| Author | Message | ||
     Etennuly |
I'm going to make a bracket for some driving lights for my Uly and for a friends Uly. I was wondering if any one has wired their lights to do this; both high and low beam on with low beam switch, and driving lights come on additionally when switched to hi beams? I seem to remember seeing this somewhere here but the archives seem to have gone missing. | ||
| Ozarkdennis |
Mine are wired to ignition. Motor's on - lites are on. Not hi beam lo beam dependent. Dennis | ||
| Gotj |
Same here. I think you need the driving lights more on low than on high anyway. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
my relay is fired off the cigar lighter up front, but they're 65W fog lights that i use as yellow/amber running lights-always on. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Fog lights = low beams. Low and wide beam pattern. Driving lights = high beams. Thin, pencil beam that goes on forEVER. | ||
| Dio |
This would be very easy to do. The good driving lights come with a relay in the kit. If you added another relay, and wired the high and low beams together, fed from this relay, and triggered the relay switch coil to power from a key-on circuit such as the aux light wire that is used for the "presence light" on the international models (empty socket in headlamp housing between headlights). Wire the now unused hi-beam wire to power the switch coil for the driving lights. If I understand your request correctly, if done as I stated, both headlight beams will be on with the key and when the dimmer switch is placed in the high beam position, the driving lights will then come on. The high beam switch will then only control the driving lights. I would run a fused feed directly from the battery to the cowl for this, both a power and ground wire, using this for a power supply for the relays. This keeps the load on the relays and off of the switches. Hope this helps | ||
| Xbimmer |
Just get an AutoSwitch? You can then do one of the "both beams on with high beam" mods and have several modes: Low beam only, High w/Low only, Low w/Aux lights, High/Low w/Aux lights. If you wanted to get really dedicated there's also an AutoSwitch that will control two sets of auxiliary lights. You could then factor in fog and/or driving lights also. I'll admit I've been tempted... | ||
| Etennuly |
Dio, That is what I was thinking about doing. But, I have something simpler in mind. What if I ran a jumper wire from the low beam lead to the hi beam lead. Take the high beam lead and use it to power both driving lights. Do you think that it would be too many amps for the factory relay and wiring? | ||
| Maximum |
I don't think that would be too many amps...but you might as well convert both headlight to HID...that way you will only be drawing 70 watts total, instead of 110 watts, and you will have about 10 times more light! I have been thinking about doing that to mine, but I would really like to get my hands on a UK headlight assembly so I can make both low beam lights the same pattern, then convert my PIAA 510's to HID and have them for the high beams. Any of you Leftside driving people want to sell me your used headlight assembly? Or take yours apart and slice the reflector down the middle and swap your low for my high (or visa versa)?  | ||
| Etennuly |
Why could you not just use two low beam halves......oh never mind they would both have a pattern sweeping to the right. I see your point. Can't the part be bought through a US dealer? I can't be buying too many sporting parts right now, I have to concentrate my efforts on fixing the global economy and it is not going as well as I had hoped by this point in time. | ||
| Maximum |
You can't buy just the reflector, you have to purchase the entire headlight assembly...which is a little more than I am willing to spend on this experiment. | ||
| Etennuly |
Do you suppose it would work if you had two US low beam reflectors, or is the pattern off set enough to throw things off? I was thinking that I could run two hi beam reflectors as low beams with my set up. I would just like to have them equal side to side. | ||
| Maximum |
I don't see how that would work, the left and right are not interchangeable. The only way I can see to do it would be to get a half of the reflector from a left side (UK) driving country, and match it up with a right side (US) driving reflector. I mean you could always just have them both on, like the way mine look when my high beam is switched on (both), but the patterns would be different. You know me Vern...I just can't help but to strive for perfection! | ||
| Etennuly |
Ten four! Mr. Over Farkle! | ||
| Dio |
Keep in mind there is no factory relay in the headlamp circuit. Everything for the headlights goes through a tiny little 20 ga. wire and the switch on the handlebar! | ||
| Treadmarks |
