Not at all Hoop, it's just that some members are repeating their bad habits and it catches up with them sooner or later (usually sooner)
Converting Auxilary Lights to HID
- Thread starter PeteINny
- Start date
Not at all Hoop, it's just that some members are repeating their bad habits and it catches up with them sooner or later (usually sooner)
Hoople
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Great question and here is the reason why. 90% of the Hi beam "extra light" you see in a conventional TWIN filament setup does not happen because of the filament wattage difference. Yes, in most cases the low beam may be 55 watts and the high beam is 65 watts but that 10 extra watts is not what makes the road "really light up" when you flip the switch to high beam. If you look close at a dual filament bulb, you will see the filaments are Physically shifted in distance from each other. That is not just some un-calculated amount of filament shift or distance. It is a VERY calculated distance. When you shift the focal point of the filament in respect to the reflector, even just a little bit, it forces the light to bounce off different facets of the rear reflector. The light now scatters high and wide using different facets and angles to achieve "lighting up the road".
I am NOT saying a higher wattage bulb does not have an effect on the blanket of light that comes out of a fixture. Of course it will. But you could take a low beam filament and make it 200 watts and it would not scatter the light like a shift in filament position will.
Now in other words, you could ALMOST achieve the same Hi beam effect just by leaving the low beam on and reaching to the base of the bulb and moving the bulb to the Hi beam shifted position focal point.
The problems really begin when using HID bulbs in standard filament fixtures because the HID capsule "light ball" is slightly longer than the filament "light ball". I have the exact specs on these numbers somewhere in my stack of manuals and books if you really need to know what they are.
So with knowing that, you should begin to see what happens. Even if you have the focal point of the HID light ball perfect, since the ball is longer in length, you will have edges of the ball overlapping into the HI beam focal point of the filament designed fixture.
The end result is 100% of low beam coverage and maybe 20% of Hi beam scattered light. It really becomes a mess if you don't incorporate some type of "shields" on the capsule to cut back it's "ball length".
Now you also may begin to see why the original horizontal or vertical placement of the filament becomes so important. An original Horizontal filament fitted with HID would have even MORE overlap of light into the Hi beam pattern.
There is more to it than just this but I think this will help you get an understanding as to what is involved in fixture design.
Hoople
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Would you have a link for that kit? The one that includes the Reflector & lens. Just what I am looking for. Tks!
This kit sure would have come in handy last night. Searched but could not come up with anything.
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HID in a kit for $100 is a VERY descent buy to be sure...think HID technology as being the difference between incandescent bulb and outside street lighting on a lamp post, regarding complexity, performance and cost...and to miniaturize it to fit in auxiliary lighting at high brightness and focused beam is mighty fine.
Pete, The aux light upgrade was a bust. I ordered the wrong kit for the install. I ordered H3, based on a recommendation, but the bulbs appear to be either 9005 or 9006. I need to determine which one so that I can check the return policy of the vendor. But I will get the HID kit for the aux lights. The good thing is that I have been able to track down all of the wiring that I will need to work with. I stil plan to do the aux light upgrade to HID, just might cost me a little more because of return fees.
I was successful with upgrading the headlight to an HID kit and e-code reflector. I have not had the time to do much night riding other than making the adjustments to lower the beam location, which I expected based on feedback form the e-code reflector install. There is a huge difference in the quality of the light in front of the bike now with the headlight upgrade. With the 5000K headlight the aux lights look like yellow fog lights.
To Hoople's point about the location of the filament and light ball, I did notice the difference in the reflection, but by adjusting the lamp down a bit it has made a difference. I was not getting the tell tale headlight flash from the oncoming vehicles. The HID kit I got has a metal cylinder to help focus the light. It seems to locate the light well and when I hit brights, it raises the beam rather than changing the brightness, similar to your description above. I am wondering, with the H4 kit that DDM sells, if the use of that cylinder is how it changes the output of the HID to work with the halogen type reflectors.
I will need a couple of weeks or so to get the AUX lights replaced.
Also, the bulbs for the aux lights, since they are not high/low, won't have the metal cylinder, so they may have the exact issue that Hoople describes.
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