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Another angle on the reflector with the City-Light ON Because this bulb is now hooked into your Hi-beam circuit, you will turn on the city-light by turning on the Hi-beam on the bar controls. This will obviously turn off the main beam.

I will not bother showing you what the main light looks like because it just blinds the camera, how bright it is.

I did forget to mention. If you decide to go with HID, use either 4000K, 6000K, or 8000K color spectrum. The 4000K has the same color as a Quartz bulb. The 6000k is pure white. The 8000K has a slight blue tint to it like the expensive cars use. If you go 10000K or higher the light is to blue or actually turns purple up at 12-14000K. It also starts to go out of the visible light spectrum and actually puts out less visible light. I personally like both the 6-8000K bulbs. The complete setup with everything will run you about $175 or so.

Would placing a resistor in the low-beam circuit help with reduction of load on the charging system?

Yes it would, for a very dim light. A 5Ohm resistor would cut the draw in half. You would require a 50Wat resistor between 5-6Ohms to remove 3-4 Amps of draw. Your light would be a very dim yellow. That is what the reserve lighting unit dose. When your low beam burns out it sends about 2/3 voltage to your Hi beam. Now what you are doing with 2-3 Amps I am doing with 60MA (.06A)and I have a pure white light.

This all sounds good, but I still question the "burning out the alternator" with too high a load. As far as I've ever been able to determine solely on my own experience, which may just be dumb luck, the alternator, stator, whatever the term is, is capable of "x" watts. If you draw more than "x" watts by adding additional lights, running electric vest ect, the result is watts are not keeping up with demand and the battery is simply being discharged faster than it's able to be charged. No further damage than that. Like I say, don't take my word for it as it may very well be wrong, but I've never had a problem, been all over the continent with a 100w Halogen bulb, electric vest, chaps, gloves. I even found if I was careful I could switch between high/low beam, get right in between and run high/low at the same time for extra light. Yes, I'm a wild/crazy guy. Didn't ever give it a thought about electric power and never had a problem.

I have burned out two alternators on my KZ1300 one on my Z1R and one on my GPz1100. This is one reason why Kawasaki put two alternators on the Voyager 1300 from 1985 on. The more load you put on them the hotter they get. It is called "Inductive heat"

Jeff.Saunders wrote:

Would placing a resistor in the low-beam circuit help with reduction of load on the charging system?

Using a resistor wastes power in the resitor. The slick way is to use PWM (pulse width modulation) technique with something like a 555 timer running at maybe 500 Hz driving a power MOSFET to modulate the light's brightness by varying the duty cycle of the 12V ON pulse applied to the bulb.

otakar wrote:

I have burned out two alternators on my KZ1300 one on my Z1R and one on my GPz1100. This is one reason why Kawasaki put two alternators on the Voyager 1300 from 1985 on. The more load you put on them the hotter they get. It is called "Inductive heat"

There is also the pure resistive heating caused by current flowing in the wire of the windings. However, an alternator is an AC transformer designed to work at a maximum current (and therefore, maximum magnetic flux) and exceeding it makes things saturate and get hot in a hurry.

bountyhunter wrote:

otakar wrote:

I have burned out two alternators on my KZ1300 one on my Z1R and one on my GPz1100. This is one reason why Kawasaki put two alternators on the Voyager 1300 from 1985 on. The more load you put on them the hotter they get. It is called "Inductive heat"

There is also the pure resistive heating caused by current flowing in the wire of the windings. However, an alternator is an AC transformer designed to work at a maximum current (and therefore, maximum magnetic flux) and exceeding it makes things saturate and get hot in a hurry.

You and I know that's true. I am just attempting to explain it in a simple and polite way, short of telling someone that if "they" were right than thy should just put the wires leading from the alternator and put them into a "Dead Short". If taking an unlimited load from your alternator is safe than nothing should happen to it during a short, Right? NUF SED First of all, MOST people would not require that detailed of an explanation to realize they are doing something wrong Second, it is a testament to a vehicle when someone can say "I'd ben abusin-it fr years un-it still aint broke" . The purpose of this article , was to show how to do something cool and hi-tech and gain an energy benefit doing it. If you (or I) just want to save on energy, just disconnect everything except the ignition. And if you don't care how much energy you consume while you ride, than just do things the way you have been and ignore this article all together. By the way, this process will also increase the life of your battery. Lead-Acid batteries last the longest when they are at full constant charge, not when they are deep-cycled.

Using a resistor wastes power in the resitor. The slick way is to use PWM (pulse width modulation) technique with something like a 555 timer running at maybe 500 Hz driving a power MOSFET to modulate the light's brightness by varying the duty cycle of the 12V ON pulse applied to the bulb.

I just removed the standard automotive head light (7" round) and installed a Halogen unit. You guys are soooo far over my head it hurts!!

Most likely, the one you removed was already Halogen. I want to say that like from 1978 or 9 on all the headlights have been Halogen. The difference being, weather it is a sealed beam or a semi-sealed beam. The semi sealed have a replaceable bulb while the sealed beam are one piece and you through away the whole thing.