Crappy Headlights

N

Nightrider70

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2011
Bikes
DRZ400SM
I wonder why bikes sold in Thailand and probably other asian coutries have crappy headlights. My DRZ came with a horrible plastic headlight more fit for a bicycle than a motorcycle despite have proper lights in Europe and USA. It is extra strange given all the extra road hazzards they have in Thailand compared to Europe and USA. Here you need proper light if anywhere.

I ordered a stock headlight from USA which takes a good old H4/HB2 bulb. The wires on my bike were very thin and the current went through the ignition switch, the start switch and the hi/lo switch without any relay so at the bulb I only had 10 volts with a 60 watt bulb. I added relays, thicker feed and ground cables and a 100 watt bulb. I now have about 3 times the light of the plastic crap the bike came with. The alternator is only rated 200 watts but it still manages to charge the battery at idle. I also had to make new brackets because I could not find any stock for sale.

The H4/HB2 light is assymetrical which means the low beam throws the light longer on the side of the road you are driving on. This increases your abillity to see a pedestrian on your side of the road without annoying head on traffic. Since the light I bought came for USA were they drive to the right I fitted a bulb for left hand driving. If a right hand light is combined with a left hand driving bulb you end up with a flat symetrical low beam which works great for me as I switch between left and right hand driving going from Thailand to Laos and Cambodia.

Before I did this change I more or less feared to drive at night. If I was out on a road trip and the sun started to set I got desperate to find a hotel/guest house. Now I dont mind riding at night, instead I appriciate the low traffic.

The KLX250 and ER6 have a two bulb setup but they still blows. When sold in Europe at least the KLX has a proper light so I guess the KLX owners also can change to the EU/USA type headlight.
 
Its a bit of a sore point with me too, the Honda PCX125 has twin halogen bulbs in the UK but two crap ones in Thailand and as you say the 250KLX has a single halogen bulb for the UK but again two crap ones for Thailand
 
I went riding tricky dirt trails and fast dirt truck roads during wet season at night with a KLX and I have to say the front light did a good job, of course nothing replaces a helmet light for this riding conditions, but I certainly didn't feel like a need to change the front light. What I was missing is light when going backwards on tight trails (where the helmet light would come in hand).
Could ride up to 60km/h with stock light on the dirt truck roads filled with ruts, land slides and some mud. That is for the KLX anyways, would rather spend money on a nice helmet light like this one:
IMG_0715.JPG

Not saying Phil's DRZ super-light wouldn't be welcome though :)
 
My night vision may not be as good as yours. The point was that they install a cheesy light for the bikes sold in Thailand when they have a better one for the EU/USA market.

I would barley drive over 60km/h in the dark on pavement with my old light. If it also was raining I had to stop. It was good enough to find the road but I would never see that buffalo in the ditch on it's way up on the road. The old light would just light up a small spot right in front off the bike.

These HID looks sweet for sure, http://www.trailtech.net/x2.html. I considered one of these but went with a stock halogen to avoid more attention by the cops as HID seems to be illegal for road use in Thailand. It would also suck if it broke on a road trip with no means to fix/replace it.
 
That looks sweet. The kits I looked at, including this one, were made to fit as a replacement for a H4/HB2 bulb so to be able to install it the "thai" head light has to be replaced for the EU/USA either way.

The low beam cut-off seems to leave room for improvement, are people flashing you while on low beam? Have the cops given you a hard time? They have their hands out every time I go somewere so I dont want to draw any extra attention from them.

These 50 watts HID kits appear to be killer: http://www.hid50.com/
 
Another option is to use a bicycle light when needed. This can be helmet mounted or handlebar mounted.

I have used NiteRider units in the past. They can throw an amazing amount of light.
http://www.niterider.com/

They make rechargable lights with lumen outputs starting at 300 and going up to 3000. In comparison, the kit that Phil just switched to is rated about 900 lumens. So - adding a small light to your regular headlight might be enough.

Here are the units with list prices in USD.
Pro 3000 - $700
Pro 1500 - $550
Pro 1500 Race - $350
MiNewt Pro 750 - $250
MiNewt. 600 Cordless - $150
MiNewt. 350 Cordless - $MiNewt. Mini 300
Mini 300+ - $120
Mini 300 - $100

The units are sold through dealers and are discounted. For example, Amazon has the Pro 3000 for $550

The chargers for them have 100-220 input voltage.
 
the standard klx250 bubs are 30watts each. you can upgrade these if you can findthe bulbs, maybe to 50watts each?
But does anyone know how many watts the headlight takes before it melts the plastic reflector??
 
My XR250R headlight is garbage but I probably won't be springing to upgrade it anytime soon. Far more useful for the nighttime off-road I've done recently is a helmet-mounted light. You need to be able to point the light in places the front wheel may not be pointing.

http://trailtech.net/helmet_lights.html - TrailTech HID (SCMR16) and LED Helmet Lights
http://www.niterider.com/ - NiteRider Standard Product Line
http://www.niterideroffroad.com/hm.shtml - NiteRider's Motorcycle Line
http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/?page=products&id=1 - Cyclops Solstice HID
http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/?page=products&id=83 - Cyclops LED
http://www.thumpertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=817387 - Cyclops LED ThumperTalk Review


I think the big HID solutions are probably more suited for desert riding and would be way overkill in the forests here. I may spring for the Cyclops LED or TrailTech LED in the future if I can be sure it will mount properly to a helmet chin bar (too many branches and low trees to mount on top of the helmet).
 
