Brighter Head Lamp for Venture

I'm sure this has already been discussed and maybe even in this thread, but can you use those HID conversion kits in our snowmobiles? Just for an example like one of these? Would it matter if you have electric start so you could hook right into the battery? Or not?
 

Yama49601 said:
I'm sure this has already been discussed and maybe even in this thread, but can you use those HID conversion kits in our snowmobiles? Just for an example like one of these? Would it matter if you have electric start so you could hook right into the battery? Or not?
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lots o reading here for you..... http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/showthread.php?p=315898#post315898

I really think the easy fix are the better h4 bulbs like I am looking at getting a couple of posts up. I though t an HID kit would be the ticket too, but it seems that you need to do a bit of work to make them work correctly, not like on cars.

but, that theory needs to be tested. I hear folks like the way the silverstars work, but they really don't make it any brighter if you have read anything about headlights, that and they just don't last long.
 
I have the Silverstars in my 2001 SXR, my 2000 Honda Valkyrie and my 1993 Ford Ranger. They are definitely brighter. I don't know where the information keeps coming from about them not lasting very long because I have yet to have one blow. I've had them in my truck the longest and it's been over 3 years. I will take a picture for you of a stock bulb in one side and a Silverstar in the other in my truck. The difference is very noticeable. I read some of that thread (a while back) but not all of it. I contacted a company about installing their H4 HID conversion kit in my SXR and they claim that it will work fine, but they recommended the ultra slim ballasts. Doesn't having the new charging system and electric start give you any advantage when it comes to installing one of those kits? It seems to me like it would. But I don't know for sure so that's why I asked.
 
Yama49601 said:
I have the Silverstars in my 2001 SXR, my 2000 Honda Valkyrie and my 1993 Ford Ranger. They are definitely brighter. I don't know where the information keeps coming from about them not lasting very long because I have yet to have one blow. I've had them in my truck the longest and it's been over 3 years. I will take a picture for you of a stock bulb in one side and a Silverstar in the other in my truck. The difference is very noticeable. I read some of that thread (a while back) but not all of it. I contacted a company about installing their H4 HID conversion kit in my SXR and they claim that it will work fine, but they recommended the ultra slim ballasts. Doesn't having the new charging system and electric start give you any advantage when it comes to installing one of those kits? It seems to me like it would. But I don't know for sure so that's why I asked.
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read some more about the silverstars, you will find out why they are not as good as you might think, outside of burning out quicker.
I think the link posted before has real info HID planet IIRC, and its not made up internet BS.

fwiw, I have the silverstars in my moms 99 grand cherokee. one side blows out every other year, not very good. I will order the HIR's for her since those are very nice.

I have yet to try the HID kit in the venture as I did 99% of my riding on the venture this year during the day, but yeah, you would hope that a higher output magneto, and a battery would help a bit.
 
Well I have yet to have one go out. I never said they were the best bulb money can buy. I just keep reading (by a few certain people) how they don't last very long. And like I said I've never had one blow. So I don't understand where people are getting their information from. If you personally are having them go out then fine. I just haven't experienced that myself. What number are the bulbs you're talking about? The ones in my Ranger are 9007's. I put the 9003's in my SXR in early 2006. The one in my Valkyrie has been in longer than that. I don't need to read about anything since I'm using them. That's why I made the comment about people claiming they don't last very long. I think some people read stuff like that once somewhere and it becomes the gospel. :o|
 
Yama49601 said:
Well I have yet to have one go out. I never said they were the best bulb money can buy. I just keep reading (by a few certain people) how they don't last very long. And like I said I've never had one blow. So I don't understand where people are getting their information from. If you personally are having them go out then fine. I just haven't experienced that myself. What number are the bulbs you're talking about? The ones in my Ranger are 9007's. I put the 9003's in my SXR in early 2006. The one in my Valkyrie has been in longer than that. I don't need to read about anything since I'm using them. That's why I made the comment about people claiming they don't last very long. I think some people read stuff like that once somewhere and it becomes the gospel. :o|
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naw its not like that at all.

they are 9005s on the jeep, and If I can get 2 years out of them I am lucky.

I have had them on my 87 mustang which were 9004s IIRC. They did not last that long either.

I fully understand what you are saying, but there are a lot of better choices that cost less.
 
2 years of use with a car would probably mean they would last the lifetime of a snowmobile. And there are no reports of the other types of new, high output bulbs- they may be short lived too.


Yesterday I installed an HID light on my 1992 Yamaha Venture GT just to try it. Unfortunately I had it on order already when I saw Horkn's post about buying a kit for a car and getting 2 lights at a savings. I did not know that each light was a seperate system. The kit I got was for a motorcycle and I did not know if it would work on my AC sled, but thought that if it did not, I could use it on my bike. It has connections for connecting directly to a battery which the sled has. Then it has a connector that attaches to the sleds 3 wire connector that plugs onto the headlight bulb. That is what turns the light on. I hooked it up that way and then had a strobe light for a headlight with the AC feed. I then attached the positive switching wire directly to the battery and temporarily put a connector on the wire that I could unplug to turn the light off. The light worked fine then.

