Will 55W HID work fine on my YBR250 with 35W stock?

[modron]

Hi,

Like in a title. I want to upgrade my headlight to HID for the maximum light output possible. There are some 55W or 60W HID on taobao. I remember reading that changing 35W stock bulb to higher might result in melted wires due to increased current. I wonder if that is the case with HID. I thought they had complete separate wiring system which should not melt but I might be wrong.

The other issue is, will my battery/alternator keep up with the usage? Nowadays I ride long hours with lights and heated grips on and its all fine, what if I have 55W HID and grips, will this kill my battery?

[Symon260z]

Hi Modrod,

I have fitted HID lamps to my van, the motorbike lamps are just the same except for the different fitting of the bulb. The original wiring just gives the signal to the HID, so very little current is passed through these wires. Then the main amplifier unit is conected direct to the battery.

So no worries about burning your bikes wiring. From my experience w¡ith the HID bulbs I would suggest that 35W is more than enough. The light is incredible. Talking to the factory that supplied to me they told me that the amplifier unit is the same for both 35w and 55w units only the bulb is different, as the amplifier is the weak link if you fit the 55w you will have a much shorter amplifier life.

I tested HID kits from 5 different factories before choosing one to supply to a customer, send me a PM and I will send you the details of the best factory. You can speak to them and find out how to buy their kits. One of the "export" quality kits that I tested lasted for less than 1 hour before it failed !

Symon

[modron]

pm sent

[bikerdoc]

Firstly not all HID lighting systems are created equal, many of the PRC MC specific kits are made from low grade materials. Secondly, OP you don't need a 55W HID system if the HID system you are intending to buy is of good quality. 25W or 35W likely good enough. I run 25W and 35W HID systems on a number of my MC's. If you have a H4 bulb and looking to upgrade to a HID then know that the usual kits sold for MC applications in PRC are usually rubbish. The kits which have a number of universal bases that allow one to install for a variety of different bulbs e.g. not just H4, use a bulb that often toggles between low and high beam. The problem with this is that there is far too much dispersed light that causes glare to other road users. These types of designs are banned in most first world countries, but here one can get away with it cause TIC - LFZ. Who cares if your headlight blinds any other road user.

There are actually other designs that don't use a toggle system, but rather a cylindrical designed shutter housing that fits over the Xenon bulb which rotates round the bulb effectively providing two positions e.g. low versus high beam. This minimises glare and provides a much more defined beam pattern. One can find these in some of the HID car kits, but very few of the typical MC kits here in the logic free zone.

As for the amount of resistance through the wiring and whether or not the load might be too much for your YBR250 alternator etc. I'd say that the 55W would likely be too much for your YBR to handle. Stick with a 25W which are usually ample.
Go for HID 25W 4300K with cylindrical low/high beam shutter design and you should be right. As an example when I fitted the H7 HID (two) to the 650TR I'd gone with two 35W kits. The 650TR has a single light illuminated for low beam, and both headlights illuminated for high beam. All seemed good but later discovered that with the headlights on high (meaning both 35W HIDS illuminated), the horn would not sound correctly. If I'd fitted a relay then this might not have been a problem, but I swapped one 35W down to a 25W and job done.

The other consideration is locating a spot to mount the ballast, get yourself a kit with a slimline ballast. IMO it might be better to get yourself a HID kit overseas e.g. BAJA-designs or DDMTuning, unless you can find a better than average manufacturer who is making high quality kits for reputable overseas suppliers/retailers etc. Naturally the HID systems that have a projector lamp are even better. You may also want to get yourself a fuse block from Eastern Beaver for wiring up electrical accessories.

All that said though, LED's are making some headway into headlight applications. Good LED kits provide not only high visible light to other road users, but also ample light with plenty of penetration for the vehicle driver/rider too, somewhere in between an incandescent and HID light. The better LED's headlight bulb replacements come with a small fan or heat sink with a housing on the back end of the LED bulb to keep the LED near optimum operating temperature as unlike incandescent and HID bulbs, LEDs are damaged by high temperatures; prolonged operation above the maximum junction temp permanently degrades the LEDs and ultimately shorten the LED's life. This thermal management is achieved through the use of heatsinks or cooling fans. Additional facets of the thermal issues with LED headlamps reveal themselves in cold ambient temperatures. Not only can excessively low temperatures lead to the LEDs light output increasing beyond the regulated maximum, but heat must in addition be effectively applied to thaw snow and ice from the front lenses, which are not heated by the comparatively small amount of infrared radiation emitted forward with the light from LEDs.

FYI
DDMTuning HID kits
HID Kits UK
Eastern Beaver

[bikerdoc]

pm sent

I'd be interested to know of the supplier you have found producing better than average HID kits in PRC, especially if they produce MC specific kits that have slimline ballasts and have the cylindrical shutter round the Xenon bulb...

[bikerdoc]

Also OP, the fact that the YBR has a 35W halogen bulb as OEM, likely implies that the wiring won't be up to much, as my experiences with 35W and wiring of the same in PRC goes... burnt headlight wiring loom as well as slightly distorted/melted headlight plugs indicated on one side of my Jetmax when I installed higher wattage replacement bulbs without a relay. The standard wiring used on the average PRC MC don't take kindly to having too much load/current draw passing through the wire(s).

YMMV

[Symon260z]

Modrod,

Sorry for my late reply, just sent a PM with the factory's contact details. Let me know how you get on.

Symon

[modron]

Sorry for late reply.

Doc, thanks for your input. I was thinking about 55W only because they are cheap and probably will output that what proper 35W does. I did buy an LED bulb that is very good but there is no low beam so I cant (dont want) to use it. I will get some 35W from TB and will see what happens.

Symon, I you must have a reason why you dont want to share the companys name here so I wont write it here. I tried to look for those HIDs on TB and it seems that this company makes female jeans too ;) I had a look at those motorcycle specific lights on their website and found these
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=..._u=v9f03mic4b7
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=..._u=v9f03mi8d9b
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=..._u=v9f03mifb9d
The boxes look exactly the same as the ones on their website but the ballast is a little bit different. Im not sure if they are manufactured by the company you recommended but Ill give one of them a try I think, after new year though.

[Symon260z]

Modrod,

The person that I was dealing with has recently left so I couldn't give you her contact details :-)
They make different ballast units, basically the electronics inside are the same but the external casings are different. I checked this when I visited the factory.

Rather than buying from Taobao I suggest that you speak directly to the factory so they can ebuy directly from them then you know that you are buying the right product :-.)

Let us know hiow you get on.

Symon

[modron]

Will do
thanks