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HID v LED lights

15K views 36 replies 23 participants last post by  Ben Marc 
#1 ·
What`s everyone's opinion on these lights?? Which one is brighter for field work where dust can stick on the lens. This is on a cane harvester elevator that currently has halogen lights that once a bit of dust sticks to the lens they are like candles. I know a few guys that have put LED light bars(6"Long) on there but the harvester currently has a few HID`s on the cab roof facing forward and I`m very impressed with the light out put. Also probly a dumb question but is Xenon Lights just another name for HID or are they a different beast??? Thanks
 
#2 ·
Having run both LED and HID's my vote is for LED. There is lots of radio interference that happens when I turn on the HID's at night. The ballast on HID's tend to mess up radio signals. The LED's take less power to run and are just as bright with zero interference.
 
#3 ·
Led for me

I like the led light better as well, have had both on tractors and as backup lights for trucks. The hid's take a while to warm up to full output every time they are switched on, the LED's are instant. That is comparing both of the ones A&I offers. The led comes in a nice aluminum housing that seems quite durable whereas the hid's are in plastic. The hid's also require more room to mount due to the balast being incorporated into the housing
 
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#5 ·
There is no cheaper solution that adding a HID bulb and ballast into an existing housing you have. The optics of the lens completely determine how much output you experience. In general most HIDs put out far more light than LEDs, because most LEDs are extremely expensive to buy that have the output quality of a HID. Most certainly you can get LEDs that equal HIDs, but you will probably spend quite a bit of money. You can upgrade a good light housing to HID for $35, so they are very inexpensive. LEDs can be great for lighting a small area, but if you are looking for a light that shines a half mile down the road or lights an enormous area getting LEDs to do this is substantially more that HIDs generally speaking.

Mate I like your thinking! If I could leave the existing housing there and just change the lens would be good.
Where do you buy the bulbs to suit a JD housing?? And what is ballast???? sorry for the dumb question. Cheers
 
#9 ·
I'm in favor of the LED lights myself. The main reason being the electrical load that the HID lights can put on an already stressed system especially something like a combine, silage chopper, or even a cane harvester. The only reason I mention those machine is because a lot of the machine functions are electric over hydraulic and then you add things like yield monitors, guidance systems, auto steer system, etc. you will probably run into a lot of electrical issues with that piece of equipment.
 
#10 ·
we have both on our 4wds the hid are a little brighter but the lights tend to die after a while new more expensive lights seem to do the same im told. CNH is always replacing ballasts im told. The LED lights are awesome less power draw we have a 30 in led bar on the one 4wd and 4 dually D2s from rigid industries they have been great low power draw almost as bright as hid and very reliable I vote for led
 
#12 ·
A while back someone on here was talking about having installed the HID conversion kits for the row of lights in the front of the cab of a JD 9600 and had issues with the higher output watt version being hit and miss in "firing up" because of too much voltage drop with the massive amount of initial draw they take to get them going. Also possible circuit breaker tripping issues and again to get them up and running. That sort of cooled my enthusiasm a little over the idea of realizing the lights won't come on and certainly don't have time to mess around with issues like that when trying to get crop off in our narrow little window of opportunity. Of course that isn't to say it shouldn't be done but expect there are brands and wattages that would fit our JD's in this case better then going and overloading the system.

Farminflyboy, do you happen to have a link to these LED replacement bulbs for a halogen light housing ?
 
#17 ·
A while back someone on here was talking about having installed the HID conversion kits for the row of lights in the front of the cab of a JD 9600 and had issues with the higher output watt version being hit and miss in "firing up" because of too much voltage drop with the massive amount of initial draw they take to get them going. Also possible circuit breaker tripping issues and again to get them up and running. That sort of cooled my enthusiasm a little over the idea of realizing the lights won't come on and certainly don't have time to mess around with issues like that when trying to get crop off in our narrow little window of opportunity. Of course that isn't to say it shouldn't be done but expect there are brands and wattages that would fit our JD's in this case better then going and overloading the system. QUOTE]

yes they can be a bit finiky but I have found people that install them do half a$$ jobs of connecting wires, I soldier all the connections, and I have also found things that were a problem waiting to happen such as poor connections at starter, alternator, relays, on a 9600 the relay/fuse box is in the engine compartment witch is a long way to the cab through too small of wire to take the startup draw, they take an up to par wiring but the draw is not any higher of the halogen accept for startup. I have around 40-50 of them kits and 30-40 led light bars of various sizes and also have a few led replacement bulbs, the led bulbs work pretty good in the front of our 865B, not exceptional but a good improvement over halogen
 
#18 ·
When looking at the specs of the HID lights there draw is low compared to a normal halogen that was put on tractors 10 years ago. We had added lots of aftermarket HID lights and love them. We have found they have low draw and 6-8 well placed HID lights can light your tractor up so it looks like a space ship 2 miles away because it is so bright.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Chompy, where are you getting your HID units from as there seem to be a few brands and models within brands that fit in the same bulb number fitment category, not to mention rated wattage draw. Confusing seems to come to mind !. So what watt units have you been installing in the 9600 specifically and for that matter color temperature of the light ?. Also what series of halogen bulb comes as standard in the 9600 as I have yet to have a need to pull one to replace.

