First night ride with LED headlight

[Birch71]

Finished a shoot downtown and had the 30 mile trip home.

One word... WOW!

The only thing is when it's hot, my high beam indicator goes on even if I'm still on low beams.

Best $60 I've spent for the G11 yet.

[Moto Fugazzi]

Nice! Which headlight did you get? Why does the high beam indicator go on? That seems strange.
Ken

[Zinfan]

I have just added a LED H4 bulb to my V7.  I also noted that the high beam indicator lamp would remain on for up to 20 seconds after switching to the low beam, the amount of time depended on how long the high beam had been on, the longer the high beam on the longer it took for the indicator lamp to go off.  I put pictures of my findings with the old bulb vs the new LED in this thread which also lists where I bought the LED.

http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=66974.0

http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/3600-Lumen-H4-H6M-LED-Headlight-bulb-_p_83.html

[Birch71]

That's the one I got.

For me, it's not even switching from high to low. It just turns on even though I left the lows on.

Any chance the bike measures current draw and it's from the light's fan turning on?  Only seems to happen when it's hot out or when I'm stuck in traffic.

[Testarossa]

What's the draw?

[Sasquatch Jim]

Finished a shoot downtown and had the 30 mile trip home.

One word... WOW!

The only thing is when it's hot, my high beam indicator goes on even if I'm still on low beams.

Best $60 I've spent for the G11 yet.

 Brand name and source please.

[Kiwi_Roy]

Is there a manual we could look at, that may clue us into why the idiot light stays on.

[Birch71]

 Brand name and source please.

It's the link a couple of posts back for Cyclops Adventure Sports.

[Triple Jim]

I like this product and your review of it, Birch71, and would have ordered one if they weren't out of stock.  I rarely ride at night, and need a headlight mainly so oncoming traffic notices me, and to satisfy the NC and VA headlight laws.  If the specs are correct, the headlight draws less than 2 amps on low beam, compared to about four for my H4 incandescent.  This gives me two more amps for battery charging, and undoubtedly lowers the "break even" RPM significantly.  It's also about 1/8 the price of the high-output alternator from Euro Motoelectrics.

Edit:  I ordered one anyway.  Maybe I'll be one of the first to get one when they start shipping again.

[Triple Jim]

In case anyone is interested, cyclopsadventurespo rts.com shipped my 3600 Lumen H4 LED bulb today, so it appears they're back in stock.

[canuguzzi]

Just so you know, on their site it says the light isn't DOT approved and is for off-road use only.

"This Bulb is not DOT approved and is for off road use only"

Maybe no big deal unless you get into a collision or something and it comes up (claims of they didn't see you). You'd be surprised what gets looked at when it comes time for an insurance company to pay up.

DOT approved lights cost about twice but maybe you get what you pay for?

[Triple Jim]

I noticed that, but thanks for the heads-up anyway.  I plan to do a comparison in daylight, looking at it from an approaching driver's point of view, and also at night, from my point of view.  As long as it's at least as visible to other drivers in the daytime I'll be happy.  I'll try to post some photos.

[rodekyll]

The reason the H4 LED is not (and probably never will be) DOT approved is that it's an LED bulb intended to retrofit in an E-type reflector.  They're incompatible optically.  IIRC, I've seen DOT-approved LED headlights, but it's the full montie -- bulb, lens, and reflector.

[clubman]

What's the draw?

The light has 3 20W LED's, 2 run all the time the 3rd kicks in when you switch to high beam,so 40W on low 60W on high. I like mine a lot.

[Triple Jim]

Not saying you're wrong, Clubman, but the ad says "Power draw 20 watts on Low 30 watts on high".  Is the ad wrong, or does it actually have three 10 watt LEDs?

[Wayne Orwig]

Not saying you're wrong, Clubman, but the ad says "Power draw 20 watts on Low 30 watts on high".  Is the ad wrong, or does it actually have three 10 watt LEDs?

Pretty sure it is three ten watt dies .

[canuguzzi]

I noticed that, but thanks for the heads-up anyway.  I plan to do a comparison in daylight, looking at it from an approaching driver's point of view, and also at night, from my point of view.  As long as it's at least as visible to other drivers in the daytime I'll be happy.  I'll try to post some photos.

I noticed that LEDs do show up much better in daylight (your goal). The pure white seems to catch attention.

I wonder if they'd work with a modulator, that should really grab looks.

[Triple Jim]

I noticed that LEDs do show up much better in daylight (your goal). The pure white seems to catch attention.

That's encouraging.  As far as your connection between double cost and DOT approval, the cost of the approval process may be partly to blame.  I do understand the need to approve a lamp and reflector combination as a unit though.

I'm looking forward to taking comparison photos between my 50/55 watt quartz-halogen H4 bulb and the LED bulb.  I'll get my daughter to use her SLR and keep the aperture and shutter speed the same, so hopefully the only variable will be the bulbs themselves.

[Zinfan]

Just in case you didn't catch the other thread I'll repost the photos I took off my gopro here,

Took some video of the old vs new during my nighttime commute into work and maybe I'll post them up at some point but for now I did get some screen grabs of the same section of road while using the high beams and another section when I had the low beams on.

