Electrosport dual filament HID kits

[Ignacio]

Yeah, been there. Read that. That's why I was asking Warchild how those compare to the others (if he's seen them)

Yet, with a bit more searching by entering bixenon in the search term with filtering by Warchild we see his opinion here. He's covered about every combination of HID lights known to exist on this forum already folks.

Here's the summary of HID.

HID conversions are all dog squeeze including the butterfly, solenoid, and Electrosport dual filament units. The one exception is to convert over to low-beam only HID lights. However, you will need to add on auxiliary lights for high beams. Good auxiliary HID lights include PHID's, Hella FF200 (or other Hella or PIAA high buck light), or Solteks with proper bracketing. And with all of these you need to become comfortable with some fairly sophisiticated wiring, relays, fuses, component placement, etc. Gen II owners have extra issues with space trying to stuff ballasts and hardware.

My choice was low beam conversions via the Chinese dude and Group Buy several years ago and Hella FF200 HIDs I scored on eBay for $315. Wired to leave on the low-beams permanently so there's no startup lag. Carry a single spare halogen in case of problem (which happened in the IBR at 3 a.m. in New Mexico). That's 12,500 lumens flinging out the front end of my Gen I with the stock alternator and still enough juice to run electrics at or great than 90%.

 

[Warchild]

[Yeah, been there. Read that. That's why I was asking Warchild how those compare to the others (if he's seen them)

Yes, I have seen them before, during and after WFO last year..... the low beam is pretty good. The high beam throws out a lot of light... but throws it out everywhere.

The bigger issue is that these systems have been demonstratively sporadic in quality. All are coming from China, and the quality (or rather, the *consistency* of the quality) just isn't there. That's why you read where guys have had they shit fry out in short order, some have had it last a long time, some love them, some don't because of the quality issues, etc, etc

For the most part, it often seems simply a matter of luck (or lack thereof) as to whether you end up with a good set, or a set that is problematic.

If they were really The Shit to have, I'd be running them, I assure you. But when you blast around the Desert West at night the way myself and other LDRiders do, you can't be having flaky systems that may behave all right.... or may not. The bigger objection for the Endurance Rider is (yet another) form of stress induced by that nagging little voice in the back of your brain that says "how much longer before the Magic Smoke is let out?" I have enough to do with just staying alive, doing Time-Distance-Speed calculations to see if I can still make the next Checkpoint, avoiding encounters with The Man, etc, etc, etc to worry about light systems.

But that's just me.

Personally, since our high-beam housing just simply isn't well suited for HID, I have elected to stay with the Low-Beam Only HID (which is superb), and just use my PHIDs for "high-beams". This has worked extremely well for my need these past 3 years. It may not be the answer for everyone, however.

 

[SockMonkey]

Hi Warchild - I appreciate your input and all the research you've done trying to get a good HID set-up. If a rider didn't want to go to additional lighting, what would you recommend for the best H4 lamp for the feej? What would you say about the 60/55 silverstars for example?

I can only say the following is my gut feel, because I have not yet personally tried these bulbs, yet....

It is my suspicion that these very latest halogen from Osram is likely to be "The Shit" for those who are staying with halogen technology:

Osram "Night Breaker" H4 halogen bulbs from Powerbulbs.com

These are supposedly the very best you can get in halogen technology today. Not cheap; the Good Shit never is....

I understand from my automotive buddies that these are marketed as the Sylvania Silverstar Ultra here in the US.

 

[SockMonkey]

Personally - I can't talk to life-span yet for the Osrams (having used Phillips mainly in the past) - but I can vouch for the speed of order turn-a-round from PowerBulbs.com - I placed an order late last night and received the shipping confirmation note this morning.
Damn close to the speed of light if you ask me.

I didn't see a wattage listed for those bulbs. 90% more light sounds like the 'Hyper' bulbs in 85 watt. 300 hours listed bulb life, IIRC. About the same as the Silverstars I've been running. Works out to about 15k miles or less for me.

Interestingly, they're 60/55 - same as Silverstars. How they do it, I have no idea...

 

[Fred W]

[Yeah, been there. Read that. That's why I was asking Warchild how those compare to the others (if he's seen them)

Yes, I have seen them before, during and after WFO last year..... the low beam is pretty good. The high beam throws out a lot of light... but throws it out everywhere.

The bigger issue is that these systems have been demonstratively sporadic in quality. All are coming from China, and the quality (or rather, the *consistency* of the quality) just isn't there. That's why you read where guys have had they shit fry out in short order, some have had it last a long time, some love them, some don't because of the quality issues, etc, etc

For the most part, it often seems simply a matter of luck (or lack thereof) as to whether you end up with a good set, or a set that is problematic.

