HID Headlights - How I Did It

[Sidecar Bob]

This is what I did on the 650. Since it has a GL1100 fairing, this would work on a GoldWing too.

Last summer, while I was restoring a sidecar for my summer bike, I decided I wanted enough HIDs for 2 bikes & 2 sidecars. After researching a bit I decided that what I needed was:

- 4300K (the colour temperature of daylight - brilliant white with good colour rendering so you can see more easily)

- Plain H3 type on the sidecars. One light on the sidecar aimed as a low beam + high/low on the bike means that I can still see the ditch/shoulder of the road when the bike's high is on was always best with halogens so it should be good for the HIDs.

- Bixenon.
I definitely wanted to have both high beam on the bikes. I don't do a huge amount of night driving but it is all on unlit rural roads with lots of curves & hills so the single beam that mounts like an H4 was out and the halogen/xenon high/low was out for the same reason.
BTW: Bixenon is a bit of a misnomer. It sounds like 2 xenon bulbs, but really means that both beams are xenon. This is accomplished by using a solenoid to move either the bulb or the shield (all xenon headlight bulbs should have a shield to block the light from the bottom of the reflector, producing the sharp cutoff that doesn't dazzle oncoming drivers).

Then I shopped around on eBay and contacted a bunch of sellers and negotiated with several of them until I found one who was willing to let me have a pair of H3 xenons and a pair of H4 bixenons for $150US including shipping to Ontario.

When I got them I realized my mistake: There was no problem with the H3s, but the H4s come with ONE harness that controls both lights. More research ended with me joining an HID/LED lighting forum and asking how, which resulted in the schematic below.

I bought a pair of 6" off road spotlights on sale at Princess Auto and I had already changed to these headlight units http://choppercharles.com/cs/forums/16340/ShowPost.aspx. By the time the sidecar was painted & on the 'Wing it was time to start getting the 650 ready for winter which included going over the wiring in the fairing and sidecar to update a few circuits & make it a bit less of a rat's nest (it has been on 4 winter bikes since I started using it in '96 and the wiring had mods on top of mods) and drawing up a good schematic of it, so that was a good time to install the HIDs on it.

Since the 650 has a fairing it was relatively easy to find a place for the HID ballast. The new headlights are deeper than the originals and the xenon bulbs have more behind the mounting plate than regular H4s so I had to drill a hole in the fairing behind the headlight for clearance. This is the part of the fairing where the inner & outer shells are laminated together so the hole does not weaken the fairing. The hole must be large enough to allow for the headlight to move when aiming it - I used a hole saw and then filed it out a bit on one side because it wasn't perfectly in line with the bulb.

Here is the recommended schematic for the HID controller:


Since I already had headlight relays in the fairing I decided to save the harness that came with the H4 HIDs for the un-faired 'Wing and use the circuit below for the 650 outfit's 2 HIDs. I did not feel that I needed a separate relay for the bixenon solenoid because the headlight circuit that originally supplied the 60W high beam should have no problem with the solenoid's 0.72A.

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51644r

Edit: Changed to correct schematics, link added

[Sidecar Bob]

I had to put the outfit on the road before I got the HID installed the sidecar but even with just the one on the bike I had much more usable light than I ever had before with two halogens.

The H3 HIDs did not come with cutoff shields so I had to make my own. The folks on the lighting forum recommend using the little metal bottles that touch up paint with a brush in the lid comes in, but I fished around in the shop and I found a couple of old aluminum cigar tubes that my Dad had gotten from who knows where that were about the same diameter so I cut one of them up and mounted it to the reflector of one of the spotlights, mounted one of the bulbs in it and tried it. Nice. Finding a place in the sidecar for the ballast was easy and it all went together nicely.

If I was doing it again for just a bike headlight, I would get the stuff I need from eBay again, but I would look at the prices of bulbs and ballasts bought individually and make my own harness.

I will do the lights on the 'Wing in the spring, before it goes back on the road. The hardest part will be finding a deeper headlight bucket to fit it into.

BTW:
HID means High Intensity Discharge.

HID bulbs do not have a filament like normal incandescent bulbs (halogen included), but rather a capsule of sodium halide.

When you turn the HID on it's ballast produces a high frequency, high voltage signal to the halide capsule which vapourizes the crystal and produces light. After the vapourization is complete the balast's switches to low output voltge to keep the halide vapourized and optomize the light output. This is why they take a few seconds to come to full brightness.

