Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JimsSEEG]

Several months ago, posted regarding spotlights and had found some German spotlights thru a Canadian company (www.danielsternlighting.com). The spotlights are made by Bosch, and 100 mm (4 inch) in diameter and accept a standard 35 watt H3 bulb available at any parts store. They were on back order and got here last week. The best part about these lights is they have an horizontal oval pattern when displayed on a wall at 25 feet. The maximum distance on the beam pattern is 200 meters, with a maximum width of 20 meters, so a very long and narrow pattern. I used the aiming instructions I got ffrom Danil Stern, so I can run them as auxilliary headlights. The will easily overpower the new Cibie headlamp and HO H4 bulb. Btw, yes I know they aren't chrome but for the amount of light they put out, don't really care....


Jim

[JimsSEEG]

See if this one looks better....

Jim

[MJZ]

Are those the Tango (series 40)?

[Grover]

Why did you change your headlight from the O.E. one? The passing lamps don't look bad at all in black. You could always get them chromed if need be.

[JimsSEEG]

MJZ - These are the Compact 100.

Grover - Had the discussion with Daniel Stern on the headlamp housing. In his words, "the stock 05 lens was absolute crap as far as reflector and lens optics. Who ever designed it was going for pretty, not functional.". He suggested using the HD Euro version of the reflector, but the two gains were a better horizontal cut-off line and a slightly better beam pattern. The stock HD units are also made of plastic, so going with a larger wattage bulb will definitely lead to bad juju.

The Cibie pictured had a better beam pattern, a kick-up(?) from the center of the beam to about 1 o'clock for better sign visibility and the reflector is made of glass, so you can go up in higher wattage without fear of melting the reflector / lens. The other key item is aiming the lights. The headlight on the SEEG was almot 1.5 turns low on vertical - or in other words, the hot spot (brightst portion of the center light) was about 55 feet in front of the bike. Once I adjusted the stock reflector unit properly, the beam pattern was almost fully degraded at 80 to 90 feet - light was still in front of he bike, but not in a usable patetrn. For me, it was about getting lots of light in front in a concentrated pattern for night driving. With the new setup, the lane from about 20 feet to 120 feet is intense, bright white light. And all three lights are Euro spec (also DOT legal), I still have bright curb to curb light without blinding oncoming traffic. All of this on low beam.


Jim

[mr_magoo]

Got any pictures of the mounting system?

[Grover]

JimsSEEG,

  Thanks for the detailed description. Sounds like a very good set-up.
Is it possible to use the passing lamps in the stock chrome housings, or do they offer a chrome housing? The black housings look fine, but I'd like to stay with chrome housings for my purpose.
Sounds like you are very happy and impressed with your new set-up.

  On a scale of 1-10. 10 being best. How would you rate them compared to stock. With price, time to install, and overall value all factored in.

  I was thinking of going with the new dual bulb headlamp kit from HD. But that sounds like junk. And the new (HID) is too high priced for me to justify and doesn't sound like it's much better.
  
The other option I was looking into was using the PIAAH3 & PIAAH4.

  My bike is a 04 SEEG w/the '05 headlamp in it. I have not heard of any problems with melting the lens w/ high-output bulbs. Is this a problem that should concern me?

Thanks for your time and comments on this subject.

Take Care,

Grover

[JimsSEEG]

mr_magoo -

This is about the best my cheapie digital will do on a close up... Its a typical fog / spot / driving mount. An eye and Clevis mount if you will... Not a ball and socket type HD mount. No modification to the origina HD spotlight arm.

Jim

[JimsSEEG]

Grover -

I'll see if I can answer all of the questions in the first pass...

Is it possible to use the passing lamps in the stock chrome housings, or do they offer a chrome housing?
 - As far as I know it's only the black compisie housing. However, I did a very quick loo to see if the black housing would fit inside inside the stock HD housing and I beleive with time and patience, you could get the black housing to fit inside the chrome housing. There would be some questions regarding stability of the inner / outer mounting, etc. The other option would be to re-install the stock spots and mount the Bosch units on the engine guard. Saw a quick colution to that as a first option, but wanted the more powerful up high.


 
  On a scale of 1-10. 10 being best. How would you rate them compared to stock. With price, time to install, and overall value all factored in.

I rate each cateory and give some explanation.

Procing compared to stock. Rating : 6. I replaced the OEM spots with the bertical optics spots - $59.95 for the pair. I bought a different set of 110k candle power spots for $35 - lots of light, but also lots of onciming vehicles flipping thier lights. The vertical optic spots have a replaceable bulb, but the only replacement is a 27.5 watt bulb made by Sylvania. They had no "upgrade" for the little 27.5 watt light because f the mounting base. They also mentioned not to use the highr wattage bulbs with the polastic housings. The Bosch units were $51 or $57 each, and the Narva bulbs (H3 35 watt) were $6 each. So - upgrades to OEM stuff was almost $100 and replacement units were $125.