If they were really The Shit to have, I'd be running them, I assure you. But when you blast around the Desert West at night the way myself and other LDRiders do, you can't be having flaky systems that may behave all right.... or may not. The bigger objection for the Endurance Rider is (yet another) form of stress induced by that nagging little voice in the back of your brain that says "how much longer before the Magic Smoke is let out?" I have enough to do with just staying alive, doing Time-Distance-Speed calculations to see if I can still make the next Checkpoint, avoiding encounters with The Man, etc, etc, etc to worry about light systems.

But that's just me.

Personally, since our high-beam housing just simply isn't well suited for HID, I have elected to stay with the Low-Beam Only HID (which is superb), and just use my PHIDs for "high-beams". This has worked extremely well for my need these past 3 years. It may not be the answer for everyone, however.

Thanks, Dale. That's what I suspected. ie that on the telescopics, the low beam was good, the high beam not so good and the quality was suspect.

And I can appreciate how important reliability would be to you LD Rally guys. Down time for headlights is just not an option. For the rest of us it may (or may not) be a worthwhile risk, considering how cheap these telescopic units can be had for.

PS to Iggy, your "super-searched-linky" did not provide the opinion I was looking for. Yhey were not talking about these telescopic HIDs in that thread.

 

[Grumpy]

I worked in the HID lighting industry for over 35 years. We made high wattage luminaires for industry, roadway and sports lighting. While we didn't make the new 35 watt HID's that are used for transportation, I can relate to what's happening here.

Warchild, you are right-on about the quality of the Chinese HID's, it's pretty poor! I have gone thru several lamps and ballasts before I finally got what appears to be a reliable set. Of course with the sellers located in China and going on and off Fleabay, you are never able to get credit for the bad stuff.

I understand why you'd not take a chance on the Chinese HID's while you're doing one of your all night runs and I'd likely do the same. However, the design of the FJR headlights is not only good on low beams, but works well on high beams if you do a bit of work on the HID lamps. First, these must be telescoping lamps for the HID arc tube to be repositioned to the correct place in the optical assembly. Secondly the opening in the low beam shield has to be trimmed so that the light coming out of the arc tube can get to the high beam portion of the reflector. Now, that said, the larger, seperate HID luminaires that you are running as high beams have significantly more square inches of reflector and will out perform the stock FJR high beams everytime.

On a different subject, the filament upgrades that are available from Philips, Osram, etc. work by running the lamp "overvoltage". As you look at the packaging you'll see that the lamps are marked 12 volts. You are running these lamps on something like a 13.3 volt system which "overdrives" the lamp by 10%. If you "overdrive" a filament lamp by 10%, it produces an additional 30% in light output. However, nothing is free, as you'll only get 30% of the rated life of the lamp when it's run at 12 volts.

jim

 

[stryg8r]

I understand why you'd not take a chance on the Chinese HID's while you're doing one of your all night runs and I'd likely do the same. However, the design of the FJR headlights is not only good on low beams, but works well on high beams if you do a bit of work on the HID lamps. First, these must be telescoping lamps for the HID arc tube to be repositioned to the correct place in the optical assembly. Secondly the opening in the low beam shield has to be trimmed so that the light coming out of the arc tube can get to the high beam portion of the reflector. Now, that said, the larger, seperate HID luminaires that you are running as high beams have significantly more square inches of reflector and will out perform the stock FJR high beams everytime.

A little thread drift, but thought it worth mentioning for anyone not around during the initial HID discussions.

I'm getting good light output by using the low beam only kit with slight modifications.

I've configured the lights so one side is low beam only and the other is high beam. On the high beam side I removed the shield and repositioned the filament to the original high beam location. I also modified the the wiring so the low beam side stays on when I turn on the high beam. The HID low beam is so good that one light casts more than enough lumen's down the road. And with the high beam modifications I seldom need to fire up my aux lights.

BTW... the wiring modifications have been documented by Warchild here:

https://www.fjrtech.com/getdbitem.cfm?item=49

and here:

https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php?showtopic=4002

 

[bmwhd]

I remain a firm believer in the telescopic bixenon application in the FJR (and many others). Sure the China packages have had failures but so what? You can get them for under $40 now! FWIW, I've never had a problem with any of the conversions I've done.

The low beam is outstanding! I ride the FJR every night and the twin HIDs simply outperform anything I've ever owned including my BMW car with factory HIDs. The high beam pattern is also excellent. I've never felt the need for aux lighting on this bike and that's a first for my LD rides.

 

[ngarider]

i'm with bmwhd, totally happy with my telescopics (though I do carry a spare halogen bulb and can swap it out in no-light).

I've been through the night with my setup, no complaints. Cutting on the guard for better highbeam coverage (grumpy's idea) seems reasonable to me, what does it do in lowbeam?