Brighter Head Lamp for Venture

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Hi, Excellent post PZ !!!! Excellent ....

I figured out most of that but the testing proceedure already, power output capacity 200watt etc I had know idea of. I was never sure what these sled manufacturers use as ground. I trouble shot my rear heaters grips initially thought there was not power, wrong, AC going to that circuit as well for the rear and a DC meter does not register it since it's cancelled out. Once I switch to the AC range I saw power 6-8VAC at idle & up to 13VAC at higher speed but before the clutch engages.

For others as well. I studied the schematic and the hand grips are in series, this means if one fails the other won't work either as was the case with my rear grips (one had an open circuit). Being an electric start I naturally tested for DC (big mistake).

200 watts you say. There are various taps of the CDI coil and I will work on the lights solution over the summer since the season is done now. I'll test the ground as you suggested. I have seen 80/100 watts replacements which might help if it could handle it. I usually have my front heaters on but on the lowest setting. It 's warm enough. I don't recall which source the rear uses if its the same output or a different one seeing the diagram is modular (does not show a transformer wiring representation). It appears that the majority of the sled runs on AC except the ignition system which is separate from the charging circuit. Nothing seems to run off the battery and seems a waste as I only use it occasionally (first start of the run when it is coldest and hardest to pull start).

Other posters noted that the LED rear light does not help the drop when the brakes are touched. My reflector is fine, certainly not rusted.

My big concern is overloading the coil. Headlight, grip heaters front & rear if all off the same coil what is to keep it from burning out the coil? E.G. Using a higher wattage headlight. I am not clear on what keeps the AC voltage from going too high. DC can be regulated but AC no, as RPM climb then output should as well. Some older sled had a basic clipping device that dumped the over voltage to ground but that was more than 20 year older sleds.
 

The handlebar heaters are on a dedicated charging system and do not draw from the light system. Only the passenger warmers are connected to the light circuit.

The 1157 brake light filament takes 23 watts. An LED bulb is listed as taking milliamps of power. It would sure seem to me that if the headlight dims with a 23 watt draw, that the LED bulb draw should hardly be noticeable. I plan on puting LED's in my sleds after learning at a fall snow show that they will work on an AC system, I just haven't gotten them yet. I was wrong when I said the rotating LED will work on AC, it is a non rotating bulb.

The AC light circuit is regulated. I don't know how it is done but the light system has commonly been an AC system with a regulator on Yamaha sleds for many years. The newer sleds may be different.

I don't think you have to be concerned about overloading the charging coil. It should be built to run at maximum capacity. I think you could run with the coil output wires grounded and it wouldn't hurt anything.

I am not an electronics whiz by any means so don't expect everything that I have posted to be necessarily 100% correct, although I hope it is. What I have learned about the systems has been from working with them and from wiring diagrams.

You are way ahead with knowing to read the wiring diagram. So many electrical problems can be figured out or at least the trouble shooting made easier by studying the diagrams and it would help so many if they would do that.
 
I'm almost certain the 200watt sleds are DC (dual headlights). The single headlights are AC everywhere except the charging circuit which only has a trickle charge. The CDI, Lights, Warmers, and Charging circuit all have there own stator windings on the single headlight sleds. I have been playing around with an HID head light on the single sled for years. Still have not got it to fully work. But I've been through the wiring millions of times. Search my username and you see some of my work. J
 
Wattage

jwiedmayer said:
I'm almost certain the 200watt sleds are DC (dual headlights). The single headlights are AC everywhere except the charging circuit which only has a trickle charge. The CDI, Lights, Warmers, and Charging circuit all have there own stator windings on the single headlight sleds. I have been playing around with an HID head light on the single sled for years. Still have not got it to fully work. But I've been through the wiring millions of times. Search my username and you see some of my work. J
Click to expand...
Still leave the uncertainty of what power output the light circuit will handle reliably. The output voltage (AC) does drop substancially when the RPM's drop below 3kRPM.

As for HID, HIR may be a better option. Since HID had a massive current surge of at least 20 amps to get it running, then stablized down to around 3 amps so I've heard. Also requiring DC continuously driving the balast. Depending on how the stator winding is wired you would certainly need a full wave bridge rectification circuit to convert the output to DC but would not get the startup power you need without the battery being in parallel with it. Full wave bridge could be either the typical 4-rectifier bridge or 2-rectifier with common to ground as the tap if you get my meaning. HIR does not have the high surge but does have a significant output boost in lumens.

