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best H4 LED headlight for a /6
- Thread starter blkb1rd
- Start date
Do you have the Jan 2021 Owners News? A member documented an LED upgrade on a /6 and /7. You should be able to find the issue in the ON archives on the main website.
There's also a short discussion of /6 headlights in one of the threads in the Similar Threads pane below.
Also found this thread using the Tag Cloud searching for LED Headlight:
https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?87399-1976-R90-6-LED-Headlight-replacement
There's also a short discussion of /6 headlights in one of the threads in the Similar Threads pane below.
Also found this thread using the Tag Cloud searching for LED Headlight:
https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?87399-1976-R90-6-LED-Headlight-replacement
Don't
https://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/Wiring_Kits/H4_Kits/h4_kits.html . Very simple and reliable, great light output. I have this relay setup on all my /6's. You can run a high wattage bulbs with zero problems. (I run a 100W bulb!) Read all about the LED conversions and make up your own mind.
edit: Easter Beaver H4 Single Relay Kits - H4 Single "In Fairing" Kit, or, H4 Single "In Shell" Kit will work.
My advice is don't do it, just say NO to LED. Complicated, and the quality of the light output is not good, not worth the expense. Stick with an H4 AND go with Eastern Beaver's Relay Kit - powers the H4 directly from the battery :
https://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/Wiring_Kits/H4_Kits/h4_kits.html . Very simple and reliable, great light output. I have this relay setup on all my /6's. You can run a high wattage bulbs with zero problems. (I run a 100W bulb!) Read all about the LED conversions and make up your own mind.
edit: Easter Beaver H4 Single Relay Kits - H4 Single "In Fairing" Kit, or, H4 Single "In Shell" Kit will work.
stevenrankin
Active member
Light
I have LED bulb replacements in both of my bikes, a RT and RS. I kind of agree they are not a totally good thing to install but, I am keeping them in the bikes.
First, the original H4 bulb emits light the whole circumference of the bulb or even light 360 degrees. The stock airhead reflectors are designed for this type of bulb and the glass lens is designed to give the proper pattern of light onto the roadway ahead and objects ahead. This can be seen clearly by pulling up to a light garage door in the dark. The low beam pattern of light has a sharpish cut off on top with a pronounced pattern to the right side or curb side. The beam is even and sharp. On high beam, the pattern becomes more spot but is even.
With the current LED replacement bulbs, the bulbs I have seen the most on the market no matter the manufacturing company only have light output in two out of three flat surfaces making up the element of the system when the bulb is in low beam. High beam does not increase the two low beam surface light intensity but instead lights the third section adding more light. This segmented light does not work well with the stock reflectors or as far as I have seen with a few different LED bulbs it doesn't. Maybe there is one out there on the market that does but I have not seen it.
Anyway, the pattern of light is not the same as the H4 bulb, in some cases the LED bulb can be turned in the mounting to adjust for the defect but it still is not as good a pattern of light as the H4 bulb. I can see poorly lit spots on my garage wall with the LED bulb in place.
Now for me, this only effects night riding and I don't ride at night anymore so the uneven light pattern produced by the LED bulb is not a problem. IF I were to be riding at night, I would never use an LED bulb in a stock headlight on any airhead.
I keep the LED in the bike because in the daytime, the whiter color of the light is more visible and catches the eye better than the yellowish color of all legal H4 bulbs. In the daytime I don't care about light pattern, just fill the headlight with a bright white light. The LED bulbs do this fine and draw a lot less current doing it.
Finally, the LED systems vary in size from very large with a transformer and fan taking up a lot of room to slightly smaller units. There is not a lot of room inside the 84 and older headlights, so care has to be taken that the LED and its hardware doesn't rub or short any of the other wires in there.
What I would like to see the LED bulb companies make is a bulb that fits into the same space as the H4 bulb, and has even 360 degree light elements similar to the H4 bulb with a high low beam system that mimics the H4 bulb more closely. Or, I would like to see the H4 bulb people create a H4 bulb with the same output light temperature as the LED bulbs do, in other words white not just close to white. Even better would be a complete replacement reflector, lens and bulb system to pop in with out a ton of trouble that is large and gets attention in the daytime. Not these little tiny LEDs which work fine at night but are small and hard to see in the day. St.
I have LED bulb replacements in both of my bikes, a RT and RS. I kind of agree they are not a totally good thing to install but, I am keeping them in the bikes.
