LED headlight upgrade?

[Wonko The Sane]

I've seen a few people into car modding on my farcebook talking about fitting LED units into the standard headlight housings as a straight swap and wondered if anyone's come across doing this with bikes?

I'm lead to believe it's as good as a HID but without the current draw and heat issues.

wondered if anyone's done it / looked into it?
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[Fisty]

Surely a modified headlight would make you uncomfortable riding the bike?
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[temeluchus]

Purpose made drop in LED H4 replacements that will actually work are at least 80 quid or thereabouts. These can be very large and may not fit a motorbike headlamp as the rear of the 'bulb’ is very large. Small cheapo h4 sized units simply wont be bright enough.
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Some shite cruiser. Now with guns and FREEDOM!

[BTTD]

What Tem said. The headlight power leds have bulky heat sinks and or small fans built in the back end making them quite a bit longer. Go on autobulbs website and look up the size drawings. Wouldn't fit my bike.

[tom_e]

I've got a set from Horizon LEDs, big improvement on even the best normal bulbs but you're looking around £100 if you've got a twin headlight.

[onlyJaz]

Just to echo what the others have said, the CREE LED bulbs are what you want, only go for the ones with a big heatsink at the back of it which will cost roughly £50 upwards. They are BRIGHT and will surely dazzle someone coming towards you but the problem with them is there's no beam pattern, it will feel like a floodlight for everything directly in front of you but cutting through fog? Not so much..

The crappy LED bulbs (without the heatsink) can be bought for less than £10 but NEVER go for them, they wont last long at all as your visibility will be nil and the Road Ahead won't be Clear.
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Yamaha YBR 125

[tom_e]

[onlyJaz]

[tom_e]

[Wonko The Sane]

[onlyJaz]

[NutsyUk]

Wasnt there a whole debate like this a while ago about how LED HID kits are illegal here?
Because the light temp is too cool? (blue) Uk regs say something like you cant have a too blue a light on your bike/car unless the vehicle was fitted with said light from the factory.

Blue lights do dazzle because our eyes arnt as sensitive to blue as the other colours. Similar in the way that tv cameras do lower chroma sampling to compress the video stream, which is why blue lights tend to blow out an image.

Look at a pure blue led try and focus on it... you cant. It dazzles :p Extreme example but applies to cool lighting. Its also why warm lights are better for fog.

Sorry if i went a little off topic there.
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[onlyJaz]

[tom_e]

[Hahadumball]

meanwhile im running a custom wiring harness for my headlight direct from the battery with relays and a ceramic plug and a 120w h4 bulb and the road ahead is clear.

cost under £15
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[tom_e]

[onlyJaz]

[onlyJaz]

[tom_e]

[Northern Monkey]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Law is all over the place, and what applies to standard production vehicles is different to aftermaket ones. It has been argued that unless specifically listed anything is illegal.

There seems to be a UN regulation on headlight brightness which seems to limit it to 2000 lumens:-

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:42014X0614(02)&from=EN

All the best

Katy
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[temeluchus]

The expensive h4 led drop ins are designed to function properly with the lamps reflector, so have a normalish beam patter. They arent like an LED torch.
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[onlyJaz]

[smegballs]

I tried out one of my mates spare LED lights in my headlamp.

Good beam pattern on both dipped and main
Nice clear white light
35W electrical draw - (despite being sold as 55W )
Instant hi/lo switching

But.....

Total length of heatsink + fan was about 7mm too long to get the back of the headlight shell on. okay.jpg

He's been running the other one (ordered a kit of 2 bulbs for a car from china) in his BMW to good effect for several months now.

I'd be using it now if it would physically fit in my headlamp.

[TallPaul_S]

I've got a £30 cree H4 bulb in my bike, the one with the braided metal flexible heatsinks. Not had any issues over the past couple of thousand miles, had zero cars flash me and the bike passed its MOT a couple of weeks back with no mention of the headlight.

Compared to the standard H4 halogen it's night and day, there's barely any need for full beam on unlit country roads. It's 6000k and is pure white, no blue at all.

I will be upgrading the bulbs on any future bikes to LEDs, such a simple swap and very, very worth it.
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