Bird and HID Lamp Shielding

[bonox]

Anyone know if an HID lamp with H7 base requires optical shielding, or a larger cutout to be made in the bird low beam housing to fit the return wire in?

Mostly a glare and mechanical fit question i guess.

[Redbird]

No, and no.

The upper cutoff on the XX's lowbeam is excellent, even with the HID.

No need to make any holes bigger, but mechanical fit is not plug and play. Some minimal modifications to plugs and adapters may be necessary depending on what kit you're using.

[bonox]

cheers

what about direct glare from the lamp though, not from the reflector?

Perhaps i should just install it and put some foil around the end of the lamp if I think it needs it

[Guest rockmeupto125]

I'm fine with mine. The reflector is well designed, and I seldom get flashed by other drivers when mine are adjusted correctly. :twisted:

[bonox]

that's what i want to hear

Thanks to both of you

[bonox]

i guess the final question is in regard to inrush current

Are you using the stock headlamp circuit to power a relay with direct coupling to the lamps, or have you hooked the HID ballast straight to the stock harness?

[Redbird]

The latter. Most retrofit kits will come with plugs that hook right up to your stock headlight plugs (Honda adapters notwithstanding).

Dammit, I just did this yesterday, I knew I should have taken pictures......

[2equis]

I'm fine with mine. The reflector is well designed, and I seldom get flashed by other drivers when mine are adjusted correctly.

+1

The XX low beam reflector works very well with HID

[HERBXX]

I dont have any problems with glarEthough right now i have a 2dr in my low beam that has some shielding on it.

[bonox]

thanks again chaps

kit arrived today, so i'll just whack it in and see how we go.

[bonox]

i've ended up with a rather large combined ballast and igniter assembly that is hard to place in the front of the beast.

I've noticed guys like Warchild and his writeup have the ballasts mounted in the tail, but i assume he has seperate igniters?

The high voltage leads from the ballast to the lamp are quite small and encased in what looks like silicon insulation like you'd find on a spark plug lead.

Is there any major problem associated with extending the high voltage leads so i can mount the ballasts further back near the battery?

[G4XX]

mine are mounted right to the back of the gauge cluster. Milehi mounted his with some double sided tape to the ram air tubes....just a thought...

[HERBXX]

I have one behind the cluster as well. Extending the highvoltage wire is not recommended !! I have exetended the wire between ballast and ignighter without any problem.

Herb

any pictures of the ballast ?

[bonox]

it's one of these

Unfortunately its a big box at

122.5 x 80 x 37.5mm

or 4.8 x 3.1 x 1.5" plus room for wire coming out of the box.

Will it still fit behind the dash?

I can fit one between the ram air tubes i think, but the plastics will need some reinforcing and i'll have to move the horn.

The second i'm not too sure about. I remember from doing the cruise control actuator that i put it on the left side under the airbox. Given the maximum operating temp of the ballast is 105 degrees (celcius) I might be able to get away with mounting the high beam on the right side here and only use it when moving to keep the temps below about 90 degrees.

The other space alternative is on each side of the lower fairing, just ahead of the oil cooler. They will fit and give me just enough cable run, but the temperatures might prove interesting.

Last time I had the screen off, I didn't think there was enough space for ballasts - you look immediately at the top of the headlight housing and back of the instruments - anyone got a picture of the area you mean?

[Redbird]

What year is your bike?

The later years with digital dashes have a bit more room behind the clocks. If your's is an earlier model, that may not work for you.

Sorry, I have no pics.

[bonox]

xx2

plate says 2001, but made very late, so i think it's a 2002 model.

digi dash anyway

[Redbird]

Dimensions in that pic look to be close to the McCullough ballast I have. They both fit on the back of the clocks- barely.

I'll see if I can find the specs/dimensions of mine written down somewhere.

[bonox]

cheers

[HERBXX]

I have one back there on the y bracket about the same size on one side so I too think 2 will

fit

[bonox]

pulled the screen off the bike again and i believe I can fit both ballasts behind the instruments.

One vertically with wires coming out the bottom on the left side and the other horizontally on the right side, with the wires straddling the plug to the instrument panel. They'll certainly fit if i space the instrument panel further off the support mounts - yet to see if any interference with the lower shrouds though.

It will be interesting to see however if there is any interference with the instruments from a high frequency inverter so close though.

[bonox]

As promised, here is a sneak preview of the install. It is unfinished, merely a test rig at the moment, however the results could best be described as "riding behind god's own maglite" :shock:

As some of you predicted, the combined ballast/igniter assemblies fir behind the instrument panel. Well, almost...

I didn't have the camera at the time, but there are multiple plastic spigots projecting from the back of the white plastic rear of the instrument panel. Using this picture as a guide, the top left and right spigots were removed.

At position "1", the ballast holds the panel out a little bit, so i took a file to the edge of it to reduce its height. (The beauty of these cheap chinese kits is a two year unconditional no questions ask replacement warranty!)

