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Brighter than OEM headlights? is that possible?

Wethead

New member
I am looking for a way to make the headlight brighter...know any?

Has anyone done an HID Xenon headlight conversion?
 
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I am looking for a way to make the headlight brighter...know any?

Has anyone done an HID Xenon headlight conversion?

It is my carefully considered opinion that the best course of action is to leave the stock headlight alone and to add auxiliary lights to achieve what you want. There are many options and a thousand opinions as to which lights to install. Good ones are not cheap and cheap ones are seldom really good.
 
I agree. It seems like I'm always looking for better (hence the reason I read this thread) but alway just come back to the conclusion that the OEM headlights are engineered for incandescent bulbs and that I should leave well enough alone. I don't want to blind oncoming drivers. I will install accessory lighting in the spring but I'm not fiddling with the headlights themselves.
 
I put HID’s on my 1200gs, yes they were brighter, that being said I wouldn’t do it again, for the following, I believe I was blinding oncoming traffic
Clearwater makes some really nice lights that I have installed on a couple GS’s for my money I’d go in that direction

Jim
 
… Clearwater makes some really nice lights that I have installed on a couple GS’s for my money I’d go in that direction

Jim

For the exact same reasoning as Paul Glaves above, I have Clearwater LED driving lights on my front forks. And oh BTW, I do not ride much at night so I opted for the YELLOW lenses and that gives me maximum conspicuity in daylight. Vehicles have quit turning in front of me.

Good luck.
 
When the original head lights burn out I always put in a brighter version. The difference is noticeable These are still the H7 bulbs but with different gases/filiment to give more light. The down side these bulbs are not a physically robust (bump hardened) and burn out quicker. I just put Philips in my RS, the bulb life is project to be 450 hours. I have Silver stars in my cars.

I also have Clearwater Darla's running lights (10% power) which go to 100% when I turn on Hi Beams. Great light! Hard on oncoming drivers.

I looked aHID and several of the LED bulbs....always seemed to be cooling problems and thus mounting problems.... Also these bulbs do not match the H7 filament orientation and location so the factory reflectors produce unusual beam patterns, often the wasting any gain in light output.

Soon all new bike will be LED any how
 
Lights seems to be like drugs.... The more you have, the more you want, and my RT is running Denali D4 2.0's with OEM headlight globes (which now look dim)

I did a very successful LED headlight globe upgrade om my Honda ST1300, but I tried several different types of gobes before I found one that interfaced properly with the shape of the reflector to give me more light down the road and a decent cut-off on low beam.
 
This was an issue on older twin 650-800's which may have been sped up using high output bulbs along with alleged sub par reflectors

https://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?77698-headlight-issues

That and as mentioned, the reflector and bulbs were designed with that particular combo and a lot of bulbs just do not reflect well in OEM housings. For those who say they don't care about blasting other drivers must not notice how annoying some newer cars are on approach to them, or their riding buddy behind them. I'm annoyed!

I use what is available as the bulbs never fail at home. The Silverstars never lasted long on my 05RT.
I have installed many and removed many aftermarket HID's for folks. Some last, some lose a ballast early. It's a pain to lose your main light and have no backup when traveling.

We have additional lighting on bikes we may be riding after sunset, which we don't do much on purpose anymore...even an evening commute is sketchy around here. The stock headlight looks wimpy, but the aftermarkets take care of that. We have yellow running lights on full time on top of high beam relayed driving lights on several bikes and use as needed.

Then there is this:jester

y8BB0.jpg
 


Why do I feel there should be animal furs and bladed weapons in that picture? :D

I think it does point out that properly aimed lighting that has been properly focused by a matched emitter and reflector is the best answer. Adding more lights willy-nilly will give no real improvement. I’m not much a fan of modifying lights and agree with Paul that adding accessory lights is the best answer. Just not quite like pictured above...

Best,
DG
 
I am looking for a way to make the headlight brighter...know any?

Has anyone done an HID Xenon headlight conversion?

