replacement hid bulb....

First real test tonight of the hid bulb kit i put in the transalp, bloody
brilliant light output, all was fine untill i was in the city centre and
decided to flash someone, so once i'd put me dick away, i put the headlight
onto high beam then back to low beam.... only it stuck on main beam....
bugger.

this is one of the hid kits where a solenoid pulls the bulb and a shutter
back to go onto main beam, i tried shutting off, re-starting, pulling the
passing button a million times, unplugging the connection where the
origional headlight connector plugs into the controll box, nowt, the damn
solenoid seems stuck.

in the morning i'll whip it out and have a look see, could be that as it was
hot, something had expanded and was binding to prevent the bulb and shutter
snapping back to low beam position.

But if the solenoid is buggered, wheres the best/cheapest place to a hid
bulb on it's own? it's the H4 version,
i really do not want to go back to the stone ages with the candle coloured
halogen bulbs now i've experianced the pure white light of a hid bulb.

 

Oh great, another ignorant **** riding about blinding everyone in front
of him. Hopefully one of them will lose control long enough to kill you.

Get an eye test. If your night vision isn't up to scratch then hand in
your licence and enjoy the bus.

 

Agreed. The headlights on my SV aren't regarded as brilliant, but with
Phillips Blue-vision 60/55W bulbs in I can go almost as fast at night
as I can in daylight.

I detest HID bulbs, they **** with my eyes when I see them coming
towards me, because no **** ever has them set up correctly

--
Lozzo the velologist
Suzuki SV650S K5
Honda CBR600 FW trackbike
Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka
Suzuki GSXR750 L
Suzuki TS50X
Suzuki TS50X

 

If you've just bought and fitted the kit and its faulty, take it back
to where you got it from.

Or if thats not possible, there's plenty on EBay who sell the kits, and
if you look in their shops most of them sell the bulbs by themselves
too.

 

I asked the garage to do a quick check on the dipped beam on the GS now
I've fitted HIDs to it to see if it would pass using the proper gear.

"No problem, its fine" was the result.

It is possible to fit them properly.

 

cheers mate,
unfortunately no one was blinded, as my bike has an easily accesable
headlight height adjuster knob, so when the main beam stuck on, i pulled
over pointing the headlight at a wall, and reached down between the front of
teh tank/frame and the fairing nose cone, and adjusted the headlight so it
was pointing further down that it was on dipped beam,

absolutely no one flashed me on the ride home, covered their eyes, adjusted
their rear view mirror when i was behind them etc, so i dont think i
bothered anyone.

only problem is when i get the bulb sorted, i'll have to go back to the mot
station to get the headlight set up again like i did when i first fitted the
hid bulb, it only cost me 2 quid, and that's gos it was slightly too high
and too far over to the right... the bikes 5 months old, and the beam
pattern on the road was the same with the hid as with the stock halogen
before i got it set up, so it was mis adjusted from the factory.

And i got the headlight set up with both me and my GF on the bike, as that's
how it's ridden the most, the odd occasion i ride alone the light will be a
bit low, but that's better than blinding someone with it being too high.

Why, i can see perfectly well, i just prefer to be seeing things in a pure
white light, as oposed to the yellow cast of a fillament bulb, it's not as
if i have the 16000k bulbs that are almost ultraviolet, or those twatty
multicoloured bulb covers the boy racers like to use, my headlight is just
brilliant white and illuminates things as if it were daylight,

 

Oi Brother Nigel, point of order.
It's me who half-reads things, flies off and talks bollocks round 'ere.
Been doing it for years, man and boyd.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Grimly Curmudgeon

I didn't half read it at all. He's fitted HID lights because his desire
to see more clearly is more important to him than oncoming traffic being
able to see anything.

 

He did say he'd adjusted the faulty light downwards (admittedly in the
follow-up post), so he didn't actually ride home with full beam at
normal angle. It appears he's not Nidge.

Fwiw, I think he acted responsibly and I see nothing wrong in having
bloody bright lights - provided they are properly adjusted.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"It's a moron working with power tools.
How much more suspenseful can you get?"
- House

 

Sorry for not mentioning that i had adjusted the light in the first post, i
figured people would assume i wasnt a total twat to ride about on full beam,
especialy with a hid bulb in the thing,

Seconded only by wankers driving around with fog lights on when it's not
foggy (if they cant see a fukin orange idiot light glaring at them from the
dashboard, how the feck are they going to notice anything smaller than a
44ton truck when the pull out from a jucntion),
The thing that really pisses me off is badly adjusted headlights,

i check my headlight aim againt a wall every so often (at my parents house,
the garage door has paint marks on it in different colours for the headlight
positions of all my vehicles, (other garage door has my parents vehicles
light positions)
When i get a vehicle, i drive it right upto the garage door, mark the
centres of the lights, then back up a few feet/yards and check the beam cut
off is at or below the marks, then i can do it any time i pull into the
drive, the red paint is for the micra, white for the motorhome, orange in
the middle for the chinkie scooter, havent got one for the transalp as i
moved out before i got it) at the flat here i put discrete chalk marks on
the wall oposite my parking space in the same manner.

ok not as perfect as using a beam adjuster jobbie wotzit (that gets checked
every mot time) but it lets me see if they have gone out of alignment or i
need to adjust them due to a load in the boot, i look at the beam side
cutoff as i drive, and if i think it's shining over the white line too much,
i'll call in the mot station accross the road and get it checked and adjust
if nessicary.

Anyhoo, i take headlight aim seriousely, i get pissed off enough with cages
driving along blisefully unaware they are blinding everyone, 90% of the time
its a car under 3 years old, so they'll be doing it till the first mot time,
i got into a right argument with the importers of the chinkie scooter we
have, it came with a european beam deflector in the dipped beam light, they
just brushed it off saying it's not a problem, and get back to them if it
fails it's mot in 3 years time,

took a few phone calles and e-mails, plus threatening to see what the
ministry testing station thought if it before they sent me out the correct
uk beam deflector plate (it has those projector style headlights, so just a
dome of glass at the front, the beam shaping is done internaly with a bit of
bent tin, prolly from a chinkie soup can)

Getting back to the origional subject, i had the bulb out today, and it
seems the solenoid is going, it's a pulse solenoid (magnet at either end of
the solenoid coil, a pulse of voltage shoves the pin across to the other
magnet which holds it in place, till a reversed polarity pulse of voltage
shoves it back to the dipped beam holding magnet)
i measured a 12 volt pulse from the controll box on the bike when main beam
is selected, and a revers polarity pulse when de-selected, so i applied 12
volts to the coil on the bench, the solenoid tried to move, but just didnt
have the oompf, bugger.

i could faff about trying to replace the solenoid, but i think i'll see
about a new bulb, i got the kit off someone off here, bought second hand so
i accept there's no guarentee or owt with it.

I gather all hid bulbs will be the same? as in striking and sustaining
voltage and current?