no one else. So, if you have any technical questions regarding LED lights in general or the different lighting packages that are offered, Rob will know. Since Rob is located in the Dallas, Texas area, and if you are in the local area Rob will install these lights for you. For a fee, all you need to do is drop your machine off at his house, and he will take care of the rest.

Let this be a warning. If you are not familiar with wiring, or installing lights in general please, have someone install them for you. Some of these system put out a lot of power, such as the HIDs (20,000 volts on initial startup), and you can easily zap your electrical system if things are not properly wired. The picture to the right is a buddies machine in which he tried to install a simple set of LEDs, and he nearly burned down his ATV.

Some of his electrical wires were fried, and if the damage is to great you will need to replace your entire wiring harness, so be very careful. Even though the LEDs draw very little current you can still burn up your wiring harness if it isn't properly grounded or wired correctly. Again, Rob is highly skilled in wriring these systems up, as well as finding the proper mounting areas.

That pretty much covers everything. Just to recap. Remember, there is no delay when the LEDs are turned on, unlike the HIDs. The HIDs take a few seconds to warm up to reach full brightness. LEDs are perfect for on and off use, unlike the HIDs. On an off use shortens the life span of the HIDs. As I mention the overall long term benefits of the LEDs outweigh the HIDs, and worth the investment.