Brighter Headlight Electrical Question: Capicitors?

I stopped for coffee and saw a Bike come-in with a wicked bright headlight.

As we were leaving, I asked the guy how he got that headlight so bright and he said something about adding capacitors.

I think he was just yanking my chain; because I have never heard of adding a Cap to the lighting circuit.

Is there a new trick that makes Headlights substantially more bright?

 

If you were to test the limits of a 12V headlight. How much voltage over 12 volts would it take to get the light you want with out reducing the life of the bulb? We know for sure a charging system will put out 14.5 volts on a good day.
With AC current the higher the voltage you see a lower amperage does DC work the same way?

 

capacitors can add a momentary boost to current but not voltage
in a continuous load like a headlight it would make the dimming we see when the brake light comes on at idle a little more gradual, a wild guess might be 1/2 second
(the thumping bass from some car stereos is from caps supplying a lot of current instantly)
MN, dc works just like ac as far as lights are concerned
the only way to get more light is add more power, the volts are fixed by the battery/alt, the current is fixed by the bulb, so it's a higher wattage bulb or a more efficient bulb that's needed

 

I am thinking along the same lines. Capacitors need to charge up then release but that does not make constant voltage.

 

He was more then likely running one of these.......
http://www.hidcountry.com/xenonhidconve ... d=exacttwo


Converting the xj headlight to a HID bulb would be somewhat of a pain. mostly because the headlight is a sealed beam (at least mine is)

Another thing that sucks about converting a non HID housing to to a HID bulb is the lens of the housing. the lens refracts light in a very wide path which normaly isnt an issue with a standard bulb. but once you put a hid bulb in there you are going to be blinding every one in front of you.
HID's are awesome but without a focusing lens(think old school movie projector) they are a bit of a nusence. there are companies out there that sell HID head light kits. they are a bit pricey but worth it (provided you can mount them on your bike )

Just my two cents

 

I was looking at my 650 and you are correct. That bulb is sealed. So I would need to get a whole new set up like Big Fitz has on his 550.

 

Along these same lines I had a headlight burn out on my 2005 Chevy Express van. I upgraded to the Silver Star headlight bulbs and I'll tell you that the light is way better and whiter. They were spendy but I feel it was worth the extra money. I'm not sure if they make lamps that will fit motor cycles

 

I think that business with Capacitors has something to do with those Lights that require a Power Supply Ballast.

Regarding Sylvania SilverStar Bulbs:

I have a SilverStar Bulb in my Max that I took from my 900 whenn I layed-up the 900 for Safe-keeping.
There is NO doubt that the SilverStar is vastly superior to the stock bulb.

You can see the difference on the Highway when you "Light-up" distant signs that a stock bulb would not get to reflect.

The supposed "Down-side" for the SilverStar Bulb is >> Cost vs. Lifespan.

But, I am into my 5th or 6th Season on the SilverStar and it's ON when the Bike is running.
I have Stock DRL so the Headlight is ON when the Bike is running.

That's a lot of time on that Bulb.
I am VERY happy with the choice.

Compared to the Stock Bulb that is bright orange or yellow.
The SilverStar is good, bright, white light that you can see further ahead with at night.

 

HID has become cheap cheap CHEAP!!!

The only issue for these XJ's is to find an appropriate headlight fixture(remove and replace the sealed beam unit).

All of the headlights made to accept replacement quartz lamps should work as the HID (xenon) lamps are just different technology replacements for the quartz bulbs, H3, H5, H7, etc. so the aiming of the beam of light should be acceptable if you replace like for like. i.e. replace an H3 halogen with an H3 HID equivalent. There are also kits that give you high and low beam with one bulb. This is done by changing the position of the lamp capsule (the bulb shaped part that actually makes the light) within the fixture.

I converted my tourer to HID. The bike was designed for the replaceable halogen lights so the conversion was easy. Took less than an hour. Total work was to mount the ballast/ignitor, replace the halogen with a xenon lamp, and then wire the ballast to the battery via a fuse and relay. I used the low beam circuit on the bike as the trigger to turn on the HID lamp.

Was it effective? Oh yes! I used a 5000*Kelvin lamp. Do NOT go any higher or you will regret it. The more yellow the light the better the human eye can "see" it. 4300* K is probably best and is equivalent to regular quartz lighting. 6000* is too blue and you will lose a lot usable light. One dude on the other forum used 8000*K lamps. His comment was "I can see great! For about 15 feet"

My ride noticeably illuminates road signs in the bright summer sun. It doesn't bother other drivers because my headlamp fixture has been carefully aimed.

