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How bright can my low beam be?

ST Guy said:
For excellent information on lighting, go here:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/bulbs.html

Check out the entire site.

FYI, PIAA bulbs are a waste of money. Tinting does nothing for the bulb except robbing it of light ouput. There is no such thing as 55w = 110w. If you want the most legal light for your money, get a +50 bulb.
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They are the brightest bulbs I have EVER had on any motor vehicle and they are what, $80? Regular bulbs are $10-20? I wouldn't say that the difference in price is unreasonable for what you get. And the physics behind it is also worth a read.

I am picking up retro-reflective glows from signs and cars much further than I normally would. The whole world shines like a Christmas tree on my new bike. There is a difference. I don't know if it is what PIAA claim, but I noticed it.
 
monkeythumpa said:
I found the headlight adjustment screw and I turned it all the way down. The GS also has a lever that flips it down more for when you load up the panniers. I guess it happens enough for BMW to put that feature into it. We will see if it makes much more of a difference.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79605
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This.

Most bikes have these headlight beam adjustments. A little optimization can go a long way improving your night time visibility and reducing glare to oncoming drivers.

I was under the impression that 55/65watts is the maximum for DOT approved headlight bulbs. Higher wattage bulbs usually have fine print somewhere on the packaging saying Not For Highway Use.
 
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I'm with ST. I've got a $50 PIAA next to a $13 off brand H7 right now. The light output is the same. There is a small difference in the color temp. Piaa tints their bulbs and reflectors to turn the temp closer to 4500k. Any tint will reduce the light output of the bulb.
 
hitman5532 said:
The 55=110 is unfortuantly a result of bad japanense to english translation.

A typical filiment bulb loses 97% of energy to heat, and 3% comes out as light. The PIAA (and a few other brands) lights only lose 94% to heat, resulting in a 6% light output. The Lumen output is twice that of a normal bulb, they are trying to say (poorly) that the 55w bulb puts out the lumen level of a standard 110w bulb
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:wtf Way wrong. If the light output was twice as much (and it ain't), they'd be illegal and could not carry the DOT stamp. What you're paying for with PIAA or any other tinted bulb is hype. And shorter bulb life. Tinting reduces light output, among other things, and in order to compensate, they must (or have the option to) start with a bulb with higher output, lumen-wise. This means a bulb with a shorter life span. Then they coat it which brings it down to or under the light output level spec'd by the DOT. Twice the lumens??....hogwash. Read Daniel Stern's piece on blue bulbs.
 
monkeythumpa said:
They are the brightest bulbs I have EVER had on any motor vehicle and they are what, $80? Regular bulbs are $10-20? I wouldn't say that the difference in price is unreasonable for what you get. And the physics behind it is also worth a read.

I am picking up retro-reflective glows from signs and cars much further than I normally would. The whole world shines like a Christmas tree on my new bike. There is a difference. I don't know if it is what PIAA claim, but I noticed it.
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Sounds like you've never tried a +30 or +50 bulb. More light than a PIAA at less than half the cost. Read Danel Stern's articles.

And FYI, Stern is the real deal. An awknowledged expert in the field of lighting, especially vehicle lighting.
 
87cr250r said:
I'm with ST. I've got a $50 PIAA next to a $13 off brand H7 right now. The light output is the same. There is a small difference in the color temp. Piaa tints their bulbs and reflectors to turn the temp closer to 4500k. Any tint will reduce the light output of the bulb.
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While you can't tell by just looking at the bulb (sorry, ya gotta have specialized equipment), you're not far off the mark. Most blue tinted bulbs put out no more light than ordinary bulbs. And often less. And the blue tint, while it makes it look more like an HID system, actually makes it harder to see at night. And, as you stated, any tint will reduce the light output of the bulb.
 
From Daniel's website:

Some companies (PIAA...) even capitalize on this by claiming that their 55W bulbs are as bright as 85W bulbs, among other pseudoscientific claims. Here's how this claim works: Higher-wattage bulbs of a given type generally appear whiter than lower-wattage bulbs. Think of the last time you replaced a 60W bulb in your home with a 100W bulb. So the idea with these "blue" filtered bulbs is to have a lower wattage bulb that mimics the color of a higher wattage bulb, but not its performance. However, there's no getting something for nothing. The altered light color does not mean you're getting more light, or better quality light, just that the light is of a different color.

In fact, you get less usable light from such a bulb than from a regular clear bulb, and here's why: A blue filter removes nonblue components of the light passing through it. Halogen bulbs produce very little light in the blue frequency range. When you put a blue filter on the bulb or lamp, you are reducing the amount of usable light that gets from the glowing filament to the reflector, to the lens and from there to the road. Prove it to yourself using nothing more than the windshield in your car...drive towards a yellow-orange Sodium vapor street light and watch the light as it shines first through the clear portion of the windshield, then through the blue strip at the top. Up there through the blue, it certainly looks "whiter"...but it's also dimmer. If a bulb's sales material focuses on the color of the light rather than the amount of light, you should ask critical questions about the amount of light the bulb produces before choosing to use it.
 
Aftermarket HIDs? In general, no. If you buy an assembly (meaning lens and all) that is DOT approved, it's a different story... but if you just toss an HID bulb in your stock headlight and hook it up to a ballast, it isn't legal.
 