I am not concerned at that level of improvement but just a boost. Too bad the output of light drops so much on idle though. In the few night rides I found it unconfortable with the dim yellow light while waiting for a clearing before crossing a road & highway.
 
I have added a battery. You can not use a bridge rectifier on the AC circuit because 12v AC rms is ~17 volts dc. Done there burnt that balast. The HID I have draws less then 10amps (fuse size).

The last go of it I had lasted for about 2.5hrs before the battery got discharged. Now I don't now if the battery is cooked because of heat/age next to the muffler or if the circuit could not keep up. So before I put it away I going to measure the amperage in the circuit. The voltage is stable at 14.6 volts dc running.

Check this thread:http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/showthread.php?p=315898#post315898

And let me know if you see anything that might help.


What is HIR? Ok I googled and I'm really interested now!

tripplec said:
Still leave the uncertainty of what power output the light circuit will handle reliably. The output voltage (AC) does drop substancially when the RPM's drop below 3kRPM.

As for HID, HIR may be a better option. Since HID had a massive current surge of at least 20 amps to get it running, then stablized down to around 3 amps so I've heard. Also requiring DC continuously driving the balast. Depending on how the stator winding is wired you would certainly need a full wave bridge rectification circuit to convert the output to DC but would not get the startup power you need without the battery being in parallel with it. Full wave bridge could be either the typical 4-rectifier bridge or 2-rectifier with common to ground as the tap if you get my meaning. HIR does not have the high surge but does have a significant output boost in lumens.

I am not concerned at that level of improvement but just a boost. Too bad the output of light drops so much on idle though. In the few night rides I found it unconfortable with the dim yellow light while waiting for a clearing before crossing a road & highway.
Click to expand...
 
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I have heard great things about HIR bulbs. Many are running them in WJ grand Cherokees. I will have to look to make sure HIR's are offered in H4/ 9003.

If so, that would be the easiest, cheapest route to go to get more light from these single headlight yamis.

for the jeeps, they are 50 dollars for a pair, and run stock 60/55w, and need no modification to the jeep to fit them. And they work very well apparently.

Let me look into this....
 
I realize the voltage will go up. Then you also a voltage regulator E.G. 14-15VDC output. You man require some filtering as well for it to be stable but some ripple will not affect the lights anyway. Basically a fairly standard DC power supply regulator utilizing a Zener/Transistor circuit or regulator chip with high power transistor. You could use something like a LM317 (fully functional regulator to control a high powered transistor as the second sage). Since you need to able to handle at least 20 AMP DC and this one wil do for control and is variable and can adjust the output voltage to the load exactly.
 
DC Regulation

See for reference.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Bill_Bowden/page12.htm

http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/LM317/

Also for some solutions. Ignore the Transformer since the coil is your source. regulator sufficient to handle the current with heatsink/cooling. Not a big issue with cold air while running.
http://www.elecfree.com/circuit/power-supply/high-power-supply-regulater-0-30v-20a-by-lm338/

Various links or others (the above is also from here).
http://www.elecfree.com/electronic/lm350-high-current-power-supply-45-25v-10a/
 
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jwiedmayer said:
I'm almost certain the 200watt sleds are DC (dual headlights). The single headlights are AC everywhere except the charging circuit which only has a trickle charge. The CDI, Lights, Warmers, and Charging circuit all have there own stator windings on the single headlight sleds. I have been playing around with an HID head light on the single sled for years. Still have not got it to fully work. But I've been through the wiring millions of times. Search my username and you see some of my work. J
Click to expand...
The dual headlight sleds have a 300 watt output. They have the rare earth magnets.

When I last talked to Bluhm Enterprises, they said that they were soon going to have an HID kit that would work on the AC Yamaha's. I have not checked back with them on it.
 
Looks like I have more to play with!



tripplec said:
See for reference.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Bill_Bowden/page12.htm

http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/LM317/

Also for some solutions. Ignore the Transformer since the coil is your source. regulator sufficient to handle the current with heatsink/cooling. Not a big issue with cold air while running.
http://www.elecfree.com/circuit/power-supply/high-power-supply-regulater-0-30v-20a-by-lm338/

Various links or others (the above is also from here).
http://www.elecfree.com/electronic/lm350-high-current-power-supply-45-25v-10a/
Click to expand...
 