Install time: rating 9. Overall install for both lights was about 30 minutes, plus another 30 min for aiming them. I didn't hurry, and think I stopped for a whiz break and to get a diet coke from the fridge. I did run larger 12 ga wires for the ground wires and this is what took most of the time to make these and connect them to the lower triple clamp and route them. I willspend about another hour upgrading the power side of the the lights, when I get some more time and more details worked out. The reason I'm upgrading the wiring is to minimize voltage drop. There is a tech paper on www.danielsternlighting.com explaining the difference .6 volts makes in the output of these high efficiency lights. It;s really amazing.

Overall Value: rating 9. I say this is pretty high for a couple of reasons: I tried replacement bulbs in the headlight (Sylvania stuff) and gave them to my son. The Cibie headlamp was $61, Narva +50 H4 bulb was $18, th etwo spots were $114 and bulbs were $12. Add in another $25 for the wire, terminals, Bosch relay, etx.

Dinking around with the OEM stuff, spent roughly $125, plus time and didn't get a positive result. Spent approx $230 on the new setup and and roughly 2.5 to 3 hours with the new items, and I can say for me, the difference is well worth the cost. I have more controllable light where I need to see at night. If I had to put a percentage number on the increase in light, I would say a 100% increase in light.

For me, this is an optimal setup compared to HID because of cost and because of the bluish tint of HID, it actualyy reduces my night time vision. The color of this light is as close to natural daylught as you can get.


I was thinking of going with the new dual bulb headlamp kit from HD. But that sounds like junk. And the new (HID) is too high priced for me to justify and doesn't sound like it's much better.

I know for me, I was skeptical of anything that changed my lighting. The imitation HID stuff was out, HID was out, so I had to look elsewhere. The one thing I found out with this exercise is the guy in Canada told me is absolutely correct. You can have the brightest light bulb, but if the reflector and the lens is crappy, you have a crappy light. This is the reason I'm sold on these Bosch units is because of the reflector and lens. It's a kick a$$ light using only a 35 watt bulb.

  
The other option I was looking into was using the PIAAH3 & PIAAH4.
PIAA and Hella (and others) make a quality light. I looked at both, but didn't like the light pattern. Both mfgs had a spot light, which had a long range fan type beam pattern (thier passing lamp or high beam lamp) and they both had a fog light type pattern, but nothing that had something inbetween - a long range pattern that had a horizontal cutoff to minimize glare to oncoming traffic.

 
My bike is a 04 SEEG w/the '05 headlamp in it. I have not heard of any problems with melting the lens w/ high-output bulbs. Is this a problem that should concern me?

Personally, I have never seen the plastic housing melt. I've never heard of one metling, until I did this little prject. I have seen other off-road light I have had on trucks, get so hot, they blister the powder coating when I put higgher wattage bulbs in them. When Daniel Stern mentioned it and then the service rep from Sylvania, someone who sees a lot of them has seen something. I had the headlight in my fatboy with a 100/130 buld get so hot you couldn't touch the housing and that's really close to melting the wiring.


This is one of those projects / topics that there is as much information as misinformation, so if I can help someone figure it out and bypass the 80 or so hours of research I had to do, then that's ok by me. If you get a chance, read the tech info on Stern's website, I quickly found out he is more than an accomplished lightng engineer. He's got the wiring upgrades, aiming procedures, links to x-reference lighting and a ton of info. If you have anhour to read, check out his responses to the NTSB on automotive lighting, it's quite candid for a governmental request for info.

Hope this helps...

Jim
 

[Grover]

Thanks alot Jim for the detailed info. I will definately check further into the Danial Stern Lighting. Sounds like a wise investment, especially up in our area where the deer are abundant.

Greatly appreciated [smiley=xyxthumbs.gif]

Take Care,

Grover

[icybay]

I also used the Bosch Compact 100s. I put them in the stock chrome housings and just hot glued them in the correct alignment. I got them for 50 bucks on eBay, including the relay.

It took me about 30 minutes to wedge the new Bosch plastic housings into the chrome housings (I placed a two inch piece of #14 plastic coated wire at the 12 2 4 6 8 10 and 12 o'clock positions). I then made sure they were correctly aligned (with the bike wedged in a straight up position)  while shining against the garage wall at about 50 foot distance and then I just hot glued them in place to the chrome  and then replaced the chrome trim rings.

I have had to replace one bulb and I all did was use a utility knife and cut the glue and then reglue it. No big deal.

They put out twice the light as the stock ones.

A cheap upgrade that really makes a difference at night. Right up there with the 40 dollar air horn trick.

[CVOwner]

Cant say I like the looks of them. But sound like a good lighting solution.

[icybay]

So I know that so here is my conversion

[icybay]

And Another