+1 on what Dio said. I ran two 65 watt bulbs in the stock housing with the both on mod. Later when I installed the Deathray setup, I could see signs of heat damage to the wires near the factory headlight connector. I switched to an eastern Beaver relay and harness to support my 260 watt setup, but relays could be bought and installed for a lot less than I paid for my setup like Dio mentioned above. Since this is the first time I have seen a cracked open factory headlight assembly, there are a few options/solutions that pop into mind. 1. The factory reflectors (both Euro and US) suck because they have poor light distribution and are plated plastic which will discolor as soon as you get enough watts to light up the road. 2. They are not independently adjustable, so you can't get the low beam in an ideal position unless the high beam goes with it. What are the dimensions of the reflector itself. It looks like it would be possible to install your own reflectors on top of the factory units. Once you have the reflector dimensions, check home depot, pep boys or northern tool for a bad ass flashlight or spotlight with a similar size reflector. I have actually found a rescue light that used an H4 bulb with a 4" polished magnesium spot light reflector. A reflector that uses an H4 bulb will give you tons of options in halogen and HID. You can easily trim the reflector to fit into the cavity and use gray rtv hi-temp silicone as it cures quickly and has a 650 degree bond limit. | ||
| Etennuly |
Tread, That is what I like about you.....you are so BRIGHT !! I did not know the factory set up was set up without a relay. That takes out the 'simple' method of set up I was initially looking at. Hmmmm....spotlights.....hmmmm....another bright idea! | ||
| Dio |
My question with using a spotlight or some other type of reflector, is that most are smooth, or unfaceted (no ridges or channels in the reflector). What type of light pattern will you get with this setup? Will it be like a flood light (broad and undefined) or spot light (tight and focused)? | ||
| Treadmarks |
Dio, Here is some helpful info from rally lights. Sorry for such a long post, but if you truly want the best lighting specifically tailored for your needs take the time to read and understand this. This information will help you design/buy the best lighting possible on the first try, saving you a ton of money and time in unnecessary upgrades. http://www.rallylights.com/index.asp E-code lamps have a wide beam that lights the road from side to side. They are useful at 300-400 feet. There is a sharp horizontal transition from dark to light about 1" high at 25 feet. A wedge of light on the right side lights up roadside signs. On low beam you can expect about four times as much light on the road as a sealed beam and twice as much on high beam. Because of the tight beam control, these lamps can be aimed very accurately which facilitates the use of upgraded bulbs without offending oncoming traffic. These lamps are not certified for use on public highways in the US and are sold for off road and racing purposes only. Vision Plus Lamps have a similar beam to the E-code lamps with the following differences; 1) They have the three aiming lugs on the face of the lens to allow machine aiming. 2) They have a portion of their light shining up, as required by DOT, to light up overhead signs. This part of the beams makes these lamp unsuitable for upgraded bulbs. 3) The have the DOT symbol molded into the face of the lens and are legal in all 50 states. 4) They come packaged with a 60/55 watt HB2 bulb to meet the maximum wattage allowed by DOT. Vision Plus Lamps are only available in 7 inch round and 200mm rectangular lamps. A Eurobeam or Driving beam is used with your high beams. The pattern is conical, flattened at the top and bottom and about 110-120 degrees wide. Useful at 2000-2500 feet. DOT requires that driving lights be wired so that they go off when your low beams come on. The Rally 3000 Driving beam is exactly like the Eurobeam except it doesn't have SAE certification . The pattern is conical, flattened at the top and bottom and about 110-120 degrees wide. Useful at 2000-2500 feet. DOT requires that driving lights be wired so that they go off when your low beams come on. This beam is only available on the Rallye 3000. A fog pattern is very wide and very flat. Maybe 170 Degrees wide and only a couple feet high. Only good for several hundred feet by design. Its purpose is to light up the road in bad weather without reflecting light off the snow/fog/rain and back into the driver's eyes. A clear fog lamp is often used to fill in the area the low beams don't get to like up close to the car and the sides of the road. Some people like amber fog lamps because they claim that the yellow light causes less eye strain in bad weather. A pencil is just that - a very long, narrow beam - very specialized. Used for rally in conjunction with other lamps and used for desert racing but with at least a dozen on a vehicle. Will light a reflector at two miles. Not useful unless you have a lot of them. DOT requires that pencil driving lights be wired so that they go off when your low beams come on. A cornering pattern is a flood light - good for only several hundred feet - also very specialized. Used in rally in conjunction with other lamps. Good for offroad use if all your offroad is rock crawling or very slow travel. DOT requires that Cornering lights be wired so that they go off when your low beams come on. A City Light or Position Light is a European thing. They are similar to daytime running lights in the US. Simply a 5 watt bulb that lights up the reflector to make you more visible to other traffic, but creates no appreciable illumination. In the big cities of Europe the street lighting is excellent and cars are not permitted to use even their low beams, in order to control light pollution. Several new types of city lamps have been introduced including Celis? "Angel Eye" rings and LEDs. A Parabolic lamp has a parabolic reflector. The reflector collects the light and the lens does the beam control. These lamp typically