If you find any of those Toshiba HIR bulbs in 9003/H4 I'd love to know about it. I've been looking for some myself and haven't seen any yet. I haven't sat here and searched for hours or anything yet though either.
 
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Yama49601 said:
If you find any of those Toshiba HIR bulbs in 9003/H4 I'd love to know about it. I've been looking for some myself and haven't seen any yet. I haven't sat here and searched for hours or anything yet though either.
Click to expand...
I have been reading about them on Jeepsunlimited.com and all appear to be a 9006 equivalent install. Our P43T mount is clearly not compatible. I don't want to re-engineer the fixture for it.

But HIR give very high output without a balast and very high surge current. They speak of a surge of 20 amps and running current of 3 amps. Tough gig for a magneto...ha ha. Anyway, you can blind an oncoming rider and get run into or he/she ends up in a tree or worst. I am not for taking out my fellow sledders no matter what they're on. A Yammy, S..Doo, Cat etc, they all sledder enjoying the outing period. I just like to up the night ride a bit. I have S..Doo formula and the brightness is much better and stable without after market anything including bulb. Hmmm.....
 
More for you, HIR source I found
http://store.candlepower.com/hirlighting.html


Quote for forum:http://www.jeepsunlimited.com/forums/showthread.php?t=884875&page=4
Interesting, go back to earlier pages as well. Read backwards..ha ha.

"The HIR low beam produces 1,700 lumens vs a standard halogen at 1,000 lumens, a 70% increase in output. The high beam produces 2,300 lumens vs a standard halogen at 1,700 lumens, a 35% increase in output. If you can find a spec that states the Philips bulb comes close, please post it. They just state that it's 20% brighter than a standard halogen."
 
I just found this page.

What is the brightest halogen bulb?

For the 55W marked segment, sorted in order of brightness:
+50%: Philips Vision Plus (achieves its extra performance by increased luminance, not lumens. See this article: http://www.eur.lighting.philips.com/...tsVision.shtml
+30%: Philips Premium, Osram Silverstar (European marked only - see note below)
+20%: Osram/Sylvania Xtra Vision, Osram/Sylvania Silverstar (North american market only - see note below)
+0%: Philips Bluevison, Osram/Sylvania Cool Blue, Osram/Sylvania Halogen Plus, and OEM bulbs like GE.
-10%: PIAA Superwite

Silverstar: Do not confuse the European (clear glass) Silverstar with the North american (slightly blue tinted) Silverstar. The blue tint steals light!

PIAA "Xtreme White" was released ~Dec 2001. No independant tests have been conducted so far, but several positive indications has it that this can end up in the +20-30%.

Note that many cars sold after year 2000 already have premium bulbs installed and therefore buying any of the above bulbs might not give any or only minor improvement. Among H7 applications, there should be hard to find non-premium bulbs.

If your car is set up for higher wattage bulbs, Philips Rally bulbs will give more lumens than most asian overwatts. Be aware that lifetime of a Philips Rally bulb is ~100hours - so keep some spares in the glove compartment.

Narva bulbs are also top notch. Narva is a daughter company of Philips with one intention: compete with top notch products on the aftermarked. Philips themself are OEM oriented.




What happens if I insert a brighter halogen bulb into an older headlamp?

Let's say you wanted to buy the American Silverstar that has 20% advertised gain. Fact is that the 20% increase can only be achieved if headlamp is new. As an example, let us say that headlamp is 6 years old with plastic front glass. It has 100 000 miles (or 160 000km) so it will probably have high general pitting of front glass. That will lower the actual output on the road with maybe 40%. Then the 20% advertised increase will be reduced by 40%, and you end up with 12% increase. That's when you really wonder if it is worth putting in any new bulb at all. A difference by 12% is hardly noticable.


Are bulbs meant for the European market legal in US?

Legally, if they don't have the DOT label, they are not legal. However, in real life noone will ever know. They do not emit that much extra light that you will separate yourself enough from other drivers, unless you choose one of the blue coated ones. Most likely you will wear out several sets of the "little brighter" bulbs before any legal authority will notice.


Whats the deal with HIR bulbs?