First, the original H4 bulb emits light the whole circumference of the bulb or even light 360 degrees. The stock airhead reflectors are designed for this type of bulb and the glass lens is designed to give the proper pattern of light onto the roadway ahead and objects ahead. This can be seen clearly by pulling up to a light garage door in the dark. The low beam pattern of light has a sharpish cut off on top with a pronounced pattern to the right side or curb side. The beam is even and sharp. On high beam, the pattern becomes more spot but is even.
With the current LED replacement bulbs, the bulbs I have seen the most on the market no matter the manufacturing company only have light output in two out of three flat surfaces making up the element of the system when the bulb is in low beam. High beam does not increase the two low beam surface light intensity but instead lights the third section adding more light. This segmented light does not work well with the stock reflectors or as far as I have seen with a few different LED bulbs it doesn't. Maybe there is one out there on the market that does but I have not seen it.
Anyway, the pattern of light is not the same as the H4 bulb, in some cases the LED bulb can be turned in the mounting to adjust for the defect but it still is not as good a pattern of light as the H4 bulb. I can see poorly lit spots on my garage wall with the LED bulb in place.
Now for me, this only effects night riding and I don't ride at night anymore so the uneven light pattern produced by the LED bulb is not a problem. IF I were to be riding at night, I would never use an LED bulb in a stock headlight on any airhead.
I keep the LED in the bike because in the daytime, the whiter color of the light is more visible and catches the eye better than the yellowish color of all legal H4 bulbs. In the daytime I don't care about light pattern, just fill the headlight with a bright white light. The LED bulbs do this fine and draw a lot less current doing it.
Finally, the LED systems vary in size from very large with a transformer and fan taking up a lot of room to slightly smaller units. There is not a lot of room inside the 84 and older headlights, so care has to be taken that the LED and its hardware doesn't rub or short any of the other wires in there.
What I would like to see the LED bulb companies make is a bulb that fits into the same space as the H4 bulb, and has even 360 degree light elements similar to the H4 bulb with a high low beam system that mimics the H4 bulb more closely. Or, I would like to see the H4 bulb people create a H4 bulb with the same output light temperature as the LED bulbs do, in other words white not just close to white. Even better would be a complete replacement reflector, lens and bulb system to pop in with out a ton of trouble that is large and gets attention in the daytime. Not these little tiny LEDs which work fine at night but are small and hard to see in the day. St.
HSVPhil
AlaBeemer_Prez
Try these guys, Tom:
https://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com
It wasn't easy to install in our ancient Airheads, but the H4 replacement puts out beaucoup photons!!!
That's my 2 cents; worth every penny.
Ciao! HSV-Phil & HSV-Karen
AlaBeemer's President & Secretary, MOA Club #5; celebrating 50 years of BMW Biking this October.
https://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com
It wasn't easy to install in our ancient Airheads, but the H4 replacement puts out beaucoup photons!!!
That's my 2 cents; worth every penny.
Ciao! HSV-Phil & HSV-Karen
AlaBeemer's President & Secretary, MOA Club #5; celebrating 50 years of BMW Biking this October.
dougjordan
New member
Just put one of these in my 84 GS , the hard thing was working the rubber boot into place , had lots of room in the GS. My /7 has less space . Look at there Video.
stevenrankin
Active member
Night performance
I admit, as I said in my posting, the LED replacement bulbs are more visible in the daytime than the H4 stock bulb.
What about night time riding? I know what I see in front of me regarding beam pattern and such after dark. I have tried four different companies LED replacement bulbs and I would NOT recommend any of them for night time riding due to light pattern and mis match of the stock reflector and lens.
The stock headlight system is NOT designed for LED bulbs that are on the market now. Perhaps down the road a LED replacement bulb will be made that will work properly but for now, no.
The light output and beam pattern is no problem during the day, I could care less about it, I am only interested in people seeing me and for sure the LED replacement bulbs do seem to be more visible in the day time. I have no scientific proof, just my eyes. So, as I don't ride at night and figure if I do get caught riding after dark, the light will be good enough to get by for one time deal, I am not concerned.
If I were still riding to work in the dark, I would NEVER change the bulb to an LED bulb unless I could change the WHOLE headlight system. 1920's tech doesn't work well with 2021 tech all the time. St.
I admit, as I said in my posting, the LED replacement bulbs are more visible in the daytime than the H4 stock bulb.
What about night time riding? I know what I see in front of me regarding beam pattern and such after dark. I have tried four different companies LED replacement bulbs and I would NOT recommend any of them for night time riding due to light pattern and mis match of the stock reflector and lens.