collect about 27% of the light created by the light source (bulb). A Free Form lamp has a reflector which is a computer designed complex shape. Hella uses over 50,000 points to define this shape. The reflector does the collecting and the beam control. Some FF lamps have a fluted lens. This fluting diffuses the light and distributes the light more evenly. Free form lamps typically collect about 45% of the light available. A Projector, or DE lamp has a free form reflector that is so convoluted that it takes a special projector lens to get the light going in the right direction. These lamps collect as much as 52% of the light the bulb makes. Size As in most things, bigger is better. A larger lamp will collect more of the available light. In addition, you can increase the wattage of the bulb and still dissipate the heat created. Shape A lamp should be round, anything else is a compromise. Manufacturer There are projector lights out there that have terrible patterns and light output. If you have never heard of the manufacture, there is probably a good reason. What is Bulb Output There are two aspects to rating the output of a halogen bulb, light output, which is measured in Lumens and is proportional to wattage, and light color which is measured in temperature, degrees Kelvin. Halogen Bulbs Halogen bulbs differ from Incandescent bulbs in that the gas in the globe is under pressure. The globe is thicker to contain the pressure. Having the gas under pressure allows the filament to burn hotter to produce more light and a whiter light while still having a reasonable life. The pressure causes the Tungsten atoms, which are thrown off of the filament by the heat, to return to the filament. Light Output Halogen bulbs are available in Standard and higher wattage versions. Just as in the lamp next to your easy chair, a higher wattage headlamp bulb will produce more light. The relationship between wattage and Lumen output is not linear. The product of a light bulb is light and heat. Since bulbs are not 100% efficient, the amount of heat also increases with a higher wattage bulb. Only standard wattage bulbs are legal for highway use. Upgraded bulbs are sold for off-road, or racing purposes only. A high wattage bulb has a life less than half that of a standard wattage bulb. Many are manufactured with a target life of 50 hours!! The additional heat from the higher power consumption weakens the filament substantially - then the normal vibration in an automotive environment takes it out! Rallyists use bulbs with wattages as high as 160, but they replace them before every event if they're smart. Higher Wattage and your Wiring The rated output of an automotive lamp is figured at 12.8 volts (the output of a typical alternator), not at 12.0 volts as you might expect. If you loose 5% of the voltage due to voltage drop through small wiring or corroded connections, which gets you to 12.2 volts, you are only putting out 80% of the rated luminous intensity - for a 100 watt lamp that’s only 80 watts equivalent!! Typically, if you keep output of your bulbs at 100W or lower, you will have little problem with meltdown of the Original Equipment wiring or controls as long as the wiring is in good shape and all connectors in the circuits are clean and free from corrosion. Bulbs over 100W can cause melting of the connector, overheating of the wires and failure of the headlamp switch and dimmer switch. You do not want to replace the dimmer switch on most cars as it is very labor intensive and will cost hundreds of dollars for parts and labor. Higher wattage bulbs have a significantly shorter life due to their high heat output. Do I Need to Upgrade My Wiring? Before you spend the money for upgraded bulbs, you might want to evaluate your wiring. First, with a good Voltmeter, measure the voltage output of your alternator. With the engine off, clip the leads of the Voltmeter to the alternator and tie them back so they don't get tangled in the belts or the fan. Start the engine and run it up to about 2000 rpm. Note the voltage and shut off the engine. Now move the Positive Voltmeter lead to the back of the bulb - you'll have to pierce the insulation to do this. Leave the ground lead where it was. Now start the engine again and turn on your lights. Note the voltage, shut off the engine, remove the test leads and seal the punctured insulation with Silicon RTV. If your voltage drop is over 1 volt, you have some repairs to make even before you upgrade your bulbs. Look for loose or corroded connections, loose or corroded fuses or relays. Repair any problems. Relay Circuits After you get your wiring up to snuff, measure the voltage at the bulb again - then decide if you want to upgrade your wiring with relays and a battery source direct to the battery. If you are dropping over 1 volt, your wiring or a connection somewhere is starting to act like the heating element in a toaster oven and you need to upgrade your wiring. For more information on relays and how to wire them, click here. Assessing The Beam Control of Your Lamps Bulbs are only the light source for a lamp. With the exception of the H4 bulb, which has a shield in it to create the low beam cutoff, they have nothing to do with beam control. The beam shape is completely controlled by the lamp. Before you invest in higher output bulbs for your head lamps, you should assess the quality of the beams produced by those lamps. Park your car at night about 25 feet from a vertical wall with the low