With the warm weather I have been able to put some miles on my new toy. For the most part I love the bike. One thing that I can say that will not work for me is the headlight. I live in the boonies and ride at night often enough that I need good lights. The 1190 headlight is very poor IMHO. I can't be the only person thinking this. Has anyone done a headlight upgrade? With the led, I am not sure what options I have.
Not a big fan of hanging lights off of my bike because the actual headlight doesn't work. I would much rather find a way to get a functional headlight. I'm debating taking it apart somehow and adding a projector setup. Anyone have an idea of what it looks like inside?
I'm in the same boat. What I did that "sorta" works for me. Reasonable lighting for 80+ mph on the SoCal freeway at 4:30/5:00am.
I adjusted the low beam up to the same location of the high beam. So that the center of the beam is about the center of the tail gate on a pickup or trunk lid on a car. This way it doesn't blast the car drivers. Though...I did have a motor cop tell me to turn off my "high Beam" light, about 4:30am. I turned on my high beam which is just a little lower than my "low" beam, he drove on happy with my switch..!
The high beam on its own is somewhat useless. You can rewire the switch to run both at the same time. It can be found on this site. But with the crummy center fixation of the high beam, I haven't gone to the effort for such a minimum gain.
I have HID's on my XB12s. THAT's excellent lighting. Wish I could do the same to my RX without a ton of work.
I thought the lighting setup on the 1190's was supposed to be pretty good; I remember one of the "Tech Tuesday " pieces EBR ran on the bike claimed the headlight had the maximum light output that is legally permitted.
Are you sure it's aimed correctly? That can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of a headlight.
The headlight brightness was dialed back a bit from the original design to prevent premature failure due to heat. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a compromise in terms of total output, however I find it to work pretty well when it's aimed properly.
(Message edited by snacktoast on February 19, 2017)
I did some aiming at the garage wall last night. It was a lot lower than I thought. Tonight I will take it out and see if it is any better. The high beam is still worthless. Even in the garage you can see that. It's like a laser pointer. Maybe if it was in combination with the low it would be better
At some point . . . I need to start from scratch on the Ulysses . . . the stock lights are pretty much useless and I, like other, am less taken with the crap clamped all over like a BMW look.
I just ordered an interesting set of PIAA yellow ion L.E.D. light bars for the monster truck . . I'm going to see how the L.E.D. units perform and am wondering if the round L.E.D. lights would be able to be morphed onto the Ulysses and look something kind of like stock.
The high beam is still worthless. Even in the garage you can see that. It's like a laser pointer.
If it's well-focused, it probably does look like a laser pointer shining on a wall 5 or 10 feet away. It might look a whole lot better when you see it aimed 30 or 40 feet ahead of the bike.
I went for a night ride and the low beam is quite refreshing. It feels like the high beam was designed to work in conjunction with the high beam but at the last minute was separated. The high beam has no peripheral where the low does a pretty good job
On Lil Red I have an LED mounted in the Right side scoop. Mainly for running as a strobe in the fog or heavy rain. I don't know of any legal lights that work at illegal speeds after hours.