Most HID kit sellers make a big deal about "35W" HIDs producing more light than 55W halogens. I do not dispute the fact that they produce a lot more usable light (I wouldn't want to go back), but I question the claimed power savings. According to the specs on the ballast, they require 42W (still substantially less than 55W) so I figure the marketing people decided to quote the power the actual bulb consumes rather than what the system uses. I didn't think of measuring the current until after everything was installed & I had other things on my mind by then. I will remember to measure when I do the other bike.

There is also the matter of the solenoid that moves the bulb to produce the high beam. I did measure it and it consumes a bit over 8W. If my assumption about the ballasts is correct, that means it needs a total of 50W for high beam - more than the 35 the literature would lead you to expect, but still substantially less than the halogen's 60W.

[FirstYearDeek]

Not to quibble, but the color temperature of sunlight at the equator with the sun high overhead is closer to 5,500 to 6,000 K. 4300K is still quite amber to my eyes, but I prefer this to the bright blue (8,000K and higher) that I see on the Lexus and Cadillac HID's.

You say you mounted the ballast in the sidecar; how big is it? Would it fit in the headlamp bucket?

-Deek

[Sidecar Bob]

Actually, 4500K is approx. equal to mid day sunlight


Many factory installed HIDs appear to have a bluish cast because the edge of the shield causes the light to defract so you see the blue end of the specrum when the upper edge of tee beam passes across your eyes. If you were to shine them on a pure white wall you would see white light on the bottom with a thin blue line across the top.

I did this so I could see better, not to look cool so I chose 4300K (it was the closest to 4500K that was available). I did not want a higher colour temperature (6,000-8,000 produce distinctly blue light) because it would provide poorer colour rendering and thus not let me see as well. I also didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to my headlights because non-factory HID lighting is technicaly illegal in Canada & the U.S.
The 4300Ks produce intense white light With just the low beam of the bike's HID I can see farther ahead than I ever could with the halogen high beam and the halogen light I had on the sidecar. When I switch on the HID on the sidecar and switch the bike's HID to high it is almost like daylight.

The ballasts are only approx. 3" x 3.5" x 1.25' with a cable and a connector on one narrow end so fitting the one for the bike's headlight inside the fairing and the one for the modified spotlight on the sidecar's nose inside the sidecar was easy. When I do the 'Wing I wil have to mount the ballast inside the shelter.

[CharlieP]

I'm not a big fan of the "blue" look my self either. If and when I go HID it'll be no higher than 6000k.

[Sidecar Bob]

6000K is equivalent to light overcast sunlight. In other words, it changes the colour of everything you look at to a duller, bluer colour than it actually is and you will not be able to see as well as possible with whiter light.
6000K lights also appear distinctly blue to oncoming drivers so they will be obvious to any cop who is having a bad day and looking for an excuse to pull someone over.

Stick with 4300-4500K, or at least below 5000K. Colours will look like they do in full sunlight, which is what your brain is designed to interpret best so you will be able to see better. And they won't be as likely to draw undue attention.

BTW: Most sellers charge the same no matter what colour temperature you choose so why not get the ones that do the best job?

[Sidecar Bob]

I finally got the HID installed in the 'Wing last night. Amazingly, everything fit inside the headlight shell I had been using (I could have sworn it had a Honda number but all I can find in it is TM-0349)(I'm pretty sure it is from an early Honda inline 4 before they started using the shallow buckets we are familiar with). I bolted the control (relay) unit where the ignition units originally went (Mr.H has a '79 engine with points). I couldn't find a suitable place to mount the ballast so I put it in the glove box. The deeper recess in the bottom of the tray is a perfect fit.

This time I remembered to put an ammeter in the circuit so I could find out how much power it actually uses. When the headlight is first switched on the current climbs to about 5.35A over a period of about 5 seconds and then drops back to a steady 4A. When I switch on the high beam solenoid it jumps to 4.65A. This translates to about 64W on startup, 48W for low beam and 55W for high beam.

Having driven the other outfit at night with the HIDs I feel this is still enough of an improvement over running a 55/60W halogen to justify the expense several times over.

[jackjohntx]

Thanks for the write up Bob. It has answered several questions and I'm sure will help a number of us that are in the planning stages for HID lights.