What are the best headlight bulbs?

lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

I own a Bandit 1200 S and I am finding the lights a bit dull. The glass is crystal clear and I am presuming it has standard bulbs. I have seen some adverts claiming their neon or HID bulbs offer 40% more light or that the white light being more effective.

Does anyone have experience of these?

Which brand offers the best results?

Cheers

Matt
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MarkJ · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Karma :

You can get normal filament bulbs filled with Xenon gas which emit a brighter, whiter light than halogen. I've got a pair of Philips X-treme powers on my car and they do make a difference, these are the types of bulbs that have 50%+, 70%+, 80%+ stamped on the box.

You could also get HID bulbs which contain a capsule of Xenon gas that is ignited by an arc of ~23,000 volts which give a much brighter output, but require you to hide a ballast box somewhere on the bike which is usually the size of a fag packet. Also dubious whether these are fully legal on the roads (although I have a set on my Hornet and they're great Laughing

)

The Tot · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Karma :

Philips Xtreme Vision Thumbs Up

Osram Night breakers Thumbs Up

Both are very good incandescent bulbs and are much brighter than standard if you want illumination.

Nothing beats HID conversion kits altough you have to realise that they are NOT road legal. I've got HID's on my bike purely because I really DON'T like travelling through the twisties of the midlands coming home from london in the dark! HID's were substantially better than the Philips Xtreme vision, but you have to make sure that your beam is adjusted accordingly because they do project for miles.. you don't want to glare oncoming road users. But regulations say that HID's are illegal, but what's stopping us!
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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
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lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

Do you have to buy the bulbs and the box seperate? How hard is it to fit? Any suggestions on the best HID bulbs?

Thanks
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The Tot · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Karma :

https://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v191/10/100/500990711/n500990711_606530_450.jpg

HID's

https://w3.bikepics.com/pics/2007%5C11%5C07%5Cbikepics-1080699-full.jpg

Philips Xtreme visions

I bought my HID kit from these guys

Just make sure that you get the right type for your bike's bulb fitments.

If you want to see how i did the installation
https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=137298&highlight=hid
That link shows you pretty much how I did it. Battery leads to ballast box, ballast box to HID light, Standard light connector into ballast box to control the dip/main beam. The main problem is finding a place to hide all the components, which is what takes a long time. The principle of installation is piss easy. If you need any help, PM me. Or if you don't want to bother and are satisfied with my photographic comparisons, go with the Philips or Osram, pretty much a 2 min swap jobbie.
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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
Never argue with autism

lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

Just looking at a couple of the boxes on ebay now. Bit confused. Does this convert my outstanding low beam to HID low and high? On my bandit it has 2 lights at the front. One side is for low beam and the other for high. Do I need to buy 2 boxes?

By the way. Thanks for the help so far.
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The Tot · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Karma :

Hmm. Firstly, check your manual which would state which type of headlight connection you have. I wouldn't like to make any assumptions but i would think that it's a H7 connection based on what you described with two bulbs used independently for high beam and low beam respectively. In which case, my suggestion is to only buy ONE box. Use that for the low beam, since it's the beam that's mostly on all the time.

So first thing's first

Check the connection that you have, it'll be H4, H7, H something or another, but DO check

Only BUY one HID unit for converting the low beam. There really isn't much point using a HID high beam. Fair enough it projects for miles, but the point is that most of the time you'll be using the low beam, so save your money and only get one. If you want to buy one HID for low and one HID for high, by all means you can do that, but finding the extra space for 2 ballast units will be a bit of a pain.

If you want to save the hassle, get the vision extremes Wink

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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
Never argue with autism

MarkJ · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Karma :

If you have one bulb for dipped and another one for high beam then that would be two "boxes" if you wanted to convert both beams to HID. The box is the ballast that converts your 12v supply to 23,000v to ignite the xenon gas. If you didn't want to do two you'd probably be fine just upgrading the dipped beam as the HID output is so bright.

If you have H4 bulbs (which is sounds like you don't) these have two filaments in the single bulb - for these you'd need a "bi-xenon" kit which is either a sliding mechanism on the casper shield or a seperate bulb for full beam.

MarkJ · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Karma :

Also, you can now get slim ballasts (which I have), they're pretty much the same length and width of the normal ones but half as deep. I managed to get two of these sat underneath my Hornet tank which has bugger all room under there Smile

lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

I found this on ebay. Its the bike specific box. Does this explain what bulb I currently have.

https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Suzuki-Bandit-1200S-600S-HID-Headlamp-Conversion-NEW_W0QQitemZ170273643453QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item170273643453&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1299%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Im so rubish with all this tech stuff. Need to get myself on some sort of night course.
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We came, we saw, we drank the place dry.

lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

HB3 and HB4. What would this effect when getting a HID kit?
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We came, we saw, we drank the place dry.

MarkJ · World Chat Champion Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Karma :

That ebay ad looks a little misleading - I'm not sure if he's selling just low beam or high and low beam.

The best thing to do is look in your Bandit's owners manual and let us know what bulb sizes it uses. Either that or pop the existing ones out of the headlight and have a look and see if it tells you what sizes they are on them.

Actually I've just looked further down at the bottom of that ebay ad - seems that you're paying £64 for one bulb kit which is quite a lot. You normally pay this for two bulbs. If you can find out what bulb sizes you need we'll be able to find a kit for you Thumbs Up

lutmfurl · Derestricted Danger Joined: 05 Nov 2008 Karma :

Im-a-Ridah · World Chat Champion Joined: 20 Oct 2006 Karma :

HID's are OK, but ideally they need to be in projectors, not standard reflectors to get the best use out of them as they output light in a completely different way. I've never tried any of these "xenon" bulbs, but if you do get some make sure they aren't "blue tint" bulbs (cuts light output) and dont have any coverings on the glass, also make sure they are a decent brand. Finally there is the option of overwattage bulbs, but you'll need to put in new headlight wiring to get best use of them.

HID's with a high and low beam tend to be called bi-xenon on ebay, though not always.