Dual headlight wiring (spun off from "Sonic Spring .90 users...")

[Wrecent_Wryder]

This has turned into a really bad case of thread drift.. nobody will ever find the information by subject. As the moderators here don't seem to split threads much, we probably ought to just kill this part of it, and start another thread if needed.

Upon further inspection , i agree 100% lol . Sorry  I'll have the wife double-check the colors for me , then see if I can get some decent pics from my phone .

As to the wire colors on the Buell HLs , they're also black (already spliced for both bulbs) , white (left light I think) , & yellow (other bulb) - there's two other wires that go to an indicator bulb-style socket in between the two main lights that I just clipped off ( if we didn't have to have a light on at all times , it may have served a purpose kinda like Angel Eyes , but even one of the main bulbs completely drowns out the blue 5 LED bulb I tried in there)

The Hellas arrived yesterday evening, took a look at the contents... confirmed, there is a decent-looking relay in there, and an in-line fuse, along with other bits and pieces, should be plenty to wire up the dual headlights (without a diode).  Looks like the leads are black for ground, yellow for the LEDs (with a resistor in-line, heat-shrunk in place) and white for the bulbs.

Unfortunately, i have my hands sort of full with non-motorcycle stuff for the next day or so, and other things are going on with the bike (not RIDING, unfortunately), so it's going to be at least a while before I get around to tackling this.

Still debating which headlight should be "low" and which "high". As I said in another thread, if only one is on for "low", it seems to make sense to me that it should be the left (in the US), since that one is on the side of the oncoming traffic, and the "low" beam should be pointed down further. The "high" will be pointed... er.. high... so it seems to me that it should be on the side away from the oncoming traffic. However, I've noted that in pictures of bikes I've seen with dual headlights that have only one on, it always seems to be the right one that's lit, not the left. Is that just because the ride on the other side of the road in Japan and England, and that's where all of them are made... or am I missing something?

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

My experience with the hellas, for what it's worth, is that the lights are just the tiniest bit too wide for the stock headlight brackets. So when you put them in, the squeeze a little bit. It ends up that the left light points a little to the right of dead center, and vice versa. I typically just ride with my highs on all the time, I've got em both adjusted so that they point where the stock headlight did, so I'm not blinding people with my "highs". I know I lose some functionality that way, but I don't care, as the combined output is SO much better than stock. YMMV.

[Wrecent_Wryder]

My experience with the hellas, for what it's worth, is that the lights are just the tiniest bit too wide for the stock headlight brackets. So when you put them in, the squeeze a little bit. It ends up that the left light points a little to the right of dead center, and vice versa. I typically just ride with my highs on all the time, I've got em both adjusted so that they point where the stock headlight did, so I'm not blinding people with my "highs". I know I lose some functionality that way, but I don't care, as the combined output is SO much better than stock. YMMV.

Hmm. I thought someone else posted that they had to fabricate a bracket/spacer to go between the two lights? I guess I misunderstood something.

Seems like the stock "ears" could be shimmed out on their mounts without much trouble.

[mattress]

I too purchased a set of Hella's for the bike.

I was following the original "Dual Headlight" thread.  The original poster there said he reused one of the original mounting brackets between the 2 lights and it worked OK.  I haven't tried it yet though.

Man, there's so much stuff that came with these lights... the only thing they didn't include was the kitchen sink!

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out how I want to wire my lights.  I think I'll put the Angel Eyes/LED's on a switch that is wired straight to the battery... this way if I wanted, I could leave the angel eyes on while at a club/bar/wherever while the bike is parked outside... just like some people leave their underglows on.  I'm not worried about draining the bike's battery because the little tiny battery that came with the lights doesn't even put out 1 amp.  All though, I don't know much about bike batteries, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

I guess then, I'd wire them up like normal..  left for driving light, right for highbeam...  since legally you have to have 1 driving light on at all times.

[Wrecent_Wryder]

I'll have to check the schematic, but isn't that brown wire in the headlight bucket (the one that's not hooked up on US "E" models) "live" when the key is on "P"? If that's the case, you could use that to control the "angel eyes", and they would come on with the "parking" light in the rear, which makes some sense, and then use the included relay to control the other two modes.

Might even be useful... you'd have some chance of seeing that you accidentally left the ignition switch on "P" if you walk away from the bike forward instead of to the rear...

[mattress]

yeah, you're right. I just tested the brown wire with a multimeter, and it's hot when the key is turn on.  my ignition only has 2 positions, on and off.  yours might be different than mine, either way I wouldn't feel safe leaving the bike with the key in it 

so I guess I'll have to figure out what kind of switch and where to put it.  shouldn't be too much of a problem..

aaaand my final thought...
The original headlight bucket was used as a storage container for all the wires....  what are you guys planning to do with this plethora of wires and connectors, etc once you ditch the bucket?  I haven't figured that part out yet..

[Wrecent_Wryder]

yeah, you're right. I just tested the brown wire with a multimeter, and it's hot when the key is turn on.  my ignition only has 2 positions, on and off.  yours might be different than mine, either way I wouldn't feel safe leaving the bike with the key in it 

Uh, yeah, turning beyond the "Off" postion on mine there is a "Park" setting that turns on the taillight, and the key can be removed. I thought they were all like that...