One last benefit to consider is that HID lights draw CONSIDERABLY LESS current than quartz lamps. A 55W quartz lamp draws approximately 5 amps (4.6 A). An HID lamp will draw up to 6 amps while the igniter is working (1 sec or so) and then the current will drop to less than the current required for the quartz lamp while giving you more light than you ever thought possible. BTW, I would NOT use a 55W HID for low beam. WAY too much light!

Here is the web site for the HID system I use. There are literally hundreds of us on the LT forum using these products.

Loren

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Product-Catego ... s-Lighting

 

H4 coversions are as simple as finding an H4 headlight at the junk yard off of a car/truck/van. WAY cheaper than buying new.

 

True; but there are motorcycle-specific lens patterns such as on the Hella and Candlepower units I have fitted.

 

I never noticed. Mine seem to work just fine (Hella unit off a VW).

 

The lens of a motorcyle-specific headlamp reflector puts out an "application specific" light pattern, which is not the same as the light pattern produced by an automotive unit.

I didn't know any of this either until I did my homework prior to doing my H4 upgrades, and some of it was gleaned from the excellent instructions that came with the Hella unit.

 

All too true I'm sure! The beam on the LT has a very flat top until it gets to the edge of the road where it makes about a 45 degree upward swing to light up the forest rats so you don't smack 'em! The shape is VERY delineated. No doubt about the shape.

You mentioned two housings that are MC specific. How much and where to get them?

This being said wouldn't it still be better to have HID with just a regular car lens than the dismal sealed beams these bikes come with? The 4300* K lamps would look the same as the quartz lamps except MUCH brighter.

Loren

 

Hey, Big un, the prime minister here came out with phrases like 'detailed programmatic specificity' just before he got the chop.

 

Oh what now? I didn't think "application specific" was all that profligate.

A picture is always worth a thousand words. In my case you may get both (happy, Wiz?)

The lamp on the left in the pic is the Hella I got from chacal a couple years back; you'll need to ask him about current pricing.

The lamp on the right is from Candlepower, Inc., http://store.candlepower.com/ca53mohe.html and close examination of the pic will reveal that both of them have nearly the same asymmetrical lens pattern. Note the large "MOTORCYCLE" in the glass across the bottom of the Candlepower unit.



The Candlepower unit was about $25 more than the Hella at the time; its performance is equal to that of the Hella. In hindsight, I should have used the Hellas on both bikes, although the blue looks cool when off and produces that irritating blue light you see on some cars, it's not any brighter. Nor is it really noticeable from the saddle. (But it does LOOK cool, ya gotta admit.)

BOTH are a 250% improvement over stock, honest. I don't see how a brighter single bulb lamp could be possible, although they may be.

***A quick note about the Candlepower website: I had a bitch of a time finding the SuperBlu unit on the site. I had a ".pdf" ad from the web somewhere, and had to search the part number on their website. If you're interested in that lamp, PM me and I'll dig up either the PDF or the part numbers for you.

 

some headlight relays and one of these is all you really need

 

Not really; you would need to switch to LEDs for some of the other bulbs and do some other things to reduce the overall load on the elecrical system so you can "afford" (electrically) to put more power to the headlight.

Interesting that your link is to a Hella bulb as well; but you can "plug-n-play" the 55/60W and like I said, the improvement is exponential.

 

Alot of what you said is very true with a few exceptions. HID's draw considerably less when compared to regular bulbs(1 seccond during start up excluded)

The HID kits that do allow you to use one HID bulb for both high and low beam operation do not actually move the bulb but rather unshroud about 50% of the projector lens(check youtube video link)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LJV8OzSJ-I

during normal low beam operation the shutter blocks half the lens causing the light beam that eminates from the lens to take on a half cone like pattern (think of an ice cream cone verticaly cut in half). When you click the high beam on the shutter opens and lets light hit 100% of the lens thus causing the beam to take on a more conical shape.

Which brings me to my final point. There are a ton of hid ocnversion kits out there for many composite headlight housings. But the only draw back to that is that very few(and very expensive) kits actually do it right. To get the full beneffit of the brighter bulb you actually need the focusing lens. otherwise you are just scattering the light spectrum all over the place vs actually focusing it to a useable area. That is the reason your buddy can only see about 15 ft in front of him with the brighter bulb. If you get that same bulb behind the proper lens you will see that it in fact cuts through the night like a knife.

Yes you can aim a refractor lens any way you want to make the light more berable to oncoming trafic and light up the road a little better but in all honesty the only cure to lighting up the road better with a HID is to have the focusing lens in place.

 

the standard h4 is 55/65 watts plus the auxiliary light, 30 or 35 watts gets you around the same amps
find a 60 watt bulb in the house and replace it with a 100......