The light is bright but as I have read, the halogen reflector spreads the light out like a floodlight and it does not have a beam like a normal headlight does. But with the high power, it still seems to light up the distant area better than a halogen. I could not get a real good idea of the pattern because I ran a ditch (trails closed), when I get on a trail, I will get a better idea of how it throws light.

I do not like that the headlight only has one beam and cannot be dimmed. It is very glaring when viewing it from the front. When I was running the ditch and would see an oncoming car, I would aim the sled away from the road and stop. From the links here, I learned about the shielded automotive style bulbs that protect the oncoming persons eyes. I did some more looking today and found that there are dual beam HID's available. That is what I plan on trying now.

I have not used it enough to know if it will draw the battery down. If it does, I will see about changing the system so it will work. What I like about the HID system versus the high light output halogens is that it frees up watts that I can use for other purposes. The HID's draw 35 watts.


I have some questions that I would appreciate some help with from you electronics guru's.

Is a lamp housing available for HID so the light will be focused better?

The lights and accesories system is AC. The battery charging part of the system has a half wave rectifier. If the HID draws down the battery, what kind of full wave regulator/rectifier could I use to get more charge to the battery?
Is hooking the light circuit in with the battery charging system and rectifieing it all together an option?
With the half wave rectifier, could the other half of the wave that is not sent to the battery, be used by the AC charging system? Both circuits windings are contained on the same coil core.

If the present battery hookup works okay, I would like to put a relay in to be energized by the AC system that would turn the light on when the engine is running. Will a relay work with AC? If so, one of the small square electronic ones? What number or type would I ask for?


Here is an eBay link to a dual beam, two bulb HID kit. It is the seller I got my single kit from. The seller has other types of HID kits and parts.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BiXe...012QQitemZ220203570875QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
 
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good news PZ1:)

at least you have tried the HID on the sled. I have not gotten that far, or may not due to more non HID bulbs to try.

2 years of automotive use may be more hours than a lifetime of sled use, but, a sled will get a lot more vibrations from bumps and such than any superslab riding car/ truck will.

The silverstars run hotter than most bulbs due to the blueish tint, and they use more watts IIRC as well. Increased heat will burn bulbs out quicker.
 
Search for my posts. You will see some similar discussions. I too tried a H4 low beam HID about three years ago I always felt like I was trying to look out further then the beam.

I know have a hi/low hid bulb. The charging circuit is not enough to keep up with the HID. If you you use a full wave rectifier on the AC the DC voltage is going to be too high and you'll need a dc to dc conversion.

I've been down most of the paths that you are talking about below.

Does your bulb have a shield on it?

After I check the amps out of my current set up and find that its not enough rather then I cooked the battery. I might try a time battey off the charging circuit to light the headlight. Then I plan to use a brigde rectifier with a big smoothing capacitor and a dc/dc convertor. I have ran the ballast before with a the bridge rectifier and smoothing capacitor but I cooked the ballast when I reved the engine because 12 VAC rms through the bridge recitifer is ~17+ VDC. On idle it worked fine so there must be enough juice in the circuit. I'm not sure how the parallel voltage regulator - regulator/recitfier that I have now is cooperating amerage wise. Voltage is solid at 14.6. But some reason or another my battery was drained.




PZ 1 said:
2 years of use with a car would probably mean they would last the lifetime of a snowmobile. And there are no reports of the other types of new, high output bulbs- they may be short lived too.


Yesterday I installed an HID light on my 1992 Yamaha Venture GT just to try it. Unfortunately I had it on order already when I saw Horkn's post about buying a kit for a car and getting 2 lights at a savings. I did not know that each light was a seperate system. The kit I got was for a motorcycle and I did not know if it would work on my AC sled, but thought that if it did not, I could use it on my bike. It has connections for connecting directly to a battery which the sled has. Then it has a connector that attaches to the sleds 3 wire connector that plugs onto the headlight bulb. That is what turns the light on. I hooked it up that way and then had a strobe light for a headlight with the AC feed. I then attached the positive switching wire directly to the battery and temporarily put a connector on the wire that I could unplug to turn the light off. The light worked fine then.

The light is bright but as I have read, the halogen reflector spreads the light out like a floodlight and it does not have a beam like a normal headlight does. But with the high power, it still seems to light up the distant area better than a halogen. I could not get a real good idea of the pattern because I ran a ditch (trails closed), when I get on a trail, I will get a better idea of how it throws light.

