New HID Headlight System

[cywelchjr]

Found a discussion about an HID headlight system for motorcycles on another forum that doesn't have any moving parts here which sounds like a great idea for our bikes. I'm thinking about getting one of these for mine, the no moving parts idea sounds pretty good to me.

[natemoen]

Very interesting.

[petejw]

looks good cy,
let us know how it goes.

[cywelchjr]

I thought people might be interested as the drawback to what we have seen before has been needing to mod the light enclosure most times to make room for the bulb to move back and forth. This doesn't need that and reportedly doesn't jiggle on bumps and such. It sounds like it may work more like a traditional headlight too.

As soon as I can fit it into the budget it gets ordered, it gets moved to the front of the line, in front of everything else.

[crazy steve]

I'd be curious about bulb life, as HID lamps don't like being turned on/off a lot...

[Poprock]

I'm running the solenoid type of HID. It makes excellent light, but the "moving parts" part is a concern. I carry the old H-4 bulb in case I have to convert back sometime due to a malfunction or other failure. It would take a while to do but it could happen. This system looks superior, and on a naked bike there's a lot less stuff to hide. What I have is 1/2 a car system, complete with the pigtail for the 2nd light. The Pacifico hides all the junk OK, but bikes with less coverage would be a challenge. If mine quits for some reason I'll get one of these. Don't want to go back to Halo at all.

[Crazcnuk]

I also have the solonoid type, but i don't worry about moving parts. I'd have to scrap the bike if I did.

People have made up all kinds fo stories to scare people into not using HIDs, most are a crock.

First off, if you have to mod your housing, at all, you have the wrong bulb.

The numbers 9003, etc, are a STANDARD. If you have the correct number, for your application, it will fit.

The electrics are EASIER on the vehicle, as HIDs draw considerable less power.

What's happened, though, to give them a bad name are #1 the idiots who put them into horribly aimed headlights, #2 put them in thier low-beam housings, to get around Daytime driving lights (or just because they are cheap or stupid) and end up blinding people everywhere they go.

The HID bulbs, solonoid or not, will outlast whatever you are using now, for a lot less money. Most fo the initial cost is for the electrics that go with the HID system, not the bulbs themselves,

I have one on my XS, and I have 2 coming for my ST, and as soon as I can figure out how to get sround my Daytime driving light issue (safely and legally) i will have them on my car.

[Eveready1100]

I don't know why you'd be tempted by these lights. The big advantage of HID systems is that you get so much illumination while drawing less power than a halogen light, which in its turn, gives better light compared to a sealed beam light.
These kits are a combo, using Halogen for the high beam?? which really defeats the purpose of fitting a HID in the first place, and with HID lighting for low beam which means going through the rigmarole of fitting a ballast and all the associated wiring to go with it.
I wouldn't be concerned about there being a moving part in the HI/Low HID. Well, no more than the bits in indicators, horn & light relays, speedo, tacho, fuel gauge etc. that seem to work reasonably reliably.
Tha hole I drilled in the back of my headlight shell was more for my peace of mind than a phsical requirement to fit the HI/LO to my bike. I just didn't want to have a sharp bend in the wiring at that point. Besides, there are already 3 huge holes in the back for wiring access so i didn't think another smaller hole where it's hidden anyway would ruin the integrity of my bike.

[cywelchjr]

I don't know why you'd be tempted by these lights. The big advantage of HID systems is that you get so much illumination while drawing less power than a halogen light, which in its turn, gives better light compared to a sealed beam light.
These kits are a combo, using Halogen for the high beam?? which really defeats the purpose of fitting a HID in the first place, and with HID lighting for low beam which means going through the rigmarole of fitting a ballast and all the associated wiring to go with it.
I wouldn't be concerned about there being a moving part in the HI/Low HID. Well, no more than the bits in indicators, horn & light relays, speedo, tacho, fuel gauge etc. that seem to work reasonably reliably.
Tha hole I drilled in the back of my headlight shell was more for my peace of mind than a phsical requirement to fit the HI/LO to my bike. I just didn't want to have a sharp bend in the wiring at that point. Besides, there are already 3 huge holes in the back for wiring access so i didn't think another smaller hole where it's hidden anyway would ruin the integrity of my bike.

The system in the thread I linked to is a dual HID bulb with two HID bulbs in one. It just switches bulbs rather than moving the bulb. Any time you can do away with moving parts your going to make things more reliable, especially when your talking about parts that must move under control of a small servo motor inside a headlamp under high temps on a vibrating machine. Plus they are indeed known for jiggling, which while being interesting in certain items on anatomy, is disconcerting in your headlight, and these appear that they won't do that. I don't know about in the headlight shells for the naked bikes, but with the fairings, there is no way a moving bulb would be able to move back at all, the wires are already pressed against the back as it is quite tightly.

[latexeses]

$30.00 to ship???? I just purchaced about two pounds of NI MH batteries and shipping was just under $10 and delivery time was estimated the same. Call me a cheapskate but whoa..

[Eveready1100]

Sorry about that CY. I read this bit and drew my conclusion without reading it completely.

H4-1 = single intensity, H4-2 = low xenon, Hi halogen, H4-3 hi/low bixenon telescopic, H4-4 bixenon none telescopic no moving parts.

My bad.

I did eventually click on the link and saw the one you were talking about. That's very interesting indeed. I wonder how close they come to the standard dip/ high beam ratio as there looks to be a bit of distance between the "filaments"
I noticed the wiring looms look almost the same as the Bi Zenon except there's an extra relay thingie to do the dipping.

P.S. The Bi Zenon bulbs telescope withing the bulb housing itself. There's no movement to the outside body at all so it needs no clearance for that at all.

[cywelchjr]

Sorry about that CY. I read this bit and drew my conclusion without reading it completely.

My bad.

I did eventually click on the link and saw the one you were talking about. That's very interesting indeed. I wonder how close they come to the standard dip/ high beam ratio as there looks to be a bit of distance between the "filaments"
I noticed the wiring looms look almost the same as the Bi Zenon except there's an extra relay thingie to do the dipping.

P.S. The Bi Zenon bulbs telescope withing the bulb housing itself. There's no movement to the outside body at all so it needs no clearance for that at all.

I'd bet if you look at the movement, it's the same, since it's got to do the same thing. I recall that I was surprised at how far apart the filaments are apart in the silverstar bulb I put in there last year. They are a lot further apart than I thought they would be, which says I guess that it takes more distance to make that change in focussssss (yesss gollluuuummmm) than one would think.

[cywelchjr]

BTW, the pun there was not because I thought you were in New Zealand, but because I kept stutter typing multiple s's when typing the messages so I decided to have fun with it.

[DGXSER]

As to the clearanceon the Bi-Xenon HID, the first thing I did was to verify I had clearance on my naked Special round headlight bucket. I pulled all the wires out, and installed just the headlight with the HID installed. It has about 3/16" clearance to the back wall of the headlight bucket, exactly where the bucket is flat on the back. On my bulb assembly the wires stick out the bottom instead of the back so clearance is not an issue for the wires.

Now that being said, the bulbs extra length and thickness does make the already tight space in the bucket even tighter. You really have to do some wire management in there to keep the hole open where the bulb slides back into it. But it does fit.

[cywelchjr]

And I think that is the issue for the Vetter fairings, there is no extra room with a normal bulb in them, the connector presses against the back of the shell as it is, so that is probably why it requires cutting a hole in them, not really a big deal on them.