Member Contributer Terminex Posted November 2, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 (edited) So....which bulb, 5k or 6k. I know 5k has more light but the slight blue in the 6k might get someones attention before they hit me,....... or maybe not. 6K same temperature as the sunlight. I have used them, they are great and work better in fog. Unfortunately in Europe are not legal. It is better to buy the bulbs separately. The bulbs of a kit are usually of low quality. Can you recommend a good place to get bulbs? I just bought them from a local store. The original (Chineze) bulbs had bad geometry and after 350 hours of use lost 40% of the initial luminosity. About the cost; there are three categories cheap 15, good 35, best 55 euro each bulb, but these are prices in a local store more than a year ago. Which type am I after for my 6th Gen? 6th gen uses H7. Take into account that you will have to built or buy also two bases (adapters) for the HIDs to fit in the headlight. I did not have to get any adapters for my HID swap. I have an '07 and it used normal H7's. The HID's were completely plug and play without any adapters necessary. I "believe" they changed the need for adapters with the '06 bikes, but someone else would have to confirm. Edited November 2, 2009 by Terminex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer bryan217 Posted November 2, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 Terminex, which kit did you buy? I'm thinking about doing HID's in mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer coderighter Posted November 2, 2009 Author Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 OK, now I'm really confused. I went and triple checked, I have a H4 for my low beam. My low beam is on all the time. If I hit the high beams the 2 top lights come on, which appear to be H7 bulbs. Since HID have to warm up, my intent is to replace the low beams with HID and leave the high beams stock. When I need high beams, I don't what to be waiting for a warm up. I may actually up the high beams to 70 watt later, since the HID only draw 35 watt warm, I'll have a few watts to spare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Q-Dawg Posted November 2, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 OK, now I'm really confused. I went and triple checked, I have a H4 for my low beam. My low beam is on all the time. If I hit the high beams the 2 top lights come on, which appear to be H7 bulbs. Since HID have to warm up, my intent is to replace the low beams with HID and leave the high beams stock. When I need high beams, I don't what to be waiting for a warm up. I may actually up the high beams to 70 watt later, since the HID only draw 35 watt warm, I'll have a few watts to spare. - Why would you be waiting for the high beams to warm up if you stay halogen? They will light up the same speed as always unless you switch them to HID (bad idea). As for other aspects to the discussion on HID lights: - get a good kit with bulbs that are nicely centered and decent ballasts. - don't run cooler color temp than 6000K if you want decent lighting. 6000-6500K is noticeably blue, with 5000K being slightly blue. 4300-4500K is pretty much the brightest, purest white light you can get. 2500-4000K will give you a yellow look (yellow color increasing with drop in K-value) and will be good for contrast and poor weather. If you just want HID blue lights for the "look" then save yourself the money and headache of install and just get yourself a set of blue tinted halogen bulbs. Both are useless, but look "cool" if you are into that sort of thing. - Blue lights don't get you noticed any better, as every other idiot on the road seems to think 6500K to 10000K blue lights are the shit. Intense yellow color stand out more, if you ask me, and aren't as annoying to other drivers. - I could go on and on with this subject, but I will spare you all. If you want to educate yourself, look up HIDplanet or The retrofit source and do some reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer coderighter Posted November 2, 2009 Author Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 OK, now I'm really confused. I went and triple checked, I have a H4 for my low beam. My low beam is on all the time. If I hit the high beams the 2 top lights come on, which appear to be H7 bulbs. Since HID have to warm up, my intent is to replace the low beams with HID and leave the high beams stock. When I need high beams, I don't what to be waiting for a warm up. I may actually up the high beams to 70 watt later, since the HID only draw 35 watt warm, I'll have a few watts to spare. - Why would you be waiting for the high beams to warm up if you stay halogen? They will light up the same speed as always unless you switch them to HID (bad idea). As for other aspects to the discussion on HID lights: - get a good kit with bulbs that are nicely centered and decent ballasts. - don't run cooler color temp than 6000K if you want decent lighting. 6000-6500K is noticeably blue, with 5000K being slightly blue. 4300-4500K is pretty much the brightest, purest white light you can get. 2500-4000K will give you a yellow look (yellow color increasing with drop in K-value) and will be good for contrast and poor weather. If you just want HID blue lights for the "look" then save yourself the money and headache of install and just get yourself a set of blue tinted halogen bulbs. Both are useless, but look "cool" if you are into that sort of thing. - Blue lights don't get you noticed any better, as every other idiot on the road seems to think 6500K to 10000K blue lights are the shit. Intense yellow color stand out more, if you ask me, and aren't as annoying to other drivers. - I could go on and on with this subject, but I will spare you all. If you want to educate yourself, look up HIDplanet or The retrofit source and do some reading. Re-read it. I was stating my reason for not using HID in the high beam. I'll check with those sources, Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuntManDan Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 OK, now I'm really confused. I went and triple checked, I