I used to think the same thing, then we got stuck in Laos, following midnight mapper in the dark, I couldn't believe how useful his superbright HID light was in the jungle, he rides 8 hours in complete darkness sometimes with no problems at all.


ThePoMoBro said:
I think the big HID solutions are probably more suited for desert riding and would be way overkill in the forests here. I may spring for the Cyclops LED or TrailTech LED in the future if I can be sure it will mount properly to a helmet chin bar (too many branches and low trees to mount on top of the helmet).
Click to expand...
 
alexuk said:
the standard klx250 bubs are 30watts each. you can upgrade these if you can findthe bulbs, maybe to 50watts each?
But does anyone know how many watts the headlight takes before it melts the plastic reflector??
Click to expand...

Alex are they H4 halogen bulbs as standard?
 
best helmet lights I found so far are:

http://www.bikelights.com/stella300.html
http://www.jetlites.com/complete-systems-a-51/

The deal with some of the bike lights is that the battery is heavy and cables are short (because the light is supposed to be mounted on the bike's handlebar). Those have small battery so you can strap them on the helmet without noticing the weight, and last over 3hours at max intensity.

Also noticed some of those lights are a more than what I really need and pricey.

This one is about 80 usd and looks more than enough:
http://reviews.mtbr.com/blog/magicshine-mj-808
 
alexuk said:
Max,
the Seoul P7 LED in the majickshine is old hat now. You should be looking at the Cree XM-L T6 LED
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/t6-assault ... -set-82508
What I can't tell from the ads is whether there is any difference between the 1600 lumen ones on ebay and the 1000lumen ones.
Click to expand...

thanks for the update... They are really cheap, might order on of those, will probably do the job more than well enough!
 
BobS said:
In comparison, the kit that Phil just switched to is rated about 900 lumens. So - adding a small light to your regular headlight might be enough.
Click to expand...


I don't want to come on as a smart ass but a 35 watt HID puts out about 3200 lumens. 100 watt H4 about 2800, 60 watt about 1500 lumens. In the H4 case, these number are only true if the voltage at the bulb is at least 13 volt which was not the case with my DRZ.

http://www.sibirskyextreme.com/hid50/ab ... er-colour/

http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=271

DRZ with 35 watt "thai" headlight, maybe 700 lumens?
 
so not much difference between the hid 35w and the H4 100w.
Or the 60w h4 and xm-l t6 headlamp
The beam pattern and light colour might make all the difference.
I need to try the headtorch I have to see how effective it is at 300 lumens before I order another

So some nightrides soon
 
Very interested in how this test works out Alex

alexuk said:
so not much difference between the hid 35w and the H4 100w.
Or the 60w h4 and xm-l t6 headlamp
The beam pattern and light colour might make all the difference.
I need to try the headtorch I have to see how effective it is at 300 lumens before I order another

So some nightrides soon
Click to expand...
 
BobS wrote:
In comparison, the kit that Phil just switched to is rated about 900 lumens. So - adding a small light to your regular headlight might be enough.

Nightrider70 wrote:
I don't want to come on as a smart ass but a 35 watt HID puts out about 3200 lumens. 100 watt H4 about 2800, 60 watt about 1500 lumens. In the H4 case, these number are only true if the voltage at the bulb is at least 13 volt which was not the case with my DRZ.

Hey Nightrider - the 900 lumen figure comes from the owner of the company that sold the unit to Phil. I called him direct to get the lumen output so I could compare Phil's unit to a bike light that I had. I don't know where you got your figures, but you can argue with him, not me.
 
I don't want to argue about it neither with you or the sales guy. My numbers are mostly based on the two links.
 
alexuk said:
so not much difference between the hid 35w and the H4 100w.
Or the 60w h4 and xm-l t6 headlamp
The beam pattern and light colour might make all the difference.
I need to try the headtorch I have to see how effective it is at 300 lumens before I order another

So some nightrides soon
Click to expand...


Makes sense. HID should be about 3 times as effictive as halogen so 35 watts HID should be about the same as 105 watts halogen. Would be nice to test the theory side by side on a dark road.
 
I have tested some Thai/chinese motorcycle HID kits on my Ducatis in Uk and thailand but they did not have as much beam penetration on main beam and very poor dip beam as the Phillips Xtreme Xenon H4 bulbs so i reinstalled the conventional units , my dip pattern is great to 80m and main is good for 300m+ down the road like a searchlight
 
I found some OSRAM Silverstar "up to 50% brighter" 35/35w for 80baht each in a shop in Chang Moi opposite the machine shop
They also had osram allseasons +30% ones
 
Thanks, that's worth knowing next time i am in CM on a R & P Tour..
 
KTMphil said:
While I remember, if you install this HID headlight on a Suzuki DRZ400, you need to replaced the standard headlight filament with one from a later model Yamaha XR 250 (an XR250 glass headlight casing).
Click to expand...


DRZ400S and SM comes with steel and glass headlight fitted with H4 bulb unless you buy an Asia model. It seems like there is some requirement in Asia that all bikes and cars must have substandard lights.
 
My wifes rebel 250 had a crappy 35w H3 bulb in so i bought a harley 5'' headlight with H4 60/55w bulb now she can see where she is going
 
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