Conversion to LED bulb in Headlight

[Big Rich]

Back before I was married, I had a Wrangler. It was a great vehicle for me at the time: convertible in the summer, 4wd in the winter, and (barely) enough towing capacity to pull my boat to the lake. Trying to get a car seat and a newborn in the back? Forget about it. My son has a weird fascination with Wranglers now though..... I tell him that will be my next vehicle.

But my wife & I just bought a Renegade a couple weeks ago. Great little SUV for her. I wouldn't think about towing anything with it though.

[urbane]

You all took this farther off topic then I did!

So I swapped in the electronic relay flasher yesterday into her bike and we actually got the turn signals to work at the stock rate, until we used power from somewhere else on the bike... Hit the brakes, no more blinker LOL!

So I will have to do the diode mod. Too bad - I need to head to Radio Shack anyways!

The benefit of some LED flashers is that they have an adjustable rate. Being able to adjust your flash rate is very beneficial to suit your preference.

[mr72]

BTW I noticed that my new headlight was aimed all wrong, so I went to the effort to try and aim it but I don't have a really good way to do it the "ordinary" way.

In the process of riding at night a few times and evaluating the headlight aiming I noticed that my headlight has a couple of quirks:

1. there's a vertical bright spot right in the center of the beam that I'm sure some people would really complain about, light-pattern purists...
2. In low-beam, there's a noticeable gap in solid light between the front of the bike and say 10-20 feet out. It's like a lower cutoff, but it's not really cutoff. I'm sure it's a result of the horizonal "dam" that separates the high-beam reflector from the low-beam. I think there's a chance I still have (had) my light aimed too high and that is revealing this not-so-bright area more than it should, but...
3. when the "high beam" is selected, both low and high are on. I am sure they are internally jumpered. The odd thing is the high beam fills in the directly-in-front gap that the low-beam has, as well as extending the cutoff quite a bit so you see both nearer and further. This light with the high beam on is truly magnificent.

This light is astonishingly brighter than the halogen was. Given that, I think I will probably replace the headlights in my Jeep with a pair of the same lights.

[urbane]

It has a dead spot because it's an LED :deadbeathorse:.

LEDs are directional, only putting out forward light. Unless a housing is specifically designed for LED use, you are going to have abnormally dark sections and abnormally light sections of your headlight output.

Brighter =/= better vision. Usually just more foreground light (less light where it needs to be, down road).

[ShowBizWolf]

Ahh wow, that is crazy! I kinda expected mr72 to have better results than me tbh in this endeavor. He went and purchased a whole LED enclosed light thing (Idk what to call it lol) that fits into the stock bucket.... it omits all the halogen reflectors and all that hooplah cuz it's not just a bulb.

mr72 I'm glad to know that you are overall happy with it though!

[mr72]

It has a dead spot because it's an LED :deadbeathorse:.

LEDs are directional, only putting out forward light. Unless a housing is specifically designed for LED use, you are going to have abnormally dark sections and abnormally light sections of your headlight output.

This is buried somewhere else in the thread.

This is a dedicated LED lamp assembly, not just a "directional" bulb. The whole lamp assembly is basically two "halves" upper and lower, and the upper half is the low-beam (with reflector) and lower is the high beam (with reflector). It's a reasonably industry-standard design, one of two very common round LED lamp designs that I am aware of in common use on public-road motor vehicles (the other being LEDs in projector sub-housings). The lower-side "cutoff" on my bulbs is totally by design and intentional, or I should say, an accepted side effect of the design, because in a car you don't actually see the part of the road that is left dark with my lights due to the angle of the hood and whatever that blocks view of that space anyway but on a motorcycle obviously you can see immediately in front of the wheel.

And FWIW halogen bulbs are also "directional" in a similar fashion to LED replacements by virtue of internally installed reflectors, coatings on the glass, etc. The designers have to work to try and make them directional, since they must be made directional in order to work in a reflector housing. That's precisely how low/high switching works in an H4, and the whole objective is to direct the light into the correct part of the reflector. LEDs are not intrinsically inferior to halogen bulbs in a reflector housing this way, but they just have to be designed to be directional in the same fashion as the halogen bulb they are replacing. A halogen bulb will typically "leak" more light where not intended into the reflector than an LED will, so often when you put a properly-designed LED bulb replacement in a halogen reflector assembly (like SBW did) then you wind up with a more properly directional and controlled beam than with halogens, the light coverage you "lose" is because the LEDs don't leak light where they shouldn't like the halogens do, plus the LEDs have much closer tolerances on their directivity than the sort of hacked-together H4 halogen bulbs.

[urbane]

Ah I see now. Thank you for putting in a proper reflector setup. The term you are looking for is called foreground - or the first 25' of light in front of the bike. If there is a lot of foreground it reduces your distance vision, which a bucket ASSEMBLY should not have a problem with.

[ShowBizWolf]

"This is the thread that nev-ver endsss yes it goes on and on my friends..." haha grew up watching Lamb Chop 

Anyway, just saw this on sbl's site... eye-catching NEW PRODUCT thingy on the home page... not listed for single bulb sale, just a "kit" with 2 but is interesting to see these H4s:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/led-headlight-bulbs-conversion-kits/filter/Stock,New_Products,,5:Base_Type,H4,1,4932:

[mr72]

Ah I see now. Thank you for putting in a proper reflector setup. The term you are looking for is called foreground - or the first 25' of light in front of the bike. If there is a lot of foreground it reduces your distance vision, which a bucket ASSEMBLY should not have a problem with.

