Headlight replacement?

DucatiHoney

DucatiHoney

Administrator
Staff member
Reading the "Accessory lighting" thread got me thinking...

I'm on a 20+ year old bike with stock headlight. I believe it's working as it was originally intended, but it's not very bright compared to the new lights out there. As the days have gotten shorter, I find myself riding more during the dark again and have had a couple of issues where drivers obviously didn't see me. I think my headlight gets drowned out in the sea of brighter headlights from cars and other bikes. Plus, my headlight just doesn't illuminate much for very far when I'm riding outside lighted city streets.

For a 1994 M900 can someone make some recommendations for either a new headlight, headlight modification or accessory lighting that might help me out?
 
auntiebling

auntiebling

megalomaniacal troglodyte
Staff member
one relatively simple thing is to install a relay kit to make sure the bulb is getting the highest voltage it can get, as factory wiring usually is underisze and sends the juice through a circuitous route.

eastern beaver has some motorcycle specific kits that are compact and can probably fit the relays in your existing headlight housing to keep them out of the elements.

if you're feeling a little more adventurous and don't want to spend the eastern beaver bucks, a generic relay kit from a car can be stripped for parts which is basically cutting off the 2nd headlight plug.

http://www.amazon.com/Relay-wire-ha...sbs_263_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=06269KX1ABWA0X08651J

the relay kit would also allow you to safely increase the wattage of you headlight without fear of melting the factory harness which has been known to happen regardless of manufacturer. at 20 years old there is oxidation throughout your wiring harness that contributes to the heat generated running anything on the bike... hell just cleaning all the contacts in your stock setup might help noticeably, don't forget the ground.

the accessory lighting thread pointed to an advrider thread, that was these guys
http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/H7-3000-lumen-LED-Headlight-bulb_p_86.html

that looks to be an LED replacement bulb for standard headlights. i know nothing about them but that is very intriguing.

you can also upgrade the housing/lens/reflector. i put these in an old car and it was an awesome upgrade all alone and there is one in my oldwing right now.

http://www.amazon.com/HELLA-0023959...&qid=1442596828&sr=1-2&keywords=h4+housing+7"

that would be my starting point. there are better ones out there, CIEBE comes to mind, but for the price Hella is hard to beat. if the housing alone isn't enough, a good high quality halogen bulb and the relay kit is next.

read here for more than you ever wanted to know about automotive lighting (also has high output bulbs, relay kits and the cibie housings for sale)
 
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SFSV650

SFSV650

The Slowest Sprotbike™
Do you have a 7" round headlight?
If so there are options for a drop-in LED solution with reflectors etc designed for those bulbs (rather than the retrofit stuff in the next thread over). They might be in the $300 - $500 range, but that's cheap if it let's you extend the life of a bike you already have.
 
DucatiHoney

DucatiHoney

Administrator
Staff member
I hadn't thought about cleaning stuff... novel! I have bird-crap all over my bike right now, so I might just pull things apart and clean some internals as well as give the bike a bath. I'll look into these other solutions as well. I'm really liking the idea of an LED replacement. I don't think my headlight is 7" though. I don't have it here today, but will check this evening. Muchas gracias for the info thus far.
 
vkb

vkb

.
Pretty sure your bike uses an H4 bulb, which is a dual filament bulb that has shielding on the bulb that works in conjunction with the hi/lo reflectors in the headlight dish in order to throw a proper and legal pattern down the road.

Most "drop-in" LED and HID H4 bulb solutions out there do not feature the requisite shielding around the filaments and thus turn your bike into a light cannon that blinds everyone driving towards you and everyone you are following. It's basically high and low beam at the same time with just two different intensities: "stupid bright" and "oh my god it burns". It truly is a dick move and I hate people that use these things.

There are drop-in replacement H4 bulbs like PIAA and Sylvania Silver Star Ultra that will offer whiter and brighter light. This is going to be the easiest and most immediate fix, and these can be found at just about any auto parts store. It's not a revolutionary "daylight all the time" level of improvement, but it will be a significant improvement over the ancient bulb that your bike probably has now. The trade off with these brighter bulbs is that they typically have a shorter life span. The star that burns brighter burns shorter and all that, though the ones in my bikes have been going strong for a few years now.

As others mentioned, improving the power to the headlight by rewiring is another option.

If you really want to amp up the light then you need to look at full replacement LED or HID headlight units that replace the entire headlight bucket on your bike. This is going to involve some wiring, adding relays and ballasts to the bike, and probably a couple or few hundred dollars.
 
Dyn Blin

Dyn Blin

BARF'd
Some other tidbits

All the above is great advice- a bit more from experience with old bikes generally in order of easiest & cheapest:

  • Contact cleaning and re-insulate:
Something that should be done periodically on all bikes- we get spoiled with generally mild conditions and it's easy to neglect. Some contact cleaner from your local auto parts store, some time and patience will yield a wealth of knowledge about the condition of other electrical junctions on your ride. Ensure the cleaner is plastic & rubber friendly, have some ventilation, and choose an insulating grease for re-mating the connector contacts.