I do not like that the headlight only has one beam and cannot be dimmed. It is very glaring when viewing it from the front. When I was running the ditch and would see an oncoming car, I would aim the sled away from the road and stop. From the links here, I learned about the shielded automotive style bulbs that protect the oncoming persons eyes. I did some more looking today and found that there are dual beam HID's available. That is what I plan on trying now.

I have not used it enough to know if it will draw the battery down. If it does, I will see about changing the system so it will work. What I like about the HID system versus the high light output halogens is that it frees up watts that I can use for other purposes. The HID's draw 35 watts.


I have some questions that I would appreciate some help with from you electronics guru's.

Is a lamp housing available for HID so the light will be focused better?

The lights and accesories system is AC. The battery charging part of the system has a single wave rectifier. If the HID draws down the battery, what kind of full wave regulator/rectifier could I use to get more charge to the battery?
Is hooking the light circuit in with the battery charging system and rectifieing it all together an option?
With the single wave rectifier, could the other half of the wave that is not sent to the battery, be used by the AC charging system? Both circuits windings are contained on the same coil core.

If the present battery hookup works okay, I would like to put a relay in to be energized by the AC system that would turn the light on when the engine is running. Will a relay work with AC? If so, one of the small square electronic ones? What number or type would I ask for?


Here is an eBay link to a dual beam, two bulb HID kit. It is the seller I got my single kit from. The seller has other types of HID kits and parts.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BiXenon-4-Ballast-HID-Headlight-Conversion-Kit-High-Low_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ43989QQihZ012QQitemZ220203570875QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
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horkn said:
The silverstars run hotter than most bulbs due to the blueish tint, and they use more watts IIRC as well. Increased heat will burn bulbs out quicker.
Click to expand...
The blue on halogen bulbs is a coating which can be removed. If it is the same on siverstars- and I assume it would be, using a razor blade or sharp utility knife will scrape it off. I have done it to several halogen bulbs. Then spray it with brake cleaner or contact cleaner and don't touch it with anything.
 
Thanks for the reply JW.
jwiedmayer said:
Search for my posts. You will see some similar discussions. I too tried a H4 low beam HID about three years ago I always felt like I was trying to look out further then the beam.
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Low beam HID? Cannot you just aim it wherever you want? If you had it pointed down like a low beam light, that would explain why you were looking out further than the beam.
When I put in the HID bulb, I had to crank the lamp up quite a bit to get it to shine where the high beam halogen did.

I know have a hi/low hid bulb. The charging circuit is not enough to keep up with the HID. If you you use a full wave rectifier on the AC the DC voltage is going to be too high and you'll need a dc to dc conversion.
Click to expand...
Why not use a standard regulator/rectifier?

I've been down most of the paths that you are talking about below.

Does your bulb have a shield on it?
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No it does not, but I will probably go to a dual beam system.

After I check the amps out of my current set up and find that its not enough rather then I cooked the battery. I might try a time battey off the charging circuit to light the headlight. Then I plan to use a brigde rectifier with a big smoothing capacitor and a dc/dc convertor. I have ran the ballast before with a the bridge rectifier and smoothing capacitor but I cooked the ballast when I reved the engine because 12 VAC rms through the bridge recitifer is ~17+ VDC. On idle it worked fine so there must be enough juice in the circuit. I'm not sure how the parallel voltage regulator - regulator/recitfier that I have now is cooperating amerage wise. Voltage is solid at 14.6. But some reason or another my battery was drained.
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Whoa! That is all Greek to me!

If I was to put a regulator/rectifier unit in place of the present single wave DC unit, or put one on the AC system, I do not understand why it would not work.
I would probably use one from an outboard motor because I am familiar with those systems and have the specs and can readily get one that should work.
If it will take AC voltage on an outboard and rectify it and limit the voltage to a working level ........why would it not do it on a snowmobile???
I know I may be wrong, but if so, please enlighten me.
 
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Reply

Low beam HID? Cannot you just aim it wherever you want? I did, but it did not go high enough.. The arc is in the position used by the low beam portion of the reflector. I'm almost certain that the reflector is designed for the two different filament positions of the H4. I could be wrong.
Why not use a standard regulator/rectifier? I did a universal one.

If I was to put a regulator/rectifier unit in place of the present single wave DC unit, or put one on the AC system, I do not understand why it would not work.
I would probably use one from an outboard motor because I am familiar with those systems and have the specs and can readily get one that should work.
If it will take AC voltage on an outboard and rectify it and limit the voltage to a working level ........why would it not do it on a snowmobile???
This is what I did and the battery either got fried by my muffler or was discharged due to lack of current from the reg/rec.

I know I may be wrong, but if so, please enlighten me
 
Also, what do Pol-Cat-Doo use? They may employ a reg/rec that would work.
 