beams on. If the beam has a nice crisp horizontal transition from dark to light, then you may consider the upgrade. If, on the other hand, the pattern is poorly defined, just a blob of light, all higher output bulb will do is dazzle oncoming traffic and cause a dangerous situation. As a benchmark, an E-code sealed beam replacement headlamp has a transition zone from light to dark about 2" high at a distance of 25 feet. Most composite (aerodynamic) headlamps cannot meet this standard although many of the newer vehicles (about 2000 on) have free form lamps and are much better. A free form lamp has a clear lens with little or no fluting. Light Color Regular halogen light has a yellow tint to it, which makes things look dingy. The color temperature is around 3000 degrees Kelvin. Xenon Bulbs Xenon gas is used in both halogen bulbs and HID Capsules. These are two completely different technologies and should not be confused. For more information on HID lighting, click here. The presence of Xenon gas in the halogen gas mix acts as a heat dissipater to allow the engineers to use a hotter filament and there for get more lumens from the same wattage, as well as increasing the color temperature of the light (that is: whiter) put out. The whiter the light, the better you can see colors and contrasts. An HID lamp approaches the color of daylight (4300K). It is obvious that if Bambi is standing in the middle of the road, at the extreme limits of your lights, you would rather light him up with a white light than a yellow one. As engineers add Xenon to the halogen gas mix, it gets whiter. The industry seems to have standardized on three levels, +30 which raises the color temperature to about 3200 degrees Kelvin, +50, which takes it to 3250 degrees and Extra White, which raises the color to about 4000 degrees. These levels have to do with the actual length of the filament used in the bulb, not a percentage of Xenon. Engineers have found out that more than 5% Xenon in the mix returns no further benefit and in fact increases the possibility of arcing from one coil of the filament to another, which is why it is used for High Intensity Discharge (HID) capsule technology. Other manufactures have different names for these levels, but physics effects all manufactures equally and at this point in time, with the exception of Halogen Infra-Red (HIR) technology (which of course still obeys the laws of physics), no one has anything unique. General Electric patented this new technology in 2000. Their intention was to create a bulb that emits about 3/4 as many lumens as an HID capsule at a fraction of the cost, especially when taking into account the ballast necessary for an HID system. The technology was licensed to Toshiba for automotive use. The technology involves a specially shaped quartz globe which has multiple layers of semi-reflective materials deposited on the inside surface of the bulb. The coating reflects a portion of the Infra-Red energy emitted by the filament back to the filament causing it to glow hotter and produce more light, which escapes through the uncoated forward portion of the globe. Even though the filament runs hotter, the bulb produces about the same amount of heat or a little less than a stock bulb. The use of the word brighter is misleading. It means brighter in the same sense that using Cheer detergent makes your laundry brighter. It makes little, or no more light, often less, just a whiter light. A negligible increase in lumens (7-10%) may be expected in the +30 and +50 Xenon bulbs, the blue coating on some High Wattage bulbs will negate this increase. The High Wattage bulbs use either a quartz bulb impregnated with a blue tint, or a blue coating on the bulb. They say that this to block out some of the spectrum which causes eyestrain. It also gives the light a blue tint, which is invisible to the driver, but visible to oncoming traffic. Some people find this blue coloration objectionable, others think it is "cool". Yellowstar Bulbs A Yellow Star bulb is a coated bulb that emits a yellow color - this is commonly called an "all weather" bulb because the yellow/amber color makes it significantly easier for on-coming traffic to see you in bad weather. The color is toward the warmer end of the visible light spectrum and has a longer wavelength which does not diffract as much as cooler colors therefore causing less eye strain. Recent changes in the Ecology laws of most European countries have caused the manufacture of Yellowstar bulb to cease there. This is due to the chemicals used to produce the yellow coating on the bulb. Almost all Yellowstar bulbs and similar bulbs from other manufacturers are now produced in Asia, Hella has opened its own factory in India. Extreme XY Xenon Yellow All-Weather Bulbs An Extreme XY Xenon Yellow All-Weather bulb is a coated bulb that emits a yellow colored light - this is commonly called an "all weather" bulb because the yellow/amber color makes it significantly easier for on-coming traffic to see you in bad weather. The Extreme XY Xenon Yellow bulbs are not as Yellow as the YellowStar bulbs. The color is toward the warmer end of the visible light spectrum and has a longer wavelength which does not diffract as much as cooler colors therefore causing less eye strain. The Extreme Yellow bulbs have been produced because Dichroic Amber Bulbs (like the YellowStar Bulbs) have chemicals in them that are no longer legal for use in Europe and Hella will not develop new bulbs that cannot be sold in Germany. The use of Xenon gas in the mix of Halogen gases allows the use of a hotter filament to make up for the loss due to the Yellow coating on the bulb itself. More importantly, there is less reflected light or feed-back from rain, fog and snow, allowing you to see further down the road. Adding Xenon the Halogen gas mix will give a brighter Yellow light for even better performance. | ||
