HID Headlight conversion and relays . . .

Paul90

Paul90

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I'm going upgrade the headlights on my 1200GS to HID.

Some of the posts I've read show people wiring these in via a relay from the battery. But why :nenau

If these were extra add on spotlights, etc then I could see the need for a relay. But the standard headlights are 55W and the HIDs seem to be either 35W or 50W. So why not just run them from the normal headlight feed from the CANBUS ?

Has anyone done that ?
Any problems like the CANBUS not seeing the normal headlight load ?

Paul
 
There is some question that the instantaneous current draw as the arc is struck in the lamp might be high.

But everything happens so quickly, and the steady draw is 35W.

I mounted my HIDs in my 1150 2 years ago with no problems so far.
 
I've used 50W HID's for 2 reasons:
- More Light
- Closely matches the Wattage of the standard

With either 35W or 50W HID's they are wired directly from the original wiring - no relay. The woring on my kit (from Colebatch) came with 4 wires going to the heallight unit (2 to connect to the socket from the original bulb - this gives the feed and -ve to the ballast, the other 2 ore fixed to the back of the HID 'bulb' and are the output from the ballast).

Fitting is simple (the only difficulty is finding somewhere to mount the ballasts) and the results are amazing!

With 50W HID's there is no problem with the Canbus (I've not heard of anyone else having problems either). With the 35W HID's, some seem to get a Canbus bulb failure warning, and some don't.

There is a lot of debate, and personal feeling, about what to use. Personally I am very happy with my 50W HID's, and I believe I've made the right desision (please don't let's open the (heated) debate - let's just accept its a personal preference and opinion). If I were doing it agian, I would fit 50W HID's from day one of ownership.

My other advice would be to not be tempted by higher 'colour temperature' - 5,000k or 6,000k is more than 'white enough' above that (in my opinion) you're getting too blue/purple.
 
Hi,

fitted two HID lamps to the 1200. 35W, Phillips ballasts. Wired direct, not problem at first, then had a few cases where the light would not start. This seemed to happen when the bike was parked outside and got very hot. To save hassle, I added a relay, which does not load the canbus enough so I do have the lamp failure icon showing. Very satisfied with the result, half-hour to return to normal if I every wanted to.
Highly recommend the light conversion, big safety ADVANTAGE
Bin
 
Paul,

the reason for using a relay is that in some cases the CANBUS does not like what it "sees" when feeding the HID ballast and shuts down. Another reason is that some ballasts respond to a signal or pulse from the CANBUS and they shut themselves down.
Not all installtion require a relay, read the many threads here in these hallowed pages to get a hnadle on success/fail stories for no relay set ups. I installed 2x35W HID bulbs and ballasts, and have just upgraded to a 2x50W hid set up.
There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to predict whether one particular installation will work without a relay and another won't, although the decreasing instances of those needing relays may indicate that the cause was relatd to programming "feature" on the ZFE, subsequently changed by a later ZFE software upgrade.

BTW, R1200GS technical posts are better in the UKGSer->Technical->R1200GS area....
 
CityBum said:
.

BTW, R1200GS technical posts are better in the UKGSer->Technical->R1200GS area....
Click to expand...

Why ?? - This is the technical section for all things technical, beit 1100, 1150 or 1200 -

There shouldn't be technical section for each individual model of bike.

A puncture is a puncture. A brake caliper problem is a brake caliper problem :nenau
 
HID's

None of the above will be a problem if you upgrade to an 1150.
dave (1150)gs.
 
Paul90 said:
I'm going upgrade the headlights on my 1200GS to HID.

Some of the posts I've read show people wiring these in via a relay from the battery. But why :nenau

If these were extra add on spotlights, etc then I could see the need for a relay. But the standard headlights are 55W and the HIDs seem to be either 35W or 50W. So why not just run them from the normal headlight feed from the CANBUS ?

Has anyone done that ?
Any problems like the CANBUS not seeing the normal headlight load ?

Paul
Click to expand...

I've just done both of mine on a 1200gs with 35 watt HIDS from ebay.
It was just plug and play using the existing feeds. No blown bulb indicators and the main is more or less instantaneous. If you don't get the + and - leads the right way round they don't work but just switching them round sorts that.

I only had to make a small hole in the bottom of the two covers to feed the cables through and mounted the ballasts under the oil cooler. Took less than an hour. There is a really long thread on the 1200 forum if you want chapter and verse (and the odd advert or two)
 
Robb - who did you use on ebay ?

Varying reports on service and quality of kits. Also very probable that different hardware has different inrush current when it fires up.

Paul
 
Steptoe said:
Why ?? - This is the technical section for all things technical, beit 1100, 1150 or 1200 -

There shouldn't be technical section for each individual model of bike.

A puncture is a puncture. A brake caliper problem is a brake caliper problem :nenau
Click to expand...

I donlt know. I did not design the site. There is a section UKSger.com->technical->R1200GS with R12000GS related threads, and a section UKSger.com->technical->technical with questions relating to other models. Why? I don't know. But it seems to me that thare are likely more people with R1200GS experience reading the technical->R1200GS the R1200GS section than people with R1200GS experince reading the technical->technical section. One might have been fine, but that is not the way it is. Maybe it is because an 1100 brake caliper is not the same as a 1200 brake caliper?
 
Re relays

I was informed by the vendor of my lights that the relays convert the voltage to several thousand volts. 25k or 75k, can't remember which.

Would not like to run them directly from the battery or wiring harness.
 
Jim Dow said:
I was informed by the vendor of my lights that the relays convert the voltage to several thousand volts. 25k or 75k, can't remember which.

Would not like to run them directly from the battery or wiring harness.
Click to expand...

No.

The ballast does this.

The feed into the ballast is the normal 12v.

The only reason I can see to use a relay would be to mitigate any 'surge' as the arc was struck in the HID lamp.

But this happens very quickly, so I doubt that you're in any danger of damaging the wiring loom.

And both 35W and 50W HID lamps draw less current in a steady state than a normal H1, H3, H7, H4 or whatever your headlamp is.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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