The standard Yamaha regulator/rectifier has only a half wave rectifier on my sled.

I had previosly been describing an electrical system like that on my 1986 Yamaha. I thought that the 1992 sled system that I have the HID light on was the same. After further review, I see that the 92 has a single coil winding for charging the battery and supplying the lights. The regulator/rectifier has only one diode that supplies a half wave to the battery. The light system output from the reg/rec is regulated AC.

It may supply enough power to the battery to operate the HID. If not I will have to change to a full wave reg/rec and use some method to turn the lights and accesories off when the sled is not running.

I also plan on putting HID on my 1997 trailing arm Yamaha which probably has the same system your sled has. I believe that the battery and the light system are supplied from seperate bobbins on the stator that both feed into the reg/rec. The lighting system operates on regulated AC current. I do not know if the battery charging rectifier is half wave or full wave. If it is full wave, I could also use one of those on the 1992.
 
The 97 only put out 2amps to the charging ciruit at 8000rpms. It is a separte coil on the stator. I don't know if its a 1/2 wave or full wave rectifier. Do you have the wiring diagram for the 97? I can send it too you.
 
Wiring

jwiedmayer said:
The 97 only put out 2amps to the charging ciruit at 8000rpms. It is a separte coil on the stator. I don't know if its a 1/2 wave or full wave rectifier. Do you have the wiring diagram for the 97? I can send it too you.
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I have a wiring diagram from the manual. But it does not should the stator windings only a representation of the CDI unit with the various output leads which don't help at all. Same with the rectifier regulator, it is modular and does not show what is going on inside.

But if it is only half wave rectification, bringing it to full wave effectively doubles the power available. (Voltage goes up effectively with RPM) The regulation prior to load may be required for this as well.

However, knowing where the ground is for the winding is important. E.G. Is it the other end of the coil winding, if so then a full wave is not possible. We need a centre tap winding at minimum to build a full wave (two rectifier solution where the centre tap is either the -ve or + ve depending on the rectifier polarization). If the battery circuit is using the chassis and block as ground then are they using the chassis for return for the AC of the lights as well or separate return wire for that winding? If there is a sperate return wire for the AC lights then ground would come from the -ve end of a full wave bridge rectifier (4-diode configuration) & +ve from the other end.
 
jwiedmayer said:
The 97 only put out 2amps to the charging ciruit at 8000rpms. It is a separte coil on the stator. I don't know if its a 1/2 wave or full wave rectifier. Do you have the wiring diagram for the 97? I can send it too you.
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Thanks, but I have a diagram.
 
tripplec said:
However, knowing where the ground is for the winding is important. E.G. Is it the other end of the coil winding, if so then a full wave is not possible.
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Thanks for pointing that out ccc.
The diagram does show only one wire leading from each stator coil to the reg/rec on the 1997, so it is half wave rectified.

So- 2 options I see on the sleds:
1. Disconnect the wire to ground from the battery charge-coil and run a wire out to a full wave reg/rec for battery charging and hook the HID to the battery. A problem could be - if the charge coil would be fried from the doubled load.
I think that the existing reg/rec would have to stay in place on the AC light circuit for the tach to work.
A relay could be used so that the HID light will go off when the engine is off. I would not rely on a manual switch because I know I would forget to turn it on or off in the daytime. Will a relay work with AC?

2. Run the AC lighting system output wire from the existing reg/rec to the tach and hook it in parallel. After the tach add a diode and connect the wire back to the light circuit. That would put the lights, including the HID, on a half wave DC system. Because the HID only draws 35 watts and because there is a surplus in the original system, cutting the system watts in half would probably leave enough watts to supply everything. Also switch to an LED tail light bulb. Of course, the math would have to be done beforehand to make sure.
I assume that the HID ballast will take care of any starting load and the HID will not have to be hooked to a battery.

I could actually go without the tach on my sled because I never look at it. That would simplify things.

Can anyone think of anything else?


EDIT: In number 2 above, the diode would send a half wave back to the tach, making it inoperative. More diodes would have to be used to make it work = more complexity.

-If there is enough resistance in the tach, maybe there would be no feedback. -Or add a resistor?
 
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Another post.

I don't think the yamaha's stator have a floating ground. (I keep confusing my self. I think one end of the winding is attached to the stator and the other goes to the regulator.)

Anyways tell what you guys think is wrong with this layout.
http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=27030

I did think about floating the ground but I did not want to be left with out the tach.

There is also a bunch of info here http://www.trailtech.net/instructions.html
I though my set up was similiar to the crf450 example

This is the HID working with just the bridge rectifier. I burnt the ballast up when I revved the engine! http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/showthread.php?t=32921&page=3&pp=10

This is why I insulated the regulator and battery from the chassis: http://trailtech.net/media/electrical/dc_conversions/ac-dc_key_concepts.pdf
 
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