The stock headlight system is NOT designed for LED bulbs that are on the market now. Perhaps down the road a LED replacement bulb will be made that will work properly but for now, no.
The light output and beam pattern is no problem during the day, I could care less about it, I am only interested in people seeing me and for sure the LED replacement bulbs do seem to be more visible in the day time. I have no scientific proof, just my eyes. So, as I don't ride at night and figure if I do get caught riding after dark, the light will be good enough to get by for one time deal, I am not concerned.
If I were still riding to work in the dark, I would NEVER change the bulb to an LED bulb unless I could change the WHOLE headlight system. 1920's tech doesn't work well with 2021 tech all the time. St.
stevenrankin
Active member
Very Good
Thanks for posting the link to this video. While it is not BMW airhead related, it does show pretty much what I have found with the bulbs I have used and confirms what I wrote. It is great to have someone prove things with a well designed test and give the information in an easy to understand manner.
So, now, I have not tried two sided LED bulbs, this is based on my ignorance which has now been cleared up. I may well now ditch the three sided bulbs I have and look for and purchase the two sided bulbs mentioned in the Video. I mean, hey, I changed over to LED for better daylight visibility, why not have a real useful bulb that is visible, puts out more light at a whiter level, and has the proper beam pattern. Now if the bulbs mentioned don't cost hundreds of dollars, I may jump and buy.
Again, thanks for posting the video, a video is worth a million words. St.
Thanks for posting the link to this video. While it is not BMW airhead related, it does show pretty much what I have found with the bulbs I have used and confirms what I wrote. It is great to have someone prove things with a well designed test and give the information in an easy to understand manner.
So, now, I have not tried two sided LED bulbs, this is based on my ignorance which has now been cleared up. I may well now ditch the three sided bulbs I have and look for and purchase the two sided bulbs mentioned in the Video. I mean, hey, I changed over to LED for better daylight visibility, why not have a real useful bulb that is visible, puts out more light at a whiter level, and has the proper beam pattern. Now if the bulbs mentioned don't cost hundreds of dollars, I may jump and buy.
Again, thanks for posting the video, a video is worth a million words. St.
franz
Member
Cyclops all the way. best lights and highly reliable.
Anyname
Active member
I keep hoping someone will buy one of these and let us know how they work:
https://motodemic.com/shop/led-headlight-for-bmw-classics/
The actual headlamp units are by JW Speaker who also makes a bazillion lumen unit for diesel train locomotives. That would be a real Photon Blaster conspicuity light.
https://motodemic.com/shop/led-headlight-for-bmw-classics/
The actual headlamp units are by JW Speaker who also makes a bazillion lumen unit for diesel train locomotives. That would be a real Photon Blaster conspicuity light.
jad01
New member
I've not tried retrofitting LED headlights on any of my bikes, but I have tried them on one of my Miatas. After watching many reviews and combing the forums, I bought the Truck-lite 7-inch sealed LED lights, which are somewhat middle-of-the-road
price-wise for LEDs. The install was easy, but I didn't like the color or quality of the light at all (I really tried to like them... I left them installed for several weeks
). While the light was whiter (higher kelvin) than halogen, it wasn't any "better" to my eye. I wasn't too pleased with the beam pattern either, but that may have been specific to that model... too much of a hot spot in the center of the beam that I found distracting. I went back to Hella non-sealed headlights with halogen lamps and like them plenty.
I don't mind the factory LED headlights on modern cars for the most part, so I can't explain it. But they weren't a good fit for me as a retrofit on my older car, which has kept me away from swapping them into any of my bikes with the Bosch halogen lights.
I do like LEDs for the lamps in my house though! The come in a range colors and save $$ on my electric bill
price-wise for LEDs. The install was easy, but I didn't like the color or quality of the light at all (I really tried to like them... I left them installed for several weeks). While the light was whiter (higher kelvin) than halogen, it wasn't any "better" to my eye. I wasn't too pleased with the beam pattern either, but that may have been specific to that model... too much of a hot spot in the center of the beam that I found distracting. I went back to Hella non-sealed headlights with halogen lamps and like them plenty.I don't mind the factory LED headlights on modern cars for the most part, so I can't explain it. But they weren't a good fit for me as a retrofit on my older car, which has kept me away from swapping them into any of my bikes with the Bosch halogen lights.
I do like LEDs for the lamps in my house though! The come in a range colors and save $$ on my electric bill
