HID lights onna bike Pt2

Fitted them to the dipped and main beam today.

Hid the ballasts away nicely (well, they're in view if you know where,
as their spec does mention running temps upto 120 deg C I thought I'd
better give them some air flow, and not to close to the plastic petrol
tank)

Went out for a play when it got dark.

Main beam is OK for flashing, dim to start with from the riders POV,
but after 20 secs is "sun" like, **** me.

Dipped beam isn't as crisp a cut off as I'd like and is definitely too
high, even adjusted as far down as it'll go. I don't think I put the
bulb in properly, or its bent or summat.

Its bright though.

Dipped to be dismantled tomorrow to inspect why its so high.

(the R1200GS uses H7 bulbs, single element per light, and the reflector
does all the beam shaping so I'm a little suprised at the poor beam cut
off, hopefully it'll improve once the height problem is sorted)

One thing that suprised me is the wires going to/from the ballast were
a little warm after 30 mins. Specified at 101% of the bulbs rating to
save costs I suppose.

 

"BMW in bit"?

It ain't that hard! You don't have to drill a hole right through the
fairing/frame/engine. (on mine anyways)

I've had to dremel out a 25mm hole in the back of each headlight bulb
access cover. They'll cost maybe ?15 each to replace if I want to.

Also drilled 2 x 5mm holes in a hidden part of frame plating to mount
the ballasts.

With decent lights I like riding round at night when its dry & warm.

 

So today I did this:-


They include a couple of spade connectors that you're supposed to
connect to the OEM plug that went onto the old bulb, and you're then
expected to shove the OEM bulb plug with new wires connected to it
somewhere into the light assembly and pop the cover back on.

In a car there's probably bags of room so no problem. On a bike there's
bugger all room, and if you try to wedge things in somewhere it's quite
likely to jam the headlight adjustment doobry up.

So when you adjust the lights up, the plug drops down a little more,
and won't let you adjust them back down.

Arse.

So after chopping the bulb plug off and soldering a couple of female
spades onto dipped and main, its all happy and adjusts properly.


I also noticed that the little springy catch that locks the bulb in
place on the dipped light opens sideways, and it likes to drop down
slightly (1~2mm) when you open it, and once its dropped down the top
half catches on the bit that its mounted on and doesn't press the bulb
in properly, resulting in the bulb pointing upwards.


Next I painted the HID bulb. The H7 reflector bulb has the end painted
black to cut down light scatter. Doing the same to the HID bulb (with
some high temp exhaust paint) does a grand job of cutting down the
unwanted light scatter a lot. But it smokes a little when you first
turn it on.


Dipped now adjusts properly, light scatter is comparable to a halogen
light and the dipped cut off is still a bit soft.


Nothing I can do about the last point without changing all the optics
for projector stuff, which isn't going to happen.