I could see complaints from my brother and the "old feller" we try to hire if we can when it comes to the radio not working properly and then myself, I hop in when its stupid late out and trying to stay awake !. I wonder if there is a unit out there that they have solved the interference issue with. Does anyone notice more problems with the brighter lights and the dust issue on the windshield causing it to blind the driver as its very bad as it is, its like the window becomes a wall between the eyes of the driver and where your supposed to be able to see and it builds up in no time in our conditions. Just don't want to create even more of a hazard in that way as JD did a poor job of designing where it allowed the stray rays to fall as it should never have been designed to shine against the windshield at all.

A few posts back it was said about soldering wires, isn't it somewhat of a plug and play system of the HID harness plugging into the existing female portion of the combines harness that would normally plug into the halogen bulb ?.

Sorry for piling so many questions on you but I know so very little about them, never have experimented with HID at all yet.
 
#22 ·
We have 55w 4300k in all the cab lights and 35w 4300k in the stubble lights on our 9750 and 9760 and have no trouble with radio signal. 4300k will give you the most usable light and is white with a tinge of yellow. I believe the 9600's are 9006 bulbs but can't say for sure. The HID kits are plug and play.
 
#25 ·
Amps to run lights



I do not have any experience with electrical interference from any type of lights but I do remember back in the 80s when I would key the mic on the CB and it would either stop the header or start the unloading auger, and not always at a good time! That was an early canbus system I think and I had to use a marine antennae that was remote grounded. This seems like a different problem though that what is happening here with lights causing interference in a AM/FM radio. But we just don't need our computers getting screwed up from unnecessary interference.

The other issue here is power draw on the existing wiring in any unit. Wattage is a power used number and can be found by multiplying volts X amps ( Watts = Volts X Amps) or that formula can be worked to find amps, which is
Amps = Watts
Volts
So it is easy to determine if your lights are overloading a circuit. Another guideline is the same as house wiring, 14 gauge wire = max current 15 amps, 12 gauge wire = 20 amps, 10 gauge wire = 30 amps and so on.
If resistance increases for reasons like long wires, poor connections, heat then the voltage drops and you need bigger wire to supply the required amps and therefore the wattage your lites need.

I have found that some farm equipment uses way too small a wire and component size and it is critical not to add more draw on some of these circuits than they can handle. I have rewired several machines with heavy cab tire (extension cord wire) and take the power off a good source , like even going right to the batteries, and run the heavy wire directly to the lights. Then install a continuous duty relay of more than adequate size and trigger it with the old light supply circuit , which now will only be supplying maybe 1/10 of an amp. It makes the lights brighter and you do not have any worries of overheating expensive circuit boards and starting fires in dangerous places.
 
#23 ·
I've just been getting mine from ebay. The last lot I put in a 9600 were like this
55W 12V HID Xenon Beam Conversion KIT H1 H3 H7 9005 9006 4300K 6000K AC Slim | eBay

I have also used HID kits with the larger 'square' type ballasts. In my experience both have caused radio interference, but they may not all be like that. I'm pretty sure the factory HID's in my 9760 caused no interference.

9600's all use a 9006 (also called HB4) type bulb in the roof. As STSman mentioned, 4300k is the colour of choice for maximum light output. Previously I've used 4x55w and 2x 35w, and ocasionaly one won't fire up. I put 6x55w units in the most recent 9600 I did, and that seems to work fine.

Certainly, if you have a lot of dust HID's will light up more of it. I clean the windows every week or so, and wipe them down with a rag at night if they start getting dirty, and for me visibility isn't a problem. Not sure what your 9600 is like, but mine has small 'blinds' on the bottom side of the light bezel, which are meant to keep light off the windscreen.

In my experience its a plug and play instalation. Soldering is certainly not neccesary, and won't gain any extra performance in a 9xx0. Just undo the 3 screws and springs that hold in the light, unplug the bulbs from the wiring to remove the lights, and give the area behind the lights a good clean out. They generally give you double sided tape so you can stick the ballasts to the interior of the light compartment. From there unscrew the blue fitting and pull to remove the halogen bulbs, and install the HID bulbs. Make sure you hook the black wire from the ballast to the black wire on the JD light harness. It also pays to check that the black wire is in fact an earth, because the HID's won't light up if polarity is reversed.

From there, hook the two high voltage wires from the ballast to the HID globe. Let them hang and check they all work before you screw them back in. It's a simple job, and you won't have any extra hardware visibly hanging from the roof.

LED's have a lot of good points, but HID kits cost a lot less for a similar amount of light.
 
#24 ·
Thank you for that Chompy, I printed that out so I can refer to it and get the right bulb type if I decide to try a set for one of the 9600's .

Our combines do have the little molded in extenders below the lights but that just isn't good enough it seems. I have a feeling that the conditions in your part of Australia are a lot drier then here come evening and maybe the type of dust we have which tends to be worse from canola just sticks to everything and in the evening the dew comes on and it just builds up thick on all surfaces. The fact that neither combine has one of those fan systems under the feeder throat is bad as so much dust pukes out the front of a conventional as our old TR 95 with the rotor was so much better for lack of dust.