Junkie said:
Aftermarket HIDs? In general, no. If you buy an assembly (meaning lens and all) that is DOT approved, it's a different story... but if you just toss an HID bulb in your stock headlight and hook it up to a ballast, it isn't legal.
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ummmmmmmmmm, lets forget I ever asked, lol:teeth
 
Junkie said:
Aftermarket HIDs? In general, no. If you buy an assembly (meaning lens and all) that is DOT approved, it's a different story... but if you just toss an HID bulb in your stock headlight and hook it up to a ballast, it isn't legal.
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What he said. The orientation of the arc in an HID bulb is very different than the orientation of the filiment in a halogen bulb. That, and the fact that they emit light very differently makes using HID in a reflector and lens designed for halogen a big no-no. Not only is it illegal in the USA, but it's illegal in Europe and many other places in the world. Because of the way the reflector and lens for halogen is designed, you can end up with so much more light thown down in front of your bike that you pupils close up and the result is that you can't see as well into the distance. Is it brighter?.....No doubt. Is it better?......No. Also, you can end up blinding people coming at you, even on low beam. 'Not what you want coming at you at night.

Also, note that it's not just the USA's DOT that's against this combination. It's most of the rest of the civilized world. 'Must be a reason for that.

Unless you're willing to replace the reflector and lens along with the bulb, don't. And finding an HID reflector and lens for most bikes just ain't gonna happen because of the very non-standard shapes. The only way is if one year the bike was made with halogen and the next it was made with HID and you can swap out the parts.

The best way to approach upgrading the lighting on your bike is the following:

Buy the very best CLEAR bulbs for your stock system. Then, if you want more light, buy some HID driving lights and mount them. Yea, it's a look that sport bike riders don't like, but standards, tourers, and sport tourers do it all the time.
 
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Just a concrete data point.

I'm currently running 65W Osram H7 Rallye bulbs. About $30. These are not technically legal, but seem to put out about as much light as modern car headlights. No complaints from oncoming traffic but much more visibility during the day and better seeing at night. Normal 500 hour lifespan.

The story with high-output 55W bulbs seems to be that it comes at the expense of lifespan. Drawbacks of HID were already covered, so a boost in wattage seems like the best way to go. You can get 85W or 100W bulbs, but the extra brightness may be objectionable to other motorists and I'd be worried about melting things.
 
Well, those bulbs would only be 5 watts over legal. However, I'm betting that they're putting out more light because they're basically a +30 or +50 type of bulb. One could expect pretty much the same output from a 60 watt version of the same bulb.

And yea, when you go to 85 or even 100 watts, you can begin to melt/fry things. Reflector housings can melt. Wiring can fry. It's a crap shoot. The wiring you can upgrade. The housings you can't. And, of course, many bikes don't have the extra charging system output to handle upgrades like that.
 
I'm pretty sure it was on this site, a year ago.

Someone put HID replacements on their bike (almost seems like an R1, but maybe not) They were riding on a freeway at night, they didn't have any added battery state of charge indicator, and the lights went out and the engine died...right in a lane.

A pick-up right behind him saw what happened, got his emergency flashers on, got out and helped the guy push his bike off the freeway.

Just sayin...there are guys that know how to do it...there are guys that don't know what has to be checked.
 
Junkie said:
Lou, HIDs draw less power than stock lights.
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Then it wasn't HID's The problem that drained the guys battery, was he changed to something in the lights dept..and..whatever it was, he changed to, totally flattened his battery.

He had no clue till the lights went out and the engine quit at the same time.
 
Junkie said:
Lou, HIDs draw less power than stock lights.
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There are 35-watt HID and 55-watt HID kits.
There are folks who will state that you can replace a 55-watt halogen bulb with a 35 watt HID and supposedly get about the same amount of light. But, there are those that get the 55-watt HID kit for the H7 bulb they're replacing ... and they'll use the same amount of power.
HID's of the same power, though, will produce less heat than the equivalent tungsten bulb.
 
louemc said:
Then it wasn't HID's The problem that drained the guys battery, was he changed to something in the lights dept..and..whatever it was, he changed to, totally flattened his battery.

He had no clue till the lights went out and the engine quit at the same time.
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If you have a bigger drain on the electrical system than the alternator can deliver power for, you use the reserve, which is the battery. When the battery goes dead, there went your reserve.
If you killed the alternator in the process of an electrical installation, your alternator can't deliver any power.
 
There's a couple often overlooked items I've done to my headlights that seemed to have great effect:
1) Run a dedicated, fused wire from the battery through a relay to the headlight. My KLR somebody made an add on kit, the BMW seemed robust enough, and the Duc I had to fabricate. This just makes sure the light gets plenty of juice. We all know MC wiring harnesses are pretty wimpy in the first place so this should be a first when adding a bigger/better/more wattage.
2) When was the last time you cleaned the INSIDE of your headlight lens. I'm always amazed at how much cleaner mine are every couple years when I do this. I have no idea how they get that dirty but they are certainly cleaner when I finish. Usually I clean them sometime after a bulb goes out.

The above probably belongs over in the garage but seemed appropriate to comment here....
 
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