have a H4 for my low beam. My low beam is on all the time. If I hit the high beams the 2 top lights come on, which appear to be H7 bulbs. Since HID have to warm up, my intent is to replace the low beams with HID and leave the high beams stock. When I need high beams, I don't what to be waiting for a warm up. I may actually up the high beams to 70 watt later, since the HID only draw 35 watt warm, I'll have a few watts to spare. with my HID's I really can't tell any benefit of using my standard halogen high beams, they don't add much since the HID's are so intense. I think I'll use the high beam circuit to power one of those electric superchargers... ...J/K. UGG 38 deg. this morning, too cold for me, I need to make a lexan bubble and a heater system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Q-Dawg Posted November 2, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 Where are you gonna stuff the ballasts? I want to do HID install on my bike, but with cruise and other farkles jamming up the underseat area, I have no idea where the ballasts will fit. My cruise actuator sits behind the left front turn signal of the bike. I'm thinking about trying to relocate the cruise actuator to behind the r. brake resevoir and put the ballasts behind the turn signal. Good idea, or is there another way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Luvmyvfr Posted November 2, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 2, 2009 OK, now I'm really confused. I went and triple checked, I have a H4 for my low beam. My low beam is on all the time. If I hit the high beams the 2 top lights come on, which appear to be H7 bulbs. Since HID have to warm up, my intent is to replace the low beams with HID and leave the high beams stock. When I need high beams, I don't what to be waiting for a warm up. I may actually up the high beams to 70 watt later, since the HID only draw 35 watt warm, I'll have a few watts to spare. - Why would you be waiting for the high beams to warm up if you stay halogen? They will light up the same speed as always unless you switch them to HID (bad idea). As for other aspects to the discussion on HID lights: - get a good kit with bulbs that are nicely centered and decent ballasts. - don't run cooler color temp than 6000K if you want decent lighting. 6000-6500K is noticeably blue, with 5000K being slightly blue. 4300-4500K is pretty much the brightest, purest white light you can get. 2500-4000K will give you a yellow look (yellow color increasing with drop in K-value) and will be good for contrast and poor weather. If you just want HID blue lights for the "look" then save yourself the money and headache of install and just get yourself a set of blue tinted halogen bulbs. Both are useless, but look "cool" if you are into that sort of thing. - Blue lights don't get you noticed any better, as every other idiot on the road seems to think 6500K to 10000K blue lights are the shit. Intense yellow color stand out more, if you ask me, and aren't as annoying to other drivers. - I could go on and on with this subject, but I will spare you all. If you want to educate yourself, look up HIDplanet or The retrofit source and do some reading. Re-read it. I was stating my reason for not using HID in the high beam. I'll check with those sources, Thanks For what it's worth, the warm up time for the HID high beams to me is a non issue...I barely notice it and the extra light output makes up for it 100%! :biggrin: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuntManDan Posted November 2, 2009 Share Posted November 2, 2009 Where are you gonna stuff the ballasts? I want to do HID install on my bike, but with cruise and other farkles jamming up the underseat area, I have no idea where the ballasts will fit. My cruise actuator sits behind the left front turn signal of the bike. I'm thinking about trying to relocate the cruise actuator to behind the r. brake resevoir and put the ballasts behind the turn signal. Good idea, or is there another way? I put mine inside the inner fairing's, it's snug (nice, not PITA) and out of the way. the slim ballast usually have threaded ears for 3 screws, i think they were 6mm, i just drilled 3 clearance holes and bought some screws, the 2 sided tape they give you i also used but it's more of a secondary mounting system, I wouldn't trust it over the bumps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted November 7, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 7, 2009 - I could go on and on with this subject, but I will spare you all. If you want to educate yourself, look up HIDplanet or The retrofit source and do some reading. And then you go on and say "I want to do HID install on my bike"? HID conversion kits are crap. All of them. Not only on the physical level but on the design level as well. There are good reasons for this, one of which is that they are illegal in every half-way civilised country on the planet. So they are all cranked out in Chinese factories as fast as they can stuff them into boxes and into dodgy eBay and other fly-by-night sales channels. You may as well get it as cheap as you can, because there's no expectation of quality and the only guarantee is that your seller won't be there tomorrow. It's essentially a black market. And there are good reasons for that, too. Automotive lighting engineers may not be rocket scientists, but there are some things that are pretty obvious if you approach them with a degree of skepticism. You simply cannot achieve a better quality of light output by stuffing 3x the light into a headlight housing designed for 1/3 of that. Utterly impossible. You can (and will) get more light, but it won't be quality light, and it won't be where you necessarily want it. It will be more light than you really need, but also too much light where you don't want too much light. In other words, it is a DOWNgrade, not an upgrade. But it takes a while for most people to realise this, because HID is so damn mesmerising. (I, uh, have HID conversions on two of my bikes... :warranty: ...but not for long!) I could go on and on, too, and I will...because I don't know mercy! :fing02: