Osram Night Breaker Laser H4

[aesmith]

Could be more than that, depending on voltage drop as the nominal 60W is at 12.0V. With the engine running and battery fully charged it could be supplying more like 14V. See here for some test results, although they only quote up to 13.2V ..
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...b-test-results

Originally Posted by aesmith

Could be more than that, depending on voltage drop as the nominal 60W is at 12.0V. With the engine running and battery fully charged it could be supplying more like 14V. See here for some test results, although they only quote up to 13.2V ..
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...b-test-results

That was an interesting article. If the system is running at more than 12V then the current would be less of course, so the heating effect on the wiring would be a bit less, but I take your point. I’d expect the voltage losses to be very small, but that assumes the switches and connectors are in good condition (I’ve heard that SVs often have issues with connectors). Anyway, using more powerful halogen bulbs would be a daft idea, unless one wants a bike on fire.

The price of LEDs is certainly coming down. I’ve done a bit of research over the last couple of days and now know a bit more about the bulb technologies. I’m quite tempted by this LED conversion kit direct from a Chinese manufacturer:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F254187741767

Someone will probably say it will be rubbish, but in my experience buying direct from Chinese manufacturers is quite often satisfactory.


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[SV650rules]

Do not buy a bulb unless it is guaranteed that the position, shape and size of the LED exactly match the filament of a bulb, the whole reflector and hence the legal beam pattern is designed around the filament bulb. Here are some interesting videos about different LED bulbs and the presenter has a novel way of getting rid of the ones that don't produce a both good beam pattern and the claimed light output. Some of these bulbs are worse than terrible and it is a wonder they even made it to market. The bulbs in our cars and bike have all passed MOT, the new MOT rules mean they pay particular attention to beam pattern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQF5ESBHLrw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4du3JRoavJg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sonh4lHu4XE


On this thread are some pictures of H4 beams on my wifes Honda Jazz when I replaced filament bulbs with classiccarleds LED

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=227521

[aesmith]

Originally Posted by Othen

That was an interesting article. If the system is running at more than 12V then the current would be less of course, so the heating effect on the wiring would be a bit less

With normal incandescent bulbs the current increases with voltage. So a nominal 60W bulb may draw 5A at 12V making it's power 60W, but if you feed it say 14V then it will draw more current maybe not in a linear way. See the first example in that test a 60W bulb drew 5.4A at 13.5V.

Regarding cheap LED bulbs some people seem to find them OK, I found them rubbish. Although the light looked bright it gave very poor actual vision, a sort of watery light is the best way I can think to describe it. Presumably that's poor light distribution. I also found with mine that the difference between dip and main was too great, so to get a decent dip beam the main beam was too high. In the end I went for super expensive from Horizon LEDs, mainly because of a 40% off special offer.

[SV650rules]

You mean these..
https://www.horizonleds.co.uk/led-he...000-lumens-led

The classiccarleds ones are same Philips luxeon ZES chips and the housings look identical, they are half the price of the horizon ones, we have been using them for pretty much 2 years now and no problems. Would never go back to filament bulbs now, and I tried plenty of different ones of various +120%, +130% and +150% . Look at the link to beam pattern photographs I posted, they are all the evidence you need how good they are.

Originally Posted by aesmith

With normal incandescent bulbs the current increases with voltage. So a nominal 60W bulb may draw 5A at 12V making it's power 60W, but if you feed it say 14V then it will draw more current maybe not in a linear way. See the first example in that test a 60W bulb drew 5.4A at 13.5V.



Regarding cheap LED bulbs some people seem to find them OK, I found them rubbish. Although the light looked bright it gave very poor actual vision, a sort of watery light is the best way I can think to describe it. Presumably that's poor light distribution. I also found with mine that the difference between dip and main was too great, so to get a decent dip beam the main beam was too high. In the end I went for super expensive from Horizon LEDs, mainly because of a 40% off special offer.

I just looked at the link someone posted below for LED kits costing £140. It just would not be worth considering that for my K6 as I only paid £600 for the bike. It really would not be worth spending a quarter of the purchase price to get some slightly better headlights when the original fitment works exactly as well as the manufacturer intended 13 years ago.

I’m happy to experiment with cheap upgrades if they give a worthwhile improvements for the cost or they cost less than OEM parts that need changing (LED indicators and wavy discs come to mind). So, I think I’ll stick with the original type halogen bulbs for the time being, if I get bored I may experiment with the cheap Chinese ones, we’ll see.


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[aesmith]

Relays could be a cheap fix if you're happy rigging up something yourself. It would be interesting to measure the voltage drop to see how much is actually lost through the standard wiring. I know it's not a like for like comparison but on my tractor I found the standard wiring to the glow plugs dropped so much that the plugs were only getting 6.5V.

Originally Posted by aesmith

Relays could be a cheap fix if you're happy rigging up something yourself. It would be interesting to measure the voltage drop to see how much is actually lost through the standard wiring. I know it's not a like for like comparison but on my tractor I found the standard wiring to the glow plugs dropped so much that the plugs were only getting 6.5V.

It would be a trivial matter to test the impedance from the battery to bulb, then the negative return loop, the sum being Zs (in electrician’s parlance), which will determine the voltage across the luminaire. It really should be a tiny part of an Ohm as the runs are short, and should be negligible compared with the impedance of the bulb or diode, but it would only take one poor connection or switch to change that. The normal culprit where wiring has a high impedance is the movable switches, and after that the mechanical connections (same as for a building a house).


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[aesmith]

Originally Posted by Othen

It would be a trivial matter to test the impedance from the battery to bulb, then the negative return loop, the sum being Zs (in electrician’s parlance)

I'd be interesting if you measured that. Low resistance isn't easy to measure with DIY equipment, also I'm not entirely clear how you'd sum the parts that are common with other loads or even between the two headlights.

Originally Posted by aesmith

I'd be interesting if you measured that. Low resistance isn't easy to measure with DIY equipment, also I'm not entirely clear how you'd sum the parts that are common with other loads or even between the two headlights.

If I get some spare time this afternoon I might do it. I’m qualified as an electrician (not that I do it as a business) so I have a multi function test meter that will measure down to small parts of an Ohm. I don’t think there would be much of a problem with a dead test between the two battery terminals and the two live terminals of the H4 block connector. I’d have to check the wiring diagram, but I’m pretty sure the two headlamps are wired in parallel from the same two lives (looped in and out of the first to the second), so one only has to measure the impedance to the last one as the difference is just a couple of feet of wire (just as one does on a radial circuit in a building). I suspect the biggest losses will be at the two movable switches (key and high/low beam), but as long as the impedance of the whole is very small compared with the bulb the voltage drop to the luminaire will be small.
You are right that the situation would change if another large load was applied to the battery - but the only one that would apply on a standard set up would be the starter, which I think I could ignore for the purpose of this exercise (one would expect the lights to dim when operating the starter).
If I get round to it this afternoon I’ll post the results.


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