LED Headlight Install - 5th Gen

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by zoom-zoom, Dec 14, 2013.

  1. zoom-zoom

    zoom-zoom Member

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    Personally I would say the difference is like night and day. The whiter light especially, makes things easier to see IMHO. There are some who have made comments that the LED's put out less LUX (a measure of light intensity in lumens per square foot) at say 100 feet, but all I can say to that is, my experience thus far has shown me otherwise.
     
  2. konigralph

    konigralph New Member

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    Damn I didn't even know that they had LED headlights out already. Hows the longterm reliability of these things so far? I really like the LED headlights as a serious viable alternative tto HID...
     
  3. silverbullet132

    silverbullet132 New Member

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    Gotta love projectors tho :D

    [​IMG]

    If anyone is interested in getting projectors installed feel free to PM me, lots of options available.
     
  4. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    After initial problems with one manufacturer, they have been great ever since.

    There are plusses and minuses, filaments are almost point sources of light while LED have a much broader light source (multiple LEDs), therefore reflectors are not optimized and light patterns are not as defined.
     
  5. blainerides

    blainerides New Member

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    What are you saying, exactly? I'm missing what you're responding to...

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  6. Mohawk

    Mohawk New Member

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    not so, by optimising the position of the LED mine re great, better than the H4 bulb for sure.
     
  7. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    Don't get me wrong, they are much better, maybe someday we will brighter single LEDs rather using an array.

    [​IMG]
    My current lamps (no fans!)
     
  8. blainerides

    blainerides New Member

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    What about the lower draw of replacing the H4s with LEDs putting more stress on the regulator/rectifier (and, I suppose, the stator, too)? This is NOT a desired side effect. I mean IF you have a "series" type R/R, this is less of an issue (well, a non-issue), but most people don't know to do this, and it's uncommon. The stock/OEM Honda R/R and the typical "MOSFET" upgrade R/R options (Rick's or Shindengen FH020AA) are all shunt-type R/Rs that are being loaded/stressed with more current and heat, when you hugely reduce the load by running LEDs instead of H4s. Is there some other work-around for this that you've implemented?

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  9. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    I have preaching about the Series R/R since I went to LEDs, no problems, I am tired of taking off fairing too! I even extended the wires on the temp sensor so I could undo connector easier!
     
  10. zoom-zoom

    zoom-zoom Member

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    Thus far, I have been running the LED's now since around the middle of March when I started commuting to work Monday thru Friday, and I have suffered no issues with the bulbs or power supplies. vfrcapn did have some issues with a power supply and a bulb from the same eBay seller I purchased my light kit from, but so far, mine have functioned perfectly.

    As far as suppliers goes and if I chose to do it over again, I think I would be tempted to go with the lights from Lifetime LED's however simply for the advent of the warranty. The LED headlight kit from Lifetime also has some brighter bulbs rated at 2600 lumens versus the 2000 lumens in the ones I purchased. If you check the first post in this thread I think I added a link to several of the manufacturers. Personally I didn't find out about the Lifetime LED's until after I had already added the kit to my bike.

    I have had no issues with the beam spread pattern and though they do shine more light just ahead of the bike in the 5 to 10 ft range, I have not noticed it being a huge problem when riding at night. The beam cut off line is not as precise as the halogen bulbs but I have not had a single person flash their high beams at me in disgust yet so I would venture to say that they are not bothering the oncoming traffic. One night when following my wife home from the restaurant after we met for dinner after I got off work, I asked her if the lights produced too much glare when I was riding behind her and she said that the lights were fine.
     
  11. zoom-zoom

    zoom-zoom Member

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    This is indeed a possible concern and I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread. I replaced the R/R in my bike just after I purchased it (twice actually, after the first one failed due to some funky wiring that the PO had come up with) and I am currently running a Compufire series R/R. The voltage is bang on 14.42 VDC at anything above 1600 RPM. At idle I get 13.4 VDC. On a standard Honda R/R there is the possibility that the addition of the LED's would cause a lower voltage draw on the system and thus increase the amount of voltage that the R/R must shunt as heat. This in turn could lead to an R/R failure unless, like me, you are also running a lot of heated gear in the winter. I also spend a lot of time in stop and go traffic when I commute to work during the summer and the fan is on constantly as a result of the slow movement, and with the addition of the LED's I am no longer noticing the voltage drop from 14.4 V to 13.3 V the bike would drop to at a stop light.

    So far so good, though the point about the current draw is a valid one to consider.
     
  12. zoom-zoom

    zoom-zoom Member

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    Those things just ROCK and they look just awesome. This is the way I wanted to go originally, but I didn't like the idea of having to split open the headlight unit in order to install the projectors. The LED's may not be AS bright as the those but they are fairly close IMHO and the LED kit is totally plug and play, so it takes a lot less time to install. Gotta love those projectors though.
     
  13. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    I have no problems with people flashing their lights at me. I don't ride that much at night any more, but I have a switch that gives me high beams in H4's + normal high beams in H7's!!!! That about as bright as I can get.
     