  • Headlight Reflector Cleaning:
If you don't have a sealed assembly, cleaning the reflector may yield some unsuspected gains too- I'm always amazed at what seems to get in and coat the reflective surface no matter what level of care was seen in its life.

  • Bulb Upgrade:
Be careful to match the original wattage (higher is tempting, but will stress that old wiring). Newer designs of the "old" style halogens yield some significant gains too. PIAA's " Xtreme White " and Sylvania "Ultra Silverstars" have both worked for me.

  • Rewire with a relay
As mentioned above, this will avoid all the old bottlenecks of "stock' wiring and age-related effects of oxidation. It's not hard to do, and once done, yields a permanent improvement.

Although I've experimented with some of the "better" LED replacement bulbs, unless you have a complete assembly with a reflector designed for the bulb, it can get dodgy related to beam cutoff, throw and alignment to keep out of oncoming drivers' eyes. The technology has advanced in huge leaps, but I haven't personally seen a "prefect" solution-yet. YMMV
 
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ST Guy

ST Guy

Well-known member
Do NOT put an LED bulb or HID bulb in a housing (reflector and lens) designed for halogen. The design requirements are very different among the three.

Do all of these things to get maximum performance from your current light:

1. Get a quality bulb. No tinted bulbs of any kind. Tint robs light output. And PIAA's claims of xx watts = yy watts are complete bullshit. Avoid PIAA.

2. Rewire so that current comes directly from the battery to the lights (using a relay, of course) instead of going through the stock wiring harness. It's very, very common for stock wiring harnesses, even on new bikes, to have significant voltage drops by the time the juice gets to the bulb. Most bikes already use relays but still route the power to the relays through the lousy stock harness. And, of course, if your bike doesn't use a relay, by all means rewire and utilize a relay.

3. Make sure your reflector and lens are clean.

And if you still need more light, get a quality pair of LED driving lights. Halogen is old school and uses too much current. HID is better but still uses more current than LED.

And don't be put off by the relative high cost of a quality pair of LED driving lights. The money spent is well worth it. And remember, you can always pull them off the bike when you sell it and put them on your next bike. One of the very best is Clearwater. Not only are they great rugged lights, they're dimmable and can be wired up with your horn circuit to go full bright when you hit the horn. A nice safety feature.
 
sgrant914

sgrant914

Well-known member
After a rock cracked the halogen headlight on my Buell I went with a 7" round TruckLite LED replacement. Much better light and draws less energy. That's my excuse at least to buy more heated gear. Super easy, no relay etc, just remove old, plug in new.

Mine is an older style like the one on the yellow jeep in the picture. I believe they have just gotten better optically. I do like it not being too futuristic looking, I wasn't into a bug eye look with a hid type projector. It seems cars notice me more too due to the whiter output. A bit pricey but I had a busted light anyway.

http://betterautomotivelighting.com/2012/05/24/inexpensive-7-round-led-headlights/
 
D

davidji

bike curious
Many good suggestions.

Shouldn't be too hard to test voltage drops in the headlight circuit with a voltmeter or digital multimeter. Test voltage between as near as possible to the bulb and the positive terminal of the battery, with the engine running. That will tell you if there's a problem to fix there.

From what Ive read the bulbs themselves can go dim over time especially if they've been operated at low voltage. So it might be worth replacing the low beam bulb too.

As far as cars picking you put from a sea of headlights, people recommend a triangle of light. Seems to work for me. If headlight work gets you sufficient illumination and you only need conspicuity, amber photon blasters are a simple way to do it. They have a subtle eye-catching flicker.

When I had them on my Versys, Twisted Throttle Denali D2 lights both improved illumination for me (to the point that when I rode home at night with a burned out low beam I didn't realize it until I got home), and conspicuity. They're easy to install so that they only go on high intensity with your high-beam, so you can leave the on all the time.

Rewiring the front turn signals to normally-on, flash-off will also help you stand out from a sea of headlights.
 
stangmx13

stangmx13

not Stan
dont forget to aim the light properly. the headlight could be way off if uve made any adjustment that changes the pitch of the moto. itll make a big difference when correct. im pretty sure the DOT spec is 2" of fall for 25ft
 
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SFSV650

SFSV650

The Slowest Sprotbike™
The Motovision H7 from Philips is relatively inexpensive, bright as any non-exotic halogen bulb, and is supposedly built to resist vibration in a motorcycle environment.

Best of all, though the light is a neutral white, it casts a slight orange glow into the reflector housing. Looks a little odd, which helps catch the attention of drivers.

I had 10k on one when I sold the bike with it still running. Ymmv.
 
ilikefood

ilikefood

Well-known member
stangmx13 said:
dont forget to aim the light properly. the headlight could be way off if uve made any adjustment that changes the pitch of the moto. itll make a big difference when correct. im pretty sure the DOT spec is 2" of fall for 25ft
Click to expand...

This. I thought my old ST4 had a horrible headlight and was looking for replacements (for the headlight, not the bike), until I ran across an article online about checking headlight adjustment. It turned out that the headlight was adjusted WAY too low. After fixing the adjustment, the headlight is perfectly fine.
 
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