They were invented by General Electric a few years ago. An HIR bulb differs from a standard Halogen bulb by the fact that they have a reflective infra red coating with primary purpose of reflecting heat back to the filament. They are being markeded under these names:
9011 HIR1, high beam, 2500lm bright at 13,2 (+/-15%) Volts
9012 HIR2, low beam, 1875lm bright at 13,2 (+/-15%) Volts


For physical dimansions, goto: http://152.119.239.10/docimages/pdf37/58377_web.pdf For performance data, see: http://www.gelighting.com/na/downloa...techsheet1.pdf

So far its used on OEM applications only: Dodge Vipers high beams and Toyota Camry (unofficial). Dont excpect them to show up at Pep Boys or Canadian Tire anytime soon. Price on each bulb is probably around what an HID capsule goes for (USD 100-200).

In the aftermarket, an HIR bulb has shown up in the 9005 and 9006 base version, which is different from 9011 and 9012 base standard. It is marketed under the "Polarg" brand name. Check out SPW Industries for details. The question is if Polarg is using the GE glasspack and selling them under their own name, or if its their in house brand. Generally, Polarg products have avarage quality, so our speculations goes towards the latter. The first quarter of 2003, the japanese company Vestec also started selling a product that may also very well go into the HIR category: "HID-R Day Light 9006"

Yellow fog light bulbs
Yellow bulbs was mandatory in headlamps in France for many years. They supposedly creates bigger contrasts in less visibilty. Today its only found in fogligths. Automotive bulbs with actual yellow glass envelopes aren't made any more. Cadmium was used in their manufacture, and is now outlawed, having been identified as a carcinogen. Today's coated bulbs are a poor substitute for the original. The best bet would probably be to look on the on-line auctions, since somebody may still have a stash of these old bulbs. Expect to pay big bux.

Here is a list of yellow bulbs in production today:
Narva Gold (Yellow)
Hella Yellow Star (Less Yellow)
PIAA Ion Crystal (Yellow) (use search engine: "PIAA H3 Ion Crystal" will give many results)
PIAA Ion Yellow 2300K (Yellow)
Philips WeatherVision (Less Yellow)



How does the Catz Zeta light enhancer work?
It contains a DC-DC converter (which are used alot in many industry applications) that will give higher voltage output. Output voltage to bulb has been measured to be as high as 16-17V. There will be a slight increase in amperage draw to be able to create the additional volts and to cover heat losses in the units. It does give some increase in output, and is harmless to factory wiring headlamp curcuit. But paying more than $100 for Catz Zeta, well, that is probably not worth it. In most cars, a relay system for $35 are more valuable.

Bulb life will suffer, maybe as low as 200 hours, all depending on bulb quality and not to mention remaining life.

Funny story is that, at least in an H4 application, a Philips Vision Plus bulb without use of Zeta, has the same intensity at 12V compared to a Catz Zeta system in combination with a stock Sylvania bulb.


more info can be found at www.hidforum.com
 
tripplec said:
I have been reading about them on Jeepsunlimited.com and all appear to be a 9006 equivalent install. Our P43T mount is clearly not compatible. I don't want to re-engineer the fixture for it.

But HIR give very high output without a balast and very high surge current. They speak of a surge of 20 amps and running current of 3 amps. Tough gig for a magneto...ha ha. Anyway, you can blind an oncoming rider and get run into or he/she ends up in a tree or worst. I am not for taking out my fellow sledders no matter what they're on. A Yammy, S..Doo, Cat etc, they all sledder enjoying the outing period. I just like to up the night ride a bit. I have S..Doo formula and the brightness is much better and stable without after market anything including bulb. Hmmm.....
Click to expand...


Yeah, I am horkn on JU as well as here.

I could not recall the wj headlight number, but it appears to be 9006, as you mentioned.


Thos h4 HIR's seem to be the right item, but about 2x the price of the ones we found on JU for the wj's at $50 a pair.

Too bad my ZJ does not take 9006's but rather 9004's which are by far the worst ever bulb in recent history of bulbs, worsened only by the chrysler engineer that was drunk when they designed the headlights for the 93-98 grand cherokee (ZJ)

I can't recall whether you have a wj or a ZJ tripplec, but if you had a ZJ, you would know exactly how bad the lights were on ZJ's. I have switched to the euro clear type ones sold on ebay, and they look better, and are brighter even with the chinese bulbs that came with the kit.

I don't think HIR's would be too bright for sled use, as far as blinding oncoming sledders. They can be any brighter than many of the new sleds, almost all new sleds are very bright, and are legal.
 
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