TOPIC:

Some of you guys already know that i converted my bike to HID Xenon headlight. In the state of ILLinois, we have to keep our headlight on at all times. This drains quite a bit of power from your system. Just for reference, 740W=1HP. For us this means 1HP for every 60 Amps. Due to the fact that our alternators put out ABOUT 20Amps on the average, it means 1/3 HP under full load. This also means burning out the Alternator at that load. On the average, a factory lighting system draws about 8.5Amps when it is on high beam, with a 60W bulb. Today, 100W bulbs are very easy to get and many guys use them. This. puts the lighting load at about 12Amps. Wit your ignition, you have just toped out your Alternator. BANG Now we come to HID Xenon, 35Wats and about 3x the light output as the 100Wat Halogen bulb. This puts your total lighting draw at just over 6Amps. The most common HID systems use a Xenon bulb for low beam and a Halogen bulb for High beam. The trick is to totally eliminate the Halogen bulb and run the Xenon for High beam. This now gives you two rather uncommon options. One is to just run the set up as modified, on high beam all the time. This means absolutely nothing to your electrical system, because you are drawing the 6.2 Amps but have the advantage of the full beam of your headlight. OR Two, run a City/Driving light. This is a small light bulb which is positioned below the main bulb inside the reflector. This bulb can be a HI-Output LED bulb which draws about 60MA (.06A) this now drops your daytime lighting load to about 3Amps. This load obviously includes tail light, running lights, instrument lights and so on. Since, under high loads, your alternator can put out a higher temperature than your engine, This will also keep the engine running cooler. You must not forget that your Alternator is oil cooled. I personally like a lot of light at night. If you are driving around town during the day and you want a lot of visibility, run the full power HID. If you want to unload the alternator, use the now available Hi-Beam position on the controls for your Driving light and you are still legal. I will show the process of doing the conversion.

First of all the proper reflector is required. You will notice the small hole in the lower part of the reflector for the "Driving light" This bulb is normally a 2.5W little bulb that is about useless.

Now you will require the HID setup.

Now you will have to do the modification to the HID light bulb. First you cut the wires to the Quartz Hi-beam bulb.
You will cut them about 1.5-2" from the bulb. This will allow you to put everything back of you want to in the future. (Why?, But just in-case)

This is what the stock "rig" looks like from the factory.

Another view.

Now you will modify the bulb assy. by removing the three screws that hold on the shield and the quartz bulb. This will allow you to remove them. The reason you remove the shield is because that is what makes it a Lo-beam in the first place. By removing it you just made it a Hi-beam.

The two wires that are now left, which went to the Quartz bulb, can be spliced into the "City-Light" socket harness. You will notice the Hi-output LED bulb on the left and the conventional bulb on the right. Also make sure that you replace the protective cover onto the Xenon bulb for the meantime, so you will not damage it, as seen in the background.

Here is a comparison between the light output of the conventional bulb and the LED bulb. This is the conventional.

This is the LED. This particular one draws 1/50 the Amps of the conventional counterpart.

This is what it looks like in the reflector and ON

A closer shot of the two "City-Light" bulbs for comparison.