HID ballasts

[jestal]

I was really looking hard for a spot for the ballasts for my driving lights. They are the older design with a fixed, rather short high voltage lead and the ballasts were above average in size. I ended up mounting them vertically along the back of the fairing just in front of the fork tubes. The bracket is made of aluminum and mounts to the instrument panel bracket. The ballasts slide in from the ends and the tie wrap holds them firmly to the backside of the bracket. Forks clear by about 1/4 inch. Cut the plastic panels rather severely to clear and routed the cable under the panels to locate and hold it in place.

Left side:

Close up of the bracket holding the ballasts:

Right side:

Close up of the bracket:

Seems to me the Top Gun mounting brackets blend a little better body color.

The cap over the mounting screw for the lights (on top of the bracket) is just a misc white plastic cap, filled with a dab of RTV and stuck to the end of the mounting screw and painted silver to hide the end of the bolt head.

 

[Toecutter]

Looks clean and like, well engineered. Just what I would expect. Good idea on the brackets too.

 

[Ignacio]

Nice. It appears you cut the B and C panels so that you could fit the bracket and it seems to close the gap left back up fairly well. Even though I stuffed my ballasts (look the exact same as yours) in several nooks and crannies this method would seem to have the advantage of not stressing the tupperware at all.

Good job my friend! An innovative farkle twist.

 

[Warchild]

Was there no way to orient the lamps "upright", vice the "hanging-down" position?

"Upright" would have been a bit preferable with regard to casting those lumens as far down the road as possible. Though now that I look at your photos again, it looks like an upright orientation would have interference issues between the lamp body and the mirror stalks.

I don't recognize this aux lamp body..... what brand of HIDs are these?

 

[jestal]

The lights were sold under the "Protocol" brand by an automotive supplier on the west coast I think. The Hoffman Group was the charge card name reported although the weblink was to more of an import tuner parts sort of company that I don't remember right now.

In any case, they appear to be very similar to the older Hella lights I have seen in some other pictures. I think the ballasts are very much like what Ignacio was installing as we compared locations for the ballasts some time ago.

The back half of the light housing is a bright blue plastic originally......similar to what I have seen in other pictures. I just painted it black. The lenses have "sirius" cast in the glass so maybe that is common with another branded version of the lights.

The lights have a directional arrow on the lens and cannot be mounted on top by just flipping them over. There is no clearance to the housing without fabricating a new mounting bracket so it will not just flip to the bottom. Mounting them on top is still under consideration but I thought I would try them this way first.

Someone pointed them out as an alternate source for HID lights some time ago....forget if it was Skooter or who. Long before the hack in any case. I checked their website and sent them a message about the lights. They replied that the HID's were out of stock and that they were closing out the previous line of HID's and would sell them cheap. I think they were a little less than $300 for the pair which seemed like a decent price so I took a chance.

They do seem to perform. Looks like a night baseball game when I can turn them on. That is the biggest problem....in the urban area around Detroit where I ride a lot there is not as much use for them due to traffic.

I have the HI/LO HID conversion kits in the headlight nacelle which also works well. I did the "jestal mods" with the cutout brace, reversed and retracted bulb, etc. and they are excellent. The high beam is everybit as good as with the halogen bulbs with improved color and the low beam is much better with a nice sharp cutoff still. Plus there is no delay when going from Hi to low and back as the little shutters flip instantly and the bulb never has to ramp up. Even the halogen lights have a tiny delay that the HIDs do not.

I want to make some covers for them to protect against rocks, etc. for the daylight hours when they are not used as I'm sure I'd never be able to get replacement parts.

Plus I have your LED optional city lights/turn signals in the nacelle and they look trick with the HID head lights.