I have to wonder if the 97xx series JD uses a different type of radio that isn't affected by the HID system.

Still am curious if a retrofit LED bulb is worth using or if its just a gimmick so far that fails to meet expectations of creating HID performance as I am guessing they have not been out on the market all that long.
 
#26 ·
I have to wonder if the 97xx series JD uses a different type of radio that isn't affected by the HID system.
It's certainly a different radio, but I think it's more to do with the quality of the lights. Pretty sure the HID's that JD use would cost 20 X more than the ones I've put in:eek:. I don't remember exactly, but the HID lighting package (5 lights) was something like $2,500 on my last tractor quote. You would hope that you'd be getting a superior product for that kind of money!

As you've suggested Transaxial, I've put in more heavy duty wiring to run extra lights, and the JD ATU autosteer which is fairly sensitive to voltage drop, but HID kits can get by without this, because they only need full voltage to get them started - once started, they use a less power, and reach full brightness without issue.

I did some testing on a batch of 55w HID kits years ago. With a 14.4 v power supply, at startup they draw 5.7 A, or 82w. This ramps up to maximum draw of 6A after 7 seconds, then it drops down to be stable after 20 seconds, drawing 3.6 A, or 53 w.

I admit that heavy duty wiring would certainly help the issue of lights not starting up, but given the choice of flicking a switch on the occasion one doesn't fire, or re-wiring the lights, I know what I'd do.

The other interesting thing is that HID's seem to use the same amount of watts regardless of voltage. If voltage drops, they draw more amps. The fact that 6 can run together on a 9600 without ever tripping a breaker, indicates that they are able to reach full power, and full brightness, so extra wiring isn't necessary. No need to complicate things.

I've done a couple 9600's, a 9500, CTS and 9760 all on factory wiring, and they all work fine other than the odd occasion one globe doesn't fire first time, and the radio interference issue. All owners are very happy with the upgrade.
 
#27 ·
If possible, I'd go with LEDs. Ran a JD 8345R on harvest this year with LEDs and they would outshine the combine. I'd kill my back lights when dumping combines so I didn't blind them. They make some great yet reasonably priced LEDs now, just a matter of what you want. I'm toying around with putting an LED bar on our 4WD for when I plow roads during winter.
 
#28 ·
I have been putting them noise cancelers on the lights themselves, I bet if a guy put one on the radio life would be good, they are cheep enough, I think 8-10 bucks but we started running radios with serious built in and you can make a pile of crap piece of machinery cool by doing that, my help don't complain about what they drive as long as they can listen to what they want to! much cheeper to pay serius xm 10 bucks a month then to make payments on newer equipment
 
#31 ·
I have bought over 50hid kits for different pieces of equipment, and am very happy with all of them. I have noticed a few things that might help. There are 2 types of ballasts available. Analog and digital. The digital is more expensive, and also worth it. They seem to be more consistent on startup, will cause less interference (not eliminated though) and are smaller to mount. Best color as mentioned above is 4300K. Have tried some 5000K which is pure white light, and it seems to be a less natural color. 6000k in a couple vehicles, but they are blue coloured and strain the eyes. Especially in winter. The 4300k have a bit of yellow, most closely mimic natural light and according to any reading I have done, also put out the most useable light.

When ordering the kits, you just have to know the model of bulb in your housing. Speaker light housings work very well if you are replacing the housings as well.
 
#32 ·
Installed some more LED's on my planting tractor and went ahead and put some facing rearwards on my drill and one on each side of the drill pointing forwards so it lights up fencerows and can see better if I need to nudge my guidence one way or the other. 225$ worth of lights turned it into daylight. NO radio interference, and less amperage draw than the candles it came with stock.





 
#33 ·
LEDs are the way to go. They come in spot, flood, bulb replacements, light bars, even different spectrums for your preference. I have some on my sprayer and couple on my seeder. I would like to replace all the bulbs on my seeder tractor to LED. superbrightled.com has been were I go to for bulb replacements. Hope I have that address correct.
 
#34 ·
I see LEDs with heat sinks and even fans to cool the electronics. This makes me wonder if LEDs (particularly the after market ones) will last very long in the harsh environments that farm machines often operate in. Dust, vibrations, etc. HIDs have supporting electronics as well, and I have had several fail on me for whatever reason.

Wish I could afford to put LED lights on my sprayer booms to illuminate the spray pattern at night. That sounds wonderful to me, especially being able to strobe the lights rapidly to see the size of the drops in daylight.
 
#36 ·
Hi

On the Nordic Lights website they have a light simulation page where you can compare their HID and LED lights. Here's a link:

NORDIC LIGHTS® - Herrmans Oy Ab Product Light Simulation

Their brochures for the lights also have details of the different light patterns available for each light.

I sell their range in here in the UK and also fit them to the Sprayers that we manufacture. For sprayer nozzle illumination we find a high beam or pencil beam lens works great mounted on the Centre Frame shining down the back of the spray pattern. The attached image is of 40 Watt Pencil Beam LED on a 24m sprayer. The light pattern itself extends up to 400m.
 

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