 

i'll take a guess, the PO used the relays to power the headlight (higher wattage bulb ?) took the power from the starter relay to drive the bulbs and used the original headlight wires to run the relays
makes for a bright light, bypassing the original harness with big wire
(quote from Polock 02 Dec 2009. Another 900) & he was spot on the '83 Xj900 had been fitted with the 100/80 & 2 relays, night to day, from the stocko.

 

I installed a Hella headlight conversion (purchase from Chacal) into my 1982 xj 650 seca which previously had the headlight changed from the original 8 inch unit to a standard size 7 inch unit. The Hella kit made all the difference in the world from the standard sealed beam which I had been struggling along blindly with.
I have been an electrician/electronics tech for over 50 years and know a bit about lighting. Before you guys go on and on about all these fancy colored bulbs, do some real research and read some accurate technical bulletins and you will find that unless you were born with some kind of superhuman xray vision, the standard H4 bulbs light up the roadway just as good or better than any of the so called super bright H4 lamps. As for a high intensity discharge lamp and fixture, how in hxxx do you fit all the wires and plugs that are standard on most yamahas into that smaller fixture. Hope this helps you make your decision.

 

you are describing what is one style of HID, usually what you would see one an auto from the factory. most of the aftermarket replacement kits use an electro-magnet to move the spring mounted arc bearing electrodes ("filament") up or down, functioning exactly like the incandescent bulbs with differently mounted filaments.

HID's are great, as mentioned there is a ballast and wiring to hide on your bike, and also a capacitor is recommended for the power supply because when the bikes voltage fluctuates around idle the ballast often loses the arc and re-fires. this is a big problem on the quads, but the duners all swear by them. my machines dont have lights so i havent experienced it myself.

 

Hmmm. Going to have to read up on that. Been about a year since the last time I did a HID conversion.

Im just having a hard time grasping the concept of a variable geometry filament.....

As for the high and low beam capible incandescent bulbs they actually have 2 elements in them. Not just one.

 

My point being if you want a reasonably priced plug-n-play solution, a Eurospec motorcycle specific H4 conversion kit is an easy and very dramatic upgrade.

I'm quite happy with both of them, I can feel confident riding at night like never before and it didn't take a lot of re-engineering. None at all actually.

 

Hmm thats strange. While I have never played with 8k bulbs I did have a 6k that I must say was a vast improvement over the 5k (or was it 4? cant remember lol). Most of the conversions that I have done have been on friends cars and bikes. But the last one i did was on my car.

I tried all sorts of bulbs in it and finally threw in the towel and went HId(it was a factory option after all)

I did notice a few things with the 6k that I dont recal seeing with the 5k.

For starters the light was more blue. I was carefull to aim my beams for optimal distance but not so much that i screw with oncoming traffic . Honestly I got awesome distance with the hotter bulbs. Probably the equivalent of my old high beams (i think they were H2's)

Another thing i noticed..and i must say probably the only thing that really made me love those damn headlights was driving in the rain.

With my standard bulbs I could barely see the road markings when it would start to rain(the white lines). the case was the same with the 5 k bulbs. But with the 6k's I could see them just fine.

Now keep in mind that i was driving a 2000 323ci with a sport package option. i tend to sit low in the car as it is and the lower stance of the car put my head probably somewhere just below the head of a bike rider.

I dont know for what its worth HID's have always been good to me when used with a single focusing lens . But I have noticed that they dont do all that well when used with a standard multi prism lens...refraction lens, whatever the heck its called lol.

 

i also installed a new hid light for my car ,but i use vvme hid,
the quality is good and low price .
driving in the dark ,maybe is not a difficult thing.
you can view this: http://www.vvme.com

 

Capicitors???
i didn't consider so many questions.
i just buy two vvme hid ,that look great .
and also get some maintence messge about car.
http://www.vvme.com

 

If you have a Motorcycle H4 light, you can use a H4 hid kit and the light pattern stays the same (if the globe is in the identical focal position, different for high and low beam).

Not all cheap HID kits have the correct focal point, the best ones have a semi shrouded motorised globe. Some of the cheap kits belong in the bin.

I run a H4 halogen hi/low and the second is a modified H4 HID set up for hi beam only for country runs.



Spot the HID

 

Most of the above refers to round headlights (which is understandable). I'd be interested in any thoughts about square headlights - in particular a how-to on adding relays.... :wink:

 

I never noticed too . Mine seem to work just fine.
but for hid,i like vvme hid.

 

different color temp .
i think 6000k is the brightest.
6000k 55w hid makes me very clear in dark.

 

your light looks so big , so bright.
i install VVME HID,also it is so big ,like two big eyes.
my friends advice me let i small ,because when i drive on the road ,
others can't see the road clear.

 

ohh,i like this post ,so interesting and helpful for me .