| Etennuly |
Terry, Thank you for that. That will be very useful information when I get back to that project. Right now it is work and prepare for MBV. Any chance you will be coming? | ||
| Dio |
Tread; this is good info. I'm wondering how Piaa super white and extreme white plus bulbs and lamps figure into the picture. They claim 55w = 85w output on superwhite, and 55w = 110w output on their extreme white plus with the draw being the same but having higher ouput. I called Piaa tech support, and they said there is no additional heat or current draw over standard halogen in the same bulb class (H4, H7, etc.) Comments? | ||
| Xbimmer |
Before I installed my Hella FF50's I tried German Sylvania Silverstars for awhile. I really liked the light from them but they were blowing out every couple of months on the low beam side! Too costly for me vs. any benefit. After installing the Hellas with their H7's I went back to stock Osrams. The bulbs in the Hellas now have over 30k on them I'd guess, even with the constant shaking at idle. Etennuly, what's your idea for your bracket? | ||
| Mikef5000 |
There's a lot of writing going on... but here's my schematic doing exactly what was asked in the original post:  I moved the switch location to the ground low current side instead of the hot side. I put a big yellow dot and arrow where I ended up installing the switch. | ||
| Etennuly |
I want to mount them so that they are as close to being on the same horizontal line with the headlights as possible. I'm looking at using 1 1/2" x 1/8" thick aluminum angle attached to the two upper fender bolts. I have no issue with the fork angle giving a less than level flat to attach the light. Most of the angle bracket will be behind the lights. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
FWIW, with regard to aux. lamps, running your ground to the frame (instead of back to the battery-or a dedicated terminal block) works, and is less expensive, but the frame will have more resistance than the neg. wired directly back to batt. | ||
| Mikef5000 |
If you're using small lights, and you want the Aux lights even with the headlight... you could do what I did, simply screw them into the turn signal stalks.  | ||
| Dio |
I mounted a set of Piaa 510 lights using a piece of 5/16" aluminum flat stock. On the outer ends where the lights mount I removed some material (3/4") from the top corners to make a beveled end to remove some of the bulky appearance. The advantage to using 2" flat is that you can also use the extra tapped hole in the lower triple clamp to mount this bracket to. This hole is used on the other models for a small bracket that attaches to the lower portion of the headlamp assy, since they don't have the fender "beak". The "beak" will lay flat against this bracket when remounted, and a bonus is that you do not have to notch for the brake line clamp like you would if you used angle. Back to the wiring with the relays. If you do the 2 relay set-up I proposed, pin 30 on both relays would be fused power from the battery. Pin 85 on both relays would connect to the ground from the battery along with the ground wire from both lights. Pin 87 on 1 relay would connect to the yellow wire from the low beam as well as the white wire from the high beam going to the lights, not spliced into the harness. Pin 86 on the same relay gets the brown/yellow stripe wire from the "presence light" (unused on domestic models). The second relay has pin 87 connected to the driving lights. Pin 86 on this relay gets the white wire from the harness that was connected to the high beam lamp before this mod. Now when the key is turned on, both headlamps are on all the time, and the high/low beam dimmer switch will turn on the driving lamps when placed in the high position. The advantage to this is that you use the stock dimmer switch to operate the driving lights instead of having to add another switch, and as an added bonus, both pairs of lights now feed from 2 separate circuits, so you would still have lights if a fuse blew on either circuit, and the blue high beam indicator now reminds you that the driving lights are on. | ||
| Etennuly |
Thank you all for the great information. It will have to go to good use after MBV, but in time it will.  | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Vern, if we get caught out after dark heading down to Suches, you can see if you like my 3200K super yellow HID bulb added to my set up. So far, I like the improvement. | ||
| Etennuly |
You get out of this thread!  You HID runnin' bastage! Don't be trying to melt the back of my helmet again! I have reflective decals on there this year so if you follow me at night you better be wearin' sun glasses!  | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Nah, I'll smoke 'em like a Firebolt reflector!  Thus far, the new kit allows me to see into the next universe. | ||
| Etennuly |
FB....phone home......FB.....phone home.  | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Bastages don't answer.  | ||
| Bigdaddy |
Ya'll need to hold it down,,,,I'm trying to work here  |
