HID Headlight Advice

[Patmac6075]

As the title states, I'm looking for some advice on headlight lamps. I don't do a tremendous amount of night riding (I live on the edge of the Sticks, and have a real "fear of the deer"!). So can someone enlighten me? Pun intended. What is the current hot setup? Are there plug and play options? Do you need to do a ton of reengineering?

FYI, I'm familiar with the whole family of sylivainia silverstar lamps....I am convinced they are very little more than snake oil....have installed them on numerous cars and bikes with almost no discernible difference (except my wallet felt lighter).

Edited June 4, 2016 by Patmac6075

[Flyinfool]

I have had HID for the last 6 years, Love it.

As far as I am concerned, LED is getting close but not there just yet.

There is no LED bulb replacement that I have seen that is even close to HID. It is because the light is directional and the lens and reflector were designed for an omnidirectional light source. They just do not mix well.

 

Another thing to watch for, My HID pulls 35W of power to get all that light, I have seen some of the LED replacement bulbs that are pulling 80W of power. Just because it is LED does not mean it is low power, Check the specs on what you are looking at.

 

Now on the other hand if you get a setup that replaces the whole lens and reflector with something that was designed for LED, then they are right there in performance with HID. I have not seen anything that will replace the light on a 1st gen with an LED system that does not require a lot of reengineering.

 

You are close, pop on over here and I will show you what I have on mine. To bad I did not see this an hour ago I had the headlight out of the bike and just finished putting it all back together.

[Patmac6075]

Was sort of trolling for you on this one Fool.....perhaps we can get together at some point...would like to pick your brain.

With any luck I will be starting a new job in Oak Creek in July....maybe we could get together then?

[Flyinfool]

Well you will need a really small pick and a magnifying glass to pick at my brain.....................

But you are welcome to pick away.

 

I work in Racine so I go thru Oak Creek every day. Twice.

[Black wing]

http://canadiancruisercustomizing.ca/products/afterburner-led-headlight-direct-replacment-lamps this is the headlight i run and its the best setup ive run so far. crazy bright but still crisp enough that you can tune the beam and not blind oncoming traffic. and ive found led to be hugely more reliable than hid set ups

[greg_in_london]

I used half of a HID car set-up on my venture a few years ago. I was very happy with it, but because of the exhaust it's been off the road for a couple of years. It should be running again for this summer (once I've sorted the carbs...)

 

For the HID I followed the instructions on one of the threads (there was a trick so that the emergency headlight cut-out didn't trigger) which were straightforward enough and after that it was fit and forget. The only drawback was that the switch from high to low beam is a fraction slower than with a dual filament, but I suspect many would not notice.

[SilvrT]

If your bike shuts off the headlight when you hit the starter button (like a Wing does) to give full power to the starter then this can bugger up the HID ballast. What I did with my Wing was put t time-delay relay into the wiring of the HID so that it wouldn't come on at all for maybe 10 seconds ... enough to turn on the key and hit the starter button.

 

Also, flicking your high beam (assuming it's also HID) can do the same to the ballast.

 

(as I understand it that is....)

 

I ran HID on my Wing as well as my Victory but I've since converted to LED.

 

both are much much better than factory headlight.

 

I know of no downside to LED (but then again, I don't know everything either ... but almost lol)

[Flyinfool]

I guess I do not know how it is possible for the switch between Hi and Lo to be slower than the halogen. Since the bulb never turns off there is zero start time for HID. Halogen takes a fraction of a second for the other element to heat up to a temperature that produces light. The physics says that the stock halogen must be slower to switch.

 

Flicking between Hi and Lo with a Bi-xenon HID does NOT cause any extra wear on the ballast. The Hi and Lo both use the same bulb so it never turns off and reignites. Hi/Lo is achieved by having a solenoid that physically moves the bulb to the proper positions for the Hi or Lo filament.

[SilvrT]

I guess I do not know how it is possible for the switch between Hi and Lo to be slower than the halogen. Since the bulb never turns off there is zero start time for HID. Halogen takes a fraction of a second for the other element to heat up to a temperature that produces light. The physics says that the stock halogen must be slower to switch.

 

Flicking between Hi and Lo with a Bi-xenon HID does NOT cause any extra wear on the ballast. The Hi and Lo both use the same bulb so it never turns off and reignites. Hi/Lo is achieved by having a solenoid that physically moves the bulb to the proper positions for the Hi or Lo filament.

 

My bad, I forgot the RSV uses only one bulb since both my Vic and previous Wing use 2.

[greg_in_london]

I guess I do not know how it is possible for the switch between Hi and Lo to be slower than the halogen. Since the bulb never turns off there is zero start time for HID. Halogen takes a fraction of a second for the other element to heat up to a temperature that produces light. The physics says that the stock halogen must be slower to switch.

 

 

I think what happens is that with the halogen the low beam stays bright for a moment while the high beam comes on and vice-versa, so there is no break in illumination, you just see it switch from one to the other. With my HID there is a mechanical shield which moves to refocus the beam and so for a moment neither is focused and the effect (as it seems to me anyway) is that for perhaps one tenth of a second I have less forward illumination. Whereas the halogen is seamless, there is a discernable period of time for the HID switch. Maybe that's what you get for buying the cheapest available on EBay ?? It's certainly not a major drawback, but I am conscious of it.

[Flyinfool]

Now that you describe it, I do remember that there are HIDs that do move the shield and some that move the bulb. I have not seen one that moves both.

 

I have never looked close at a HID that moves the shield. There is no discernible (to me) interruption in light with mine that moves just the bulb. I do know that the time it takes my bulb to move is less than the time it takes a filament to come to temperature and make light or to cool off to stop making light.

 

I guess some night we will need to line a bunch of bikes up side by side, facing a wall, with all the different headlight technologies represented, and do a comparison.

[greg_in_london]

Next time you come to London I'll lay on the beers while we do it.

 

Failing that I'll have to get the video camera out.

[stanG]

If you want to go another route, I installed this setup on my first gen before this riding season. I do a lot of riding in the dark and am always on the lookout for deer. I nixed the standard headlight altogether and installed a pair of Rigid LED spots using the standard bucket frame allowing me to retain the headlight adjustment knob function. Using this for about two months and its the best setup I have found so far.

 

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?117559-The-recent-diode-thread-helped-me-simplyfy-my-project&p=960178#post960178