First up is the low beam using the stock H4 bulb


Now the same section of road with the low beam LED light


High beam stock H4


High beam LED H4



A few observations,  The light is much whiter as can be seen in the pics above.  The LED high beam does not seem to project much farther than the dipped/low beam, it just fills in the space in front of the bike better.  The LED light seems to throw more light out to the side than the stock H4 bulb, I didn't run into any head on traffic on the ride in so I can't tell if it will be bothersome to oncoming drivers but I'm a bit worried about that.  Also noted that the blue high beam lamp stayed on once the LED was set to the dim position for 5-10 seconds and then the blue lamp would go out.  Also the small daytime running lamp underneath the main bulb was not lit, not sure if it only comes on during the day?  I never noticed it before so I'm not sure how it works.

[Triple Jim]

Here are some photos of the light from the quartz-halogen and LED bulbs.  the LED bulb is the same as Zinfan's.  The first four were taken in my garage with the light shining on the garage door.  I was careful to not change the vertical adjustment of the reflector between photos.  The little piece of blue tape is there to show the top of the light pattern that would shine toward an oncoming driver's eyes.  The camera was set to the same shutter speed, aperture, and white balance for each group of photos, so they can be compared in a fair way.

The 1st pair is the H4 Quartz-Halogen on low beam and the LED bulb on low beam.  The quartz-halogen bulb really cuts off the light that would be in an oncoming driver's eyes, whereas the LED does not.  This is the biggest concern I have about the LED bulb.  I rarely ride at night, so it may not be a big problem, but when I do ride at night I may have to tilt the headlight down some.





The next pair is QH High and LED High.  There's nowhere as much difference in pattern on high beam:





Same pairs, looking from an approaching driver's point of view.  It's interesting that the quartz-halogen bulb is not very impressive on low beam in the daytime.  Daytime headlight laws are intended to help other drivers see us, but the light isn't much brighter than my sunlit gravel driveway.  Here the LED bulb would do  much better at getting attention.  I don't know if it would go so far as to be annoying or not.






On high beam, the quartz-halogen bulb stands out much better than it did on low.  The LED bulb on high mainly lights up the whole headlight, rather than leaving the dark spot at the bottom that it has on low:





Current draw at 12.5 volts:

LED bulb on low: 1.6 amps
LED bulb on high: 2.3 amps
QH bulb on low: 4.2 amps (nominally 55 watts)
QH bulb on high: 4.5 amps (nominally 60 watts)

This means more than 2 amps are available for battery charging than there were before.

[Wayne Orwig]

Wow, there is no low beam cutoff.  :o  Wouldn't work for my nightly ride home.
With my HID addons, the low beam cut off is as good or maybe better then the stock H4. I wonder why the LED is like that? I know the LED die is pretty large, which must be related.

[Triple Jim]

Yes, the emitters themselves are much larger than the QH filaments.  Also, the low beam QH filament has a small reflector to make essentially all of the light go toward the top half of the reflector, and undoubtedly creates the cutoff.  The QH high filament is in the open like the LED emitters, which explains the high beam patterns being so similar.

[Triple Jim]

Well, I rode around 50 miles today and passed two sheriff's deputies in their cruisers going the other way.  Neither one seemed to be concerned about the new LED headlight, so that's a good sign.

[1Sourdough]

Has anyone outfitted a headlamp with a faceted lens with an LED, or are all of you folks who are doing the legwork using smooth lenses and faceted reflectors?

[Triple Jim]

Mine's a BMW type Bosch headlamp with a smooth reflector and a patterned lens.

[Uzidzit]

If these pics in this thread were taken with the camera on automatic exposure....the comparison is not very valid visually....from one poster to another the camera also has to be the same.  Different digital camera models render and expose differently, color temp affects exposure and even with the same model by the same  same maker the rendition is not very consistant....just mentioning I noticed some big differences in the exposure that make the comparison pics not very good.

what is good with leds is the uv output that lights the retro reflective stuff like signs and markers,  the color temp makes visability in rain and fog much worse with leds unless they are warmed.....

and yes the current is monitored by the ecu on the 8V griso

[Triple Jim]

As I said above, the photos I posted were not taken in auto mode.  Shutter speed and aperture were fixed for the garage door shots as a group, and for the driveway shots as a group.

How would UV output help retroreflective objects?  They are not fluorescent.  They just reflect light, and if it's UV, the human eye won't see it.

[Zinfan]

I can report that I've had three nighttime drives into work and no oncoming drivers flashed me while my LED lamp was set to low so ok so far I think. 

[Triple Jim]

Zinfan, the problem I see is that the low beam and the high beam aren't very different as far as where the top of the pattern is, so if I set the lamp to not bother other drivers on low beam, going to high beam won't light up more distant road much better.  I don't expect it will be a problem for me, because of the not riding at night thing.  And in city night riding, it wouldn't be a problem either, since in the city you never get to use high anyway.

I meant to measure the alternator "break even" RPM after my ride yesterday, but I forgot.  I'll try to do that soon.  I'm hoping it's down in the low 2,000 range now.  It was originally not much under 3,000.

[Wayne Orwig]

and yes the current is monitored by the ecu on the 8V griso

What?  ???

No.......  ::)