See the Light

Let’s Talk About …..The Light in your life….

Now I’m not talking about who you cuddle up next on the couch at night, or even the spiritual guidance that you reach out to…. I’M talking about your headlight! Let’s get into the different types of lights you can have on your trusty steed!

We have all been rolling down the road after dark and noticed some lights are a yellowish orange color, some are super bright and bluish, and some feel like they are giving you an out of body experience a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind or a free mammogram without the lovely squish.

Why do these lights all look different? Well let’s get into that!

First are the yellowish orange looking lights, these are old school halogen bulbs. Halogen bulbs are based on the same technology that Thomas Edison patented in 1878! Halogen bulbs are incandescent lights with a tungsten filament inside. When an electric current is passed through the filament it heats up and starts to glow. The inside of the bulb is filled with Halogen gas which makes them brighter than your ordinary household bulb that is filled with Argon gas, and they tend to last longer. Halogen bulbs generate a lot of heat as well, which is wasted energy (unless you need to warm your hands up at a gas stop!). The yellowish light is much softer on the eyes so you won’t blind other drivers or yourself with bounce back off of road signs, but you are also much less visible to other vehicles on the road around you! The best appeal of Halogen bulbs are that they are fairly cheap to replace, which is good since they typically have a lifespan of around 2,000 hours. They have a brightness of around 3,000 Lumens, and project only about 300 feet

The next type of bulb is an HID or High Intensity Discharge headlight. These bulbs are 2 electrodes encased with xenon gas and metal salts. This gas and salt combination produces a bright bluish light. These bulbs are more efficient than Halogen bulbs producing more light and less heat while also consuming less energy. The brighter cleaner light also makes you more visible, but can give you some bounce back off of road signs. HID bulbs tend to be more durable than Halogen bulbs because there is no filament inside to break which also makes them more expensive. HID lights have a lifespan of around 15,000 hours. They have a brightness of around 8,000 lumens, and project around 1000 feet. These lights are omnidirectional, meaning they produce light in 360 degrees, so they need to have a reflector behind the bulb to redirect that light forward.

Lastly we have the free X-Ray Lights… also known as LED or Light Emitting Diode. These are not actually a bulb at all, at least not in the common way we think of a bulb. They are a small square that uses semiconductors to transmit energy emitting photons to create light. These headlights can get super-hot and often utilize engineered ventilation or a heat sink to control where that heat goes. LED’s utilize electricity instead of gases to

produce light, and are slightly more efficient than HID, and they require a lower power draw on your electrical system, meaning your battery could last longer due to less stress on those cold crank starts. Since LED’s are flat they emit light in a straightforward direction, so additional lighting may be desired to get adequate illumination along the sides of the road. Due to their small size LED’s offer a wide variety of configuration options, such as the Halo or Angel Eye rings, and the projector or Daymaker style headlights. LED bulbs have a lifespan of around 45,000 hours, so while they are considerably more expensive up front, the cost even out over the lifespan of the bulb. LED lights can emit in excess of 9,000 Lumens, and

project around 1000 feet. Converting to LED’s can be on the expensive side and may be more complicated than some people will want to tackle, as it usually requires putting a resistor in the electrical line and for me I had to cut the existing headlight bucket so that I could properly fit the wider base of the LED bulb in the proper position (just don’t forget to secure the beauty ring over the assembly or you might lose your headlight bulb in

a construction zone in PA… just sayin’)