(18-11-12, 11:18 AM)MadDogMcQ link Wrote: Boy, are those headlights crap, or what?? I don't normally ride at night, but I did a couple of days ago and was shocked at how poor they are. Has anyone tried the Philips MotoVision bulbs or something similar? I don't want to do a HID conversion.
It sounds like you still have the crap generic stock bulbs in, if you fit the 100% brighter bulbs from Ring/Phillip/etc you will notice an improvement. You could look at getting HID bulbs fitted, but you run the risk or not passing an mot or getting pulled over (on the latter its has never happend to me).
Regarding HID there are 2 things you need to be aware of -
1. Don't ever go for any kits with colour temps above 4300K, like the common available kit in 6000k. These are blue in colour wich is illegal, (any & all front facing lights have to be white) and will increase the chances of being pulled.
2. More importantly the HI/LO telescopic HID bulbs are very nearly always poorly designed. The end result is large amounts of scatter which dazzles on-coming traffic and increased the chances of being pulled.
I have managed to fashion a work around for second issue and this was by modifying the 'hood/baffle' around the HID bulb. But again due to the as previously mentioned poor construction and design of most HID bulbs my mod only works to a point. This is because nearly all reflector based headlight are NOT designed for high light/intensity output HID bulbs.
One option is to get a pair of projector style HID lights, which are 1005 legal and have the best beam pattern with next to no scatter for around th £100 mark.
Another option is LED driving lights, which along with the above I have mentioned a few times before. These will enhance your di/lo beam spread, which lets be honest is where most of us need/want it anyway. These are 100% legal and use next to now electrical power. The only issue is supply and price, because its reletivly new tech its still bloody pricey in the UK and there aren't that many suppliers. Atm I only know of 'Bikevis' who charge £120 for made to fit motorcycle kit. The same type of kit can also be bought from the USA.