The CB1100 Community Forum

My old Suzuki T500 had a 35/35 watt headlamp/candle and was really scary riding of a night. i usually ended up tucking in behind a car and let them light the road ahead. I ended up installing a 40/40 watt led bulb in the headlamp and now I can almost see the koalas in the trees.I have even had car drivers flash me thinking I have high beam on. It was a snug fit inside the headlamp due to the cooling fan but after re-arranging the wiring it all went well.

(11-05-2018, 08:11 PM)MrSacket89_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Appreciate your replies, folks.
I'm sorry for asking this again, as I see a lot of questions regarding the LED swap have been covered before. Yet the reason I'm asking about the swap of the LED unit, not the LED bulb is the lens I've got the bike with. It looks like it was sanded or something. That may be the reason why the light seems too dull at night, as the bulb itself seems to be okay. That's why I thought this may be a good idea to just get an all-new sealed LED assembly.
Last night I looked at Daymakers online, and they seem to be way too expensive (around $1000 in average), so now I think this is not an option for me, at least for now.
I started looking at cheaper Daymaker alternatives, but I'm afraid they can cause glare and stuff, as I am looking for good light output, not just getting chinese cr@p that will shine everywhere.... So I'm kinda confused, that's why started this topic.

Well, as long as everyone says they are happy about replacing just the bulb, I guess I will give up the idea of the sealed LED headlight (at least for now) and will try fitting the light into the stock headlight first. I do not care much about the scratches as long as the light is bright enough...

Try a good plastic polish on your headlight lens. It's a polycarbonate lens and should respond well to a "quality" plastic cleaner.

(11-07-2018, 12:35 AM)The ferret_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Try a good plastic polish on your headlight lens. It's a polycarbonate lens and should respond well to a "quality" plastic cleaner.

Nice, will check these polishes on Amazon. I bet polishing the lens and getting a new LED bulb will be way less expensive, than daymakers...
Appreciate your help!

As requested, here's a short video of my attempt to describe the H4 LED from Advmonster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D43EAhPPfXk

I had trouble finding a completely dark street without traveling far, but this alley seemed to work nicely.

Thanks, Jim21680. That looks pretty good. The bike sounds nice burbling away in the background.

Awesome clip Jim, very nice spread and well defined.

Listening to the sound it appears you operate the low/high beam black rocker switch and i note that the dimmed led remains on and the high beam adds to the low one, slightly different and better overall compared with the halogen lamp.

On the strength of your advice i have ordered two and will let you know if all goes well, much appreciated!

Thanks Jim21680 for posting the video.
I will order one of these to try , I do not ride at night but on the BRP there are many tunnels and my glasses get quickly dark in sunshine but take longer to get clear in the dark tunnels.

I'm sure you'll be happy, all....it's been a great light for me.
Max is correct on the operation, the low-beam stays lit when the high beam comes on.

As I mentioned, you'll likely have to adjust the bucket to get an optimal spread. I did this facing a parked car at my 10-11 o'clock position, at a range of maybe 20-30 feet.
I wanted to be sure the low beam was terminating below the headrests of the the car, so not to blind oncoming drivers.

With that, I found what seems to be the perfect level, and I have never been flashed at, not even once.

Best of luck!

(11-04-2018, 11:19 PM)MrSacket89_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Hi everyone,
I was wondering if it is a good idea to replace the stock headlight unit with a sealed led light? Has anyone tried doing that? Any uissues like hyperflashing, flickering, etc?
Thanks.

I just did this on one of my older bikes. It had a rectangular headlight housing with a replaceable H4 bulb. I swapped in a rectangular sealed LED unit I bought from Amazon for a Jeep Grand Cherokee. They cost ~$90, and come in pairs, so I have a spare should I ever need it. The wiring was no issue as it was simply plug and play. The LED unit was half the depth of the old housing, so fitment was easy.

I light is far brighter than halogen, a pure white, and with a very well defined pattern with a sharp cut off.

The one thing which requires careful forethought is aesthetics. The new sealed LED units come in a wide variety of styles, some with a projector look, others with angel eyes, and more. What I found looked best for me was a black-out design with two horizontal rows of circular 1" lenses for the high beams on either side of a row of 1" tall bar lenses for the low beams.