At "2" i had a bit more of a problem. The connector at the back of the instruments is offset to the RHS of the bike. If you only wanted to replace the low beam and share a kit with somebody else, i'd recommend it and only use the left side mounting spot. For a pair however (could also be useful if a ballast dies on you in the middle of the night a long way from anywhere) i had to modify the plastics to get it to fit without holding the instruments out too far. Once again, I filed the fins on the top corner of the ballast flat, and mounted it base outwards to get the leads and base to fit over and around the electrical plug of the dash. The stiffening rib around the outside of the white plastic panel was notched to fit the ballast further up to the top left in the pic and both units cable ties in place. I would prefer a little more robust solution, but they appear strong, lightweight and don't add to the thickness of the ballast.

The key to doing this install is that between the two rubber mounting lugs visible front and center is the cone of the low beam headlight assembly. The ballasts need to be far enough away from center that the headlight still fits in.

The H7 mounts of the bulbs needs no mods, but there is a backing plate the retaining clip presses against to seat the bulb that requires substantial trimming. Easy to do though, and fits just like a factory job into the protective rubber boot.

Further work:

Wiring:

1. Seperate relays for each lamp, as they draw about 15amps on startup for about 3 seconds according to the literature and i'm worried i'll cook the stock wiring with enough starts.

2. Individual override switches for each lamp, so i can turn low beam off while starting to avoid one useless lamp ignite per bike start and have high beam off but have spotlights on and still triggered by high beam and flash switch. It is illegal but I plan to rewire my headlight modulator to the two spots and run them at about 9Volts.

3. Control box with light switches and cruise control rockers mounted on clutch fluid reservoir.

I may also have to paint the end of the bulb to reduce glare a little, but geez these are some great lights! I have some 200 degree engine enamel, but is anyone aware of better higher temp paint to use?

I also elected to use a set of 5000K lamps, but they still appear to have a minor tinge of blue about them. (Or it might just be my eyes disintegrating from looking directly at the lamp reflector).

They are much whiter than those poxy mercs and bmws and silly blue coated ricer lights however and a quick test ride reveals they really do light up the world. Doing it again though, i'd probably elect to get the 4300K lamps.

Do those of you who say the glare is not a problem have bare glass lamps like I have, or are you using a type with a shield on the end?

[pug]

I installed last week the same Hid kit (Techone) to my dipped beam.

Your photos were very helpfull and I ended up tie-wrapping it to the Y-bracket. It was impossible to place it direct to the back of the clocks like others have done with other kits.

I didn't have to file anything and the clocks are bolted back fully but they touch with the ballast-igniter combo. Anyway this kit is quite big for a bike and if the guy I bought it from Leeds-UK has smaller kits soon (as he promised) I plan to install it in my car and go for a smaller one.

Me also went for a 5000K lamp but still is more bluish than I wanted. I would prefer a 4300K lamp like OEM's.

Also I notice a flickering , especially when the lamp is cold or when the indicators (or other elec. consumptions) are on.

Do I have to install a relay to get rid of that and if so in what way?

Is there any danger for the elctricall system?

Any suggestions welcome.... (now where is Warchild, haven't seen any psot lately)

P.S. This is a photo of HID vs. Halogen (which is Philips Blue Vision 55W).

...and sorry my Pilot Power IS NOT CUPPED (yet).

[bonox]

looks good mate - don't suppose you could get me a pic down from the top with the instruments in place?

[beondwacko]

I too installed an HID kit on my 01' XX. I opted though to mount the ballasts ( 2 ) on either sides of the bike under the fairings on the sides of the frame. It is a McCullough brand kit I got on Ebay w/5300K lamps. My kit used seperate starters, and those I mounted under the instrument cluster. On the McCullough kit , there was 3 feet of leads the ballasts to the starter , and another 3 feet from the starter to the lamp socket. The most difficult part of the job was to figure out where to mount everthing with out disasembling the whole front end , and why the lamps were not being held securely by the headlight bulb retaining clip. It seems that the base of the lamp (HID) is shorter in height than the halogen that was in there and the clip was not pressing against the base with any pressure. I took a spark plug boot, sliced the end off ( about 3/16" long ) and put another cut in the boot so I could slip it onto the base of the lamp. That did the trick. The clip held firm after that and the lamps stayed in proper orientation with the reflectors.

I would suggest that for most riders, that they do not install this kit on the High Beams like I did. The reason why is because if you ever use the high beams to warn traffic or as flash to pass, there is a required warm up time to get to full brightness. That takes about 15 seconds. But, if you ever wished that you could burn the retnas of the cage in front of you through their rear view miror,,,,,, they work great on Hi beam too.

:idea: :shock: :idea:

[Trev]

If it helps, the sort of bulky kit you're referring to is common here in the UK (many people use Philips/Hella all-in-one ballast/igniters). There's a few of us who've mounted the ballast on the "shelf" underneath the ram air tubes on the bottom of the nosecone. Mine seems very happy there - over a year and two UK summers (you can't get more miserable damp weather!).