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

I would put the angel eyes on a separate switch (with fuse), rather than on the park switch. Main reason being that in Park, your taillights still come on.. while I feel comfortable leaving the LED angel eyes on for hours at a time, I would NOT want my taillights on simultaneously.. they would kill the battery uber quickly.

My $.02

[Wrecent_Wryder]

I would put the angel eyes on a separate switch (with fuse), rather than on the park switch. Main reason being that in Park, your taillights still come on.. while I feel comfortable leaving the LED angel eyes on for hours at a time, I would NOT want my taillights on simultaneously.. they would kill the battery uber quickly.

My $.02

Personal preference, I guess. I can't really see myself leaving the "angel eyes" alone on just to attract attention outside a bar or something... the purpose of the "P" setting turning on the taillight is so that you can walk away from the bike in circumstances where it might be hit if left dark, that sort of overrides battery concerns, and having the LEDs on in front makes some sense to me in that case... and, as I said, it should make it less prone to happen by accident, and drain the battery that way.

[mattress]

I would put the angel eyes on a separate switch (with fuse)

That's exactly how I wired them up!  I bought a push button on/off switch from radio shack, and used the in-line fuse that came with the headlights, and ran a bunch of wire 

I wedged the switch up underneath the rear, in part of the frame.  it's pretty snug.

I wired the left light (while sitting on the bike) to low beams, and the right light to highbeams, and put a diode between them so they both come on with the highbeams 

Everything works great....  It looks kind of weird in the day though, because all the loose wires that used to be hidden in the bucket are now exposed..  and the bracket I put between the lights was a tad too small, so I stretched/bent them apart a tad bit...  other than that, I like the setup a lot!

My sister says it looks like Johnny 5 LOL

[genEricStL]

I sent you a PM that i can't seem to retrieve from my outbox Wrecent ... it's concerning the Buell lights specifically though -could you copy and paste my PM here ? I went ahead and tried using that accessory wire for the lowbeam (I had already bought the relay , but running a new fused hot wire from the battery all the way up front wasn't going well hehe) , then rode for a good solid 2 hours tonight and it worked great . I even checked the wire to make sure it wasn't warm or anything . The lights were just as bright as when I had them both hooked up to a single hotwire when I was testing the aim of them

As far as all those wires .... I just folded them a few times , then zip-tied them together creating a cluster behind the lights . I then re-used my stock headlight mounting ears to mount my flyscreen ( I made my own brackets for the buell lights), covering the whole mess of wires 

-Eric

BTW - my posts are referring to the cheaper Buell Y0421.1ADA headlights ... they were only about $70 , and I spent about $12 on bar-stock , all-thread , and nuts and washers

[Wrecent_Wryder]

I sent you a PM that i can't seem to retrieve from my outbox Wrecent ... it's concerning the Buell lights specifically though -could you copy and paste my PM here ? I went ahead and tried using that accessory wire for the lowbeam (I had already bought the relay , but running a new fused hot wire from the battery all the way up front wasn't going well hehe) , then rode for a good solid 2 hours tonight and it worked great . I even checked the wire to make sure it wasn't warm or anything . The lights were just as bright as when I had them both hooked up to a single hotwire when I was testing the aim of them

As far as all those wires .... I just folded them a few times , then zip-tied them together creating a cluster behind the lights . I then re-used my stock headlight mounting ears to mount my flyscreen ( I made my own brackets for the buell lights), covering the whole mess of wires 

-Eric

BTW - my posts are referring to the cheaper Buell Y0421.1ADA headlights ... they were only about $70 , and I spent about $12 on bar-stock , all-thread , and nuts and washers

I'll PM you a copy of your own message, you can edit it, create another post here, or splice it into your last post here. I can't edit your post, of course, and I'd prefer not to confuse people about who's saying what, I'm not going to be much help responding to questions about your setup.

[mattress]

Well, yesterday I got a strip of metal.  I made a couple of custom brackets for my license plate, and one to go between the Hella headlights. 

Originally I used the original bracket that came with the headlights, and kind of "stretched" it apart:

\____/    <== hella bracket looked like this... "stretched"
versus
|_____|  <== my new bracket looks like this.

you know you like the art

I also used about a mile of electrical tape to make all the wiring look nice and pretty behind the headlights.

Anyway, the point of my post here...
I must have wrapped up the wires a little too tight, and the power wire came out of the LED on one side.
"OK, that shouldn't be too hard!" I thought to myself.  I soldered it back together, and it worked.  But something else happened along the way, and now none of the LED's work.  I thought maybe my resistors magically went bad, so I got some replacement resistors with the same value, but that didn't fix my problem..

Anyway, do you guys know if I would be able to get a set of replacement LED's somehow?  They are installed in a rubber boot that easily slides in and out of the headlight housing.

[starwalt]

Are you able to post some pictures of this?

It would help me to visualize what went wrong.

[mattress]

I shot an email to Hella, and they are sending me to LED assemblies free of charge 

Hella is awesome!!!