My first ride on the bonnie was at night. I was immediately dissatisfied with the headlight. Low beam was dim and easy to outride, and high beam pointed 3ft in front of the bike and was useless. It was at that point I decided to check out my options.
After reading through the threads here, I decided to contact Daniel Stern. His recommendation? Cibie reflector and Osram 70/65w bulb.
In addition to this, I opted to add relays to the circuit as well. If you guys haven't checked it out yet, Eastern Beaver (www.easternbeaver.com) has some great relay kits available for our H4 headlight circuits. However being the difficult DIY'er I am, I wanted to tackle the project myself and eliminate plugged connections (except at the bulb itself).
I ordered 2 panasonic micro relays from Eastern Beaver, along with socket connectors. Set about to wiring them in.
Eastern Beaver’s products are top notch. I am highly impressed with what he’s doing.
Crimping & soldering spade terminals to bike-side wiring:
Relays in, everything tucked away.
The relays made a nice difference in that 1) The headlight is definitely brighter with 14awg leads direct from the battery, and 2) No need to worry about dimmer switch life, the wear items now are easy-to-remove relays in the headlight bucket.
After checking the difference the relays made for the stock headlight, it was time to swap in the Cibie/Osram combo. The headlight trim/mounting rings swap took a moment to figure out, but no problems. With the headlight in place… WOW! What a difference. Pictures show increased brightness of course. But what’s not shown is the superior projection with this setup. Low beam path is very nice with good flood and projection, and high beam is a beast! Unbelievable difference.
My results picture setup isn’t the best; looking back now I should’ve taken shots down my long driveway. At least you can get an idea as far as brightness. I’ll post some more pics soon showing the headlight’s path down my driveway. Here is the link to comparison photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/108294437@N03/
The purpose of this post is to show one particular path I chose to improve my headlight. There are numerous options out there, I chose to follow Daniel Stern’s recommendation for headlight as well as Eastern Beaver’s idea for circuit improvement. I’m very happy with the results.
After reading through the threads here, I decided to contact Daniel Stern. His recommendation? Cibie reflector and Osram 70/65w bulb.
In addition to this, I opted to add relays to the circuit as well. If you guys haven't checked it out yet, Eastern Beaver (www.easternbeaver.com) has some great relay kits available for our H4 headlight circuits. However being the difficult DIY'er I am, I wanted to tackle the project myself and eliminate plugged connections (except at the bulb itself).
I ordered 2 panasonic micro relays from Eastern Beaver, along with socket connectors. Set about to wiring them in.
Eastern Beaver’s products are top notch. I am highly impressed with what he’s doing.
Crimping & soldering spade terminals to bike-side wiring:
Relays in, everything tucked away.
The relays made a nice difference in that 1) The headlight is definitely brighter with 14awg leads direct from the battery, and 2) No need to worry about dimmer switch life, the wear items now are easy-to-remove relays in the headlight bucket.
After checking the difference the relays made for the stock headlight, it was time to swap in the Cibie/Osram combo. The headlight trim/mounting rings swap took a moment to figure out, but no problems. With the headlight in place… WOW! What a difference. Pictures show increased brightness of course. But what’s not shown is the superior projection with this setup. Low beam path is very nice with good flood and projection, and high beam is a beast! Unbelievable difference.
My results picture setup isn’t the best; looking back now I should’ve taken shots down my long driveway. At least you can get an idea as far as brightness. I’ll post some more pics soon showing the headlight’s path down my driveway. Here is the link to comparison photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/108294437@N03/
The purpose of this post is to show one particular path I chose to improve my headlight. There are numerous options out there, I chose to follow Daniel Stern’s recommendation for headlight as well as Eastern Beaver’s idea for circuit improvement. I’m very happy with the results.