  14. blainerides

    blainerides New Member

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    How did you run the wires?

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  15. Allyance

    Allyance Insider

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    i used 3 relays and new heavy duty sockets from NAPA, because Honda doesn't wire the H4 sockets for the high beams.
     
  16. Mohawk

    Mohawk New Member

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    Well as the bike is designed to run with lights off, there should be no issue !
     
  17. BAMiller

    BAMiller New Member

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    Hi all who have contributed to this very interesting thread, especially Zoom-Zoom, who paved the way for the rest of the group!

    About 3 months ago I intended to make this conversion and purchased the same kit that Zoom-Zoom used, from the same US based ebay seller, to install on my 98. Since then, I've decided not to perform the lighting mod upgrade, as I may be selling the bike, and think I'd rather keep it stock.

    The components have never been out of the box & packing. The instructions (which pale in comparison to the info on this thread) are intact. I paid $79 including shipping. Will like to sell the kit for $60 TYD (mainland USA).

    If interested, please drop me an email through the site, and we can make arrangements.

    Thanks, Ride Safe.


    UPDATE: LED headlight conversion kit sold. Thanks
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2014
  18. vfrcapn

    vfrcapn Member

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    So the right fan started acting noisy a few weeks ago, I let it go since it was still working and you can't hear it once the bike is started.

    Today, the left light flickered on the way home and died before I got there. Low beam has only a slight glow to it, same on high beam. The high beam LED works, the low side just doesn't change. It was 105 degrees F on the freeway but I never got bogged down in traffic, 75 mph the whole way.

    I think that's 2 bulb/power units now? 2-3 fan units, in 8 months? I'm done, I'm emailing them to ask for a refund, going back to halo's until there's a proven plug'n'play solution.
     
  19. vfrcapn

    vfrcapn Member

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    Thought I'd update this as I'm looking for new bulbs now and the pricing and URLs have changed significantly...

    1. $60.95
    http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Universa...=100011&prg=10284&rk=1&rkt=10&sd=141105877873

    2. $200
    http://www.vleds.com/headlights/led/h4-9003-hb2/h4-mtg2.html

    3. $149.95
    http://www.electricalconnection.com/other-lighting/led-hl-h4.htm

    4. Didn't check the UK listing

    5. $118
    https://www.lifetimeledlights.com/led_lights/motorcycle_headlight_h4m

    Are there any reports on the lifetime bulbs stability, any failure issues?
     
  20. zoom-zoom

    zoom-zoom Member

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    Thanks for the update Capn. Still sorry to hear that you have suffered with more failures. I had my bike apart the other day to check a burnt out bulb in the turn signal dash indicator so I removed the headlight unit and rigged up the headlight unit to a battery using some spade connectors and plugged the spare battery into a battery tender to keep the charge up.

    One thing that I noticed is that the kit I purchased originally (same kit as vfrcapn used) the cooling fan screws on to the base if the bulb. I can't really say that part is new as I installed the kit, but one thing I noticed with the headlight unit sitting on the bench is that the fan actually does not move a great deal of air, and honestly I doubt that the fan would be drawing much air past the heat sink to properly cool the base of the bulb as it is arguably intended. This would lead me to believe that perhaps the bulb failures are due to the bulbs actually overheating. Since the headlight unit itself is sealed (not completely air tight but close) and there is a fairly tight seal between the rubber grommet and the LED bulbs base, the fan has little opportunity to perform its cooling effect by having a lack of air to draw past the heat sink.

    In this regard I think the Lifetime LED bulbs have a vastly superior design in that they employ a retaining ring that installs in the headlight unit and then the rubber grommet seals to that ring after the retaking clip is re-attached. The bulb unit itself is then inserted into the retaining ring and twist locked in place. Since the bulb, heatsink and fan are all one piece, I think these bulbs would have a better chance at dissipating the heat created by the diodes. Since there is direct connection between the bulb base and the heat sink, I think the heat transfer from the diode to the bulb base and then to the heat sink would be more efficient.

    Being the starter of the thread, I think I am going to purchase a set of the Lifetime LED's and install them in my bike or in my wife's and keep the eBay sellers set on hand just in case I suffer a failure of the bulbs or drivers. I'm sure time will undoubtedly show an increase in technology on the LED front and make a plug and play system that will be more efficient. Hopefully my LED's last a bit longer and I can remain free of failures, but I may try a Lifetime LED system and see if there is indeed a difference.

    If anyone else tries a different supplier, or suffers a problem, PLEASE, don't be shy, post up and let us all know how it goes. There is a member on VFRD that tried one of the Lifetime kits and showed pics of the install and how they are different.

    Check out the post by KevCarver (#249) and he shows the install of the Lifetime LED kit and notes a few differences. Maybe the Lifetime kit is the way to go versus the eBay sellers if for any other reason than the warranty.

    http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/topic/76766-led-headlight-install-5th-gen/page-25
     
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