Just out of curiosity, what problem are you trying to solve? If it's night riding best served by some real improved lighting w/ Clearwaters or what have you. If it's conspicuity your RT probably already has LED halos, a reasonably bright low beam, and if you wear a bright helmet and hi vis jacket all the better. Beyond that a little swerving to let others know you're coming thru, or high-beam flash w/ or w/o a horn toot et will work amply to keep someone from ignoring you. Now if you're inclined to exceed the speed limit greatly in urban traffic, where someone may mis-time their ingress into or across your path as they don't appreciate your high closing rate of speed then something like Clearwaters might help, but I wouldn't count on that either!
 
Now if you're inclined to exceed the speed limit greatly in urban traffic, where someone may mis-time their ingress into or across your path as they don't appreciate your high closing rate of speed then something like Clearwaters might help, but I wouldn't count on that either!


My first rule of riding: don't ram and jam in town. It's never a good idea to exceed the speed limit in congested urban areas, since car drivers already tend to underestimate the speed of oncoming motorcycles.
 
Very few reflectors and light housings are designed to handle an HID bulb for an aftermarket fit despite the propaganda..
I did a HID conversion on my '06 R1150 GSA as that particular light did handle it very well. The Oilhead light was glass and the refraction of the light occurred at the glass rather then at the reflector making it a useful conversion. The new lights these days have plastic lenses and refraction and reflection both depend on the reflector and not with a combination of lens and reflector...
I remember that on my bike the cutoff was identical the to the halogen bulb except the light was brighter and the throw was much further away.
Again that was then and this is now. I'd get some aftermarket extra lights and go from there. I have Clearwaters in addition to the LED headlight my GSA has and just yesterday going home, I turned it all on as some dumbass wanted to cut me off. I'm sure her retinas are still burning...:evil
Clearwater or Denali, either way will give you the best lights you can get. Both work with the "wonder wheel" ,if you have that option on your bike, for full control.. YMMV

I hope I made sense....:bottle :)
 
I use Clearwater Ericas to increase my lighting in the dark and increase my visibility to other vehicles.

ericas-bright.jpg
 
I use Clearwater Ericas to increase my lighting in the dark and increase my visibility to other vehicles.

Jeff,

I'm thinking I will paint the OEM driving light with yellow stained glass stain. Comes in an aerosol rattle can. I have denali D-4's where you have erica's.

I'm hoping to get the benefit from the yellow light during the day on the OEM lights and full benefit from the more powerful white D-4's at night to see down range.



Note: The yellow stained glass paint is not my idea. Saw it in a post here some time ago. I've got the paint, the task has to bubble up in my to-do list......
 
Jeff,

I'm thinking I will paint the OEM driving light with yellow stained glass stain. Comes in an aerosol rattle can. I have denali D-4's where you have erica's.

I'm hoping to get the benefit from the yellow light during the day on the OEM lights and full benefit from the more powerful white D-4's at night to see down range.



Note: The yellow stained glass paint is not my idea. Saw it in a post here some time ago. I've got the paint, the task has to bubble up in my to-do list......

My Clearwaters came with yellow plastic lenses in the kit. A 30-second job to unscrew the front of the light module and insert--and remove--the yellow lenses. Easy peasy and provides the perfect effect for me. You too, maybe?

Good luck.
 
On my 2018 R1200RTW I modeled my aux lighting (and crashbars) after that shown by bmwdean. The Clearwater lights are awesome, integrate well with the bike's Canbus system, and provide better conspicuity.

The only downside of LED lights that use PWM (pulse width modulation) to control brightness is apparent when making a Go-Pro-type motorcycle video. The rapid on/off feature of PWM is not visible to human eyes, but digital cameras can record this effect. When the recorded video is played back on a computer the lights appear to be flashing (the rear tail llight also does this flashing). I've found this to be a bit distracting when viewing a video recording - perhaps I'll get used to it.

A short video clip illustrating this LED flashing may be viewed by clicking the link below -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/luhugry3xpxjgar/PWM-on-LED.mp4?dl=0
 
Back in the good old days, the early 90's, when I was still in the UK, a lot of riders would up their 55/55W headlamp bulbs to 55/65, or 55/85.You coud even go up to 55/100 if you were brave enough.
I admit i haven't looked in a long time, but I don't think I ever found anything more powerful than a 55W in the US.
 
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