What I mean is there is a pronounced limit to the foreground light, by virtue of the lamp assembly's design. It has sort of a "divider" between the upper and lower half sections, with the lower half being the high beam and upper being low beam. So the low beam bottom edge is blocked by this divider.

I don't think it's any big deal and I am sure it's intentional and by design. But I wouldn't mind being able to see a little better right in front of the bike. Probably won't make a difference while actually riding at night but this was just my first impression, far more pronounced since I didn't have the lights really aimed correctly (too high). On my mountain bike, for example, I use LED lights and I can see the shadow of my front tire. Of course on a mountain bike, it's an entirely different problem to solve, the light is aimed very differently. It only has to work up to 20mph and it absolutely has to provide detail of what is immediately going under the wheels at 3 mph.

[urbane]

Ah I see now. Thank you for putting in a proper reflector setup. The term you are looking for is called foreground - or the first 25' of light in front of the bike. If there is a lot of foreground it reduces your distance vision, which a bucket ASSEMBLY should not have a problem with.

What I mean is there is a pronounced limit to the foreground light, by virtue of the lamp assembly's design. It has sort of a "divider" between the upper and lower half sections, with the lower half being the high beam and upper being low beam. So the low beam bottom edge is blocked by this divider.

I don't think it's any big deal and I am sure it's intentional and by design. But I wouldn't mind being able to see a little better right in front of the bike. Probably won't make a difference while actually riding at night but this was just my first impression, far more pronounced since I didn't have the lights really aimed correctly (too high). On my mountain bike, for example, I use LED lights and I can see the shadow of my front tire. Of course on a mountain bike, it's an entirely different problem to solve, the light is aimed very differently. It only has to work up to 20mph and it absolutely has to provide detail of what is immediately going under the wheels at 3 mph.

Would you mind going out at night, turning on the bike about 25' from a wall ( garage works ) on level ground and snapping a photo? This will help me help you, after seeing your output!

Like this: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q146/kenaccord/DSC05804_small.jpg

[mr72]

I don't have a way to do that. I have no place to go where it's 25' of level ground to a wall. If I find one, I'll do it.

In the meantime I am adjusting the headlight on the fly while riding.

[urbane]

I don't have a way to do that. I have no place to go where it's 25' of level ground to a wall. If I find one, I'll do it.

In the meantime I am adjusting the headlight on the fly while riding.

Cool. It just gives me a general idea of your output. Hope you can get it soon  .

[k.rollin]

I did an LED conversion tonight, but I used what appears to be a reflectorless LED housing. Beam patterns seem to be determined by the optics. This is a JW Speaker 8790 Adaptive headlight unit on my 2004 GS500. I don't have adequate space to properly aim the unit at the moment, but I will follow up with more information and photos in a few days if anyone is interested. In the meantime, here's a shot of it with just the parking light illuminated because it looks cool.

[ShowBizWolf]

Wow neat!!! I also like your aux lights down by the forks

[k.rollin]

The auxillary lights are the MM10 kit from Mondo Moto's, and they've been mounted for several years. Great lights for the price and a huge improvement in seeing and being seen when I was running the halogen housing with the diffuser lens.

[k.rollin]

I aimed my JW Speaker unit at 17 feet per the wiki and went for a test ride this evening. The adaptive feature is really cool and gave me a bit more confidence taking curves at speed. Output is leaps and bounds better than the halogen bulb and diffuser lens. As promised previously, here are the patterns from 25 feet.

Low beam:


High beam:

[ShowBizWolf]

(same as my reply in the other thread lol) Cool beans!!! 

Oh oh yeah I wanted to ask, this headlight unit pulls less from the battery than the stock halogen setup?

[k.rollin]

Here's the manufacturer specifications for current draw:

2.90A @ 13.5V DC (High Beam)
1.90A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam)
3.50A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam at Full Lean)
0.092A @ 13.5V DC (Front Position)

[ShowBizWolf]

Thanks!! If I'm not mistaken, it's very very close to the bulb I am using! How much did you buy your JW Speaker for? When I google searched it, my eyeballs about fell outta my head   

Really a sweet lookin' light

[ben2go]

Here's the manufacturer specifications for current draw:

2.90A @ 13.5V DC (High Beam)
1.90A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam)
3.50A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam at Full Lean)
0.092A @ 13.5V DC (Front Position)

It's marginally better than the OE halogen bulb at 35 low/55 high watts. I wanna do the math.

Amps x volts = watts
OE is rated at 12v nominal as voltage goes up, amp draw goes down.
OE bulb is 35 watts low beam at 12 volts or  2.91 amps. At 13.5 volts amp draw is 2.59. High beam is 55 watts at 12 volts or 4.58 amps. At 13.5 volts amp draw is 4.07 amps.

2.90A @ 13.5V DC (High Beam) 39.15 watts
1.90A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam) 25.65 watts
3.50A @ 13.5V DC (Low Beam at Full Lean) 47.25 watts
0.092A @ 13.5V DC (Front Position) 1.242

I have installed quite a few advmonster units is the low draw at 25 watts high or low beam or 1.85 amps on high or low beam at 13.5 volts. The JW unit puts out about the same amount of light as the advmonster unit.

I should mention that I am not affiliated with advmonster. I have used their products and they stand behind them 100%. Any problems they will fix it asap.