Headlight (DRL) won't turn on but high beam is fine

[popnlock]

After bringing my bike out of hibernation from the winter my headlight wouldn't turn on but my high beam was still fine. So before getting it inspected about 1 month ago i went and installed a new light from the local Autozone. This seemed to fix my issue, i just figured that the filament had burned out.

I geared up and went to ride my bike into work this morning and the same issue occurred. The normal running headlight is dead but the high beam is still fine. The light bulb is less than a month old, does anyone know why this would happen and have a fix for it?

[89500inPA]

My guess would be coincidence. Low beam filaments burn out first because they are on all the time. Probably just a bad bulb?

[robfriedenberger]

Is your head light bucket aftermarket or your mounts ? Most of the time head lights burn out because of vibrations, if it's burnt pull the bulb and you will see the coil rolling around in the glass


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[MarkB]

Most likely your replacement bulb was just a lemon.  That said, you might want to check the system voltage of the bike with it running.  If it is running a little bit high, that will greatly shorten bulb life and the low beam headlight would be the first thing to go.  If it is high, suspected faults would be alternator, regulator/rectifier, or battery.

I once had a car that averaged about 1 burned out headlight per year and a dome light every couple years over the first 120k miles (~9 years) I had it, far more frequent bulb failures than I've seen on any vehicle.  I took to carrying a spare headlight in the toolkit in case it happened at an inopportune time or if I had a double failure.  The alternator failed at 120k miles and with the replacement alternator plus regulator/rectifier I did not have another bulb failure for the remaining 55k miles (~4 years) of the car's life.