Triumphrat

fernandos1

I know that this isn't specifically about a Bonneville, but the part that I am struggling with came from one and it's going to go into my Bonnie. Furthermore, people here are so knowledgeable and helpful I thought I would give it a try.

I upgraded my Bonnie's headlight to a PIAA Xtreme white. Since I have the original bulb sitting there I figured I do something useful with it. I had laying around a li-ion battery that I was using for other projects and I thought I could re-purpose an old flashlight (torch for those on the other side of the pond) to have as an emergency light by using the old Bonnie's bulb and the rechargeable li-ion battery, which can be stored and carried with my Bonnie in case of an emergency.

The trouble is, the bulb won't light up. The battery is a 12.6V 4800mAh battery. I tried connecting an LED light strip and the LED light works with the li-ion battery, I tried connecting the old H4 bulb to a car battery and that works, but the H4 bulb to the li-ion battery doesn't work.

What am I doing wrong? They batteries are both 12V DC, shouldn't that work?

Forchetto

Since you've tried it on a car battery we could assume you know what the pinout of an H4 bulb is, so the only answer has to be that the battery is totally flat. It'll light up some LEDs though, they don't demand much current. The H4 bulb does, 4.5 amps for the low beam and 5 amps for the high beam.

Here's the pinout anyway:

Ripper

Your battery doesn't have enough power capacity. In the worst case situation, let's assume that you've wired the main beam terminal of the bulb as the working filament. That's 65 watts. According to Ohms law (well its not but its worked out the same), we get the required amperage by dividing the 65 watts by the battery voltage. 65/12.6 = 5.158 Amps. Your battery only provides 4.8 Amps for one hour. However this would not prevent the bulb from lighting up since the battery should be able to provide 9.6 Amps for 30 minutes but because this is outside the battery's recommended rating there is a risk of damage to the battery.

As far as the bulb not lighting up, make sure you have not wired the battery across the two filament pins instead of across one filament pin and ground.

fernandos1

Forchetto, everywhere I looked, the High Beam connector is the one opposite the Ground and the Low Beam is the on "on top"

See here:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...-question.html

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/Bi...tallation.html

http://www.britishcarforum.com/bcfor...H4_Bulb_Wiring



Is it different on the Bonnie?

I was connecting it to the one on top and the Ground, assuming ground on the left, low beam on top, High Beam on the right.

I also tried an H7 bulb from my old Volvo but it didn't light up either. I think that Ripper may have it. I don't think I can find a battery that would be light enough yet powerful enough unfortunately. The smallest I found was a UPS Backup battery but that's still about 5 Lbs! Doesn't make it very portable!

Any other suggestions?

fernandos1

If I can make it work, I even have a full HID spare set that I can use. How cool would that be? an automotive grade, 4300K, HID torch!

Forchetto

They're probably right, I just did that annotation on a photo from memory. Obviously my memory is failing... Apologies.

Have now edited the photo.

fernandos1

No worries. I think that your credibility hasn't been hindered one bit . If anything, I find it impressive that you just "put that together". I thought it was an old image that you already had!!

fernandos1

Forchetto, I had sent you a PM a couple of weeks ago, I am not sure if you got it. I wanted to get your thoughts on installing an HID set on my Bonnie in a rather unorthodox way.

I have a whole spare HID kit but it is not the dual Hi/Lo, only the low 4300K from my Volvo's H7 bulb. I wanted to connect the H7 HID bulb to the high beam and ground connectors which means the light won't turn on until I flip the switch to the high beam. I would think that this would be better for starting and for the life of the ballast. That way, since we don't have DRL requirements in the USA, I would only turn on the lights by flipping the switch to High Beam as it gets darker and thereby turning on the HID lights.

The drawback is that I wouldn't have a dual setup should the HID fail, but I've had this HID kit on my Volvo for 5 years before I sold the car and never had a probably. I can also carry a regular H4 just in case of emergencies.

Would this work?

Thanks

Forchetto

Not really into HID mods, I don't know the first thing about them except that I have to suffer ****tards in their AUDIS shining them on my rear view mirror..

Decosse is probably our man.

fernandos1

I hear you, some of those aren't calibrated properly and they are a pain. I also think those LED lights are too bright and distracting and also pointless. Bright at night enough to annoy but not enough to light up the road.

Ok, I will reach out to him. I am guessing that from an electrical connection standpoint, it should work. Regardless of whether it is HID or not, if there are only two wires coming out of the bulb, one going into the ground and the other into the high beams, it would be effectively as if the low beam wasn't connected so nothing would happen when I turn on the bike. Only the lights would work when switched to high beams.