Ciao, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuntManDan Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 - I could go on and on with this subject, but I will spare you all. If you want to educate yourself, look up HIDplanet or The retrofit source and do some reading. And then you go on and say "I want to do HID install on my bike"? HID conversion kits are crap. All of them. Not only on the physical level but on the design level as well. There are good reasons for this, one of which is that they are illegal in every half-way civilised country on the planet. So they are all cranked out in Chinese factories as fast as they can stuff them into boxes and into dodgy eBay and other fly-by-night sales channels. You may as well get it as cheap as you can, because there's no expectation of quality and the only guarantee is that your seller won't be there tomorrow. It's essentially a black market. And there are good reasons for that, too. Automotive lighting engineers may not be rocket scientists, but there are some things that are pretty obvious if you approach them with a degree of skepticism. You simply cannot achieve a better quality of light output by stuffing 3x the light into a headlight housing designed for 1/3 of that. Utterly impossible. You can (and will) get more light, but it won't be quality light, and it won't be where you necessarily want it. It will be more light than you really need, but also too much light where you don't want too much light. In other words, it is a DOWNgrade, not an upgrade. But it takes a while for most people to realise this, because HID is so damn mesmerising. (I, uh, have HID conversions on two of my bikes... :laugh: ...but not for long!) I could go on and on, too, and I will...because I don't know mercy! :fing02: Ciao, WTFarkles?... my brain hurts, I took pics and posted them it's pretty obvious the light pattern is still perfect, maybe cause i used a 10k kit which is only 2x the amount of light, I was a little concerned when I read the 6k bulbs are 3x the amount of light. I think i'm going to use some mirror chorme red tint on my headlights, it'll knock down the light by 35% almost bringing me back to stock brightness and i think it will look cool when parked. another added bonus of going HID is saving 30watts of power, leaving more power for my newest add-on; a bar-end mount deep fryer for making chicken nuggets and french fries on the go, it should balance out the other bar-end mount popcorn maker, which is currently making my bike drift to the right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted November 14, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 14, 2009 I can't tell much from your pics, but why would your installation be different from everybody else's? Even if your HID conversion put the doubled output of light in exactly the same place as OEM (which is physically impossible, due to the fact that an H4 emits light primarily from the center of a glowing filament and an HID capsule emits light primarily at either end of a much larger arc), you would have exceeded the design parameters of the headlight reflectors and would, therefore, have too much foreground light (as well as wherever else the lighting engineers at Stanley intended a small amount of light). What you actually have is that, PLUS the dispersion that inevitably follows from replacing a tiny pinpoint source of light with a relatively big blob source of light in the middle of the same, carefully designed reflector. If you think that's "perfect"... :blush: Ciao, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VFRBenny Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 If you are set on going with HID's I would suggest 3K to reduce as much glare as possible. Same glare, just yellow! 4300K is best. It looks very close to a hot halogen. As far as glare go's, All HID systems glare! We are looking at an arc lamp. Take a look at the oem systems from high end cars, you'll see glare. Well setup HID on a clear lens reflector(vfr) is no worse than bikers running high beams. If you adjust the cut off, you wont bug anyone. Most bikes I've seen with HID, have them all screwed up with a bad install/adjustment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer AnikMankar Posted November 24, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 24, 2009 HID are great. :biggrin: Besides using less power (hence less strain on the battery) it much cleaner and bright. I think the colour of the light is a lot depends on personal preference. My pre4fernece is about 4800 to 5000K...the light is a lot whiter. The blue ones hurts the eye and yellows looks really sad. Again this is my preference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted November 25, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 25, 2009 Bright Lights Save Lives... :goofy: Ciao, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 :laugh: :laugh: On my second ride after installing a HID I had a cager turning left just in front of me. Long and straight rural road, she turned into her driveway leading to the farm. :goofy: Before that I had only heard about cagers pulling stupid moves like this :beer: Btw , I had to modify the HID (Pilot) slightly to get a good pattern on a headlight tester. JZH, how's your projector beam HID setup coming along, any development now you have a big garage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyminds Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer alwaysaware Posted November 25, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 25, 2009 Wow, that looks great. Where did you get the kit you have on your bike? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted November 29, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted November 29, 2009 Wow, that looks great. Where did you get the kit you have on your bike? What looks great? Are you just looking at the color? Oh, dear... I've been in California for the last two weeks, so haven't had a chance to even clean out the new garage or move my stuff in. It'll happen this winter! Ciao, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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