Make Your Scooter / Motorcycle Headlight Brighter By 80%

[bhvm]

I have this Lil' Scooter named Honda Activa.

And like most other 2 wheelers, It has so called "Headlights" that are dim as candles.

Stay with me and you'll learn how its easy to make them very bright and for not much.
Step 1: The culprit

Most of the people might be thinking that the weak link for poor illumination is the weak electric system, however that being true, the worst thing is bulb itself.

The standard 2 wheeler bulb spec is dual filament 35/35 tungsten Globe. That generates a dismal 600 lumens, dimmer than most modern flashlights.
Step 2: What to do and how to do it...

I just casually opened the headlight and found that the poor 35W bulb looked more like car H4 55w lamps. And i thought "Why not!" If i can retrofit a proper Halogen 55W car headlight bulb, I can have a good 1100 Lumen output, about 80% increase!

However the Bulb was not a straight fit but Fret not! Use a plier to slightly bend the lower tabs as shown in the Pics, and it fits perfectly! Proper alignment too.
Step 3: Fire it up!

As the H4 and Scooter bulb bases are little different, Simply buy a H4 holder and wire it into the factory power supply. Both Bulbs are 3 wire configuration so you should'nt have any problem here. Do check for proper High-Low Beam operation before finalizing anything.

Use a multimeter to help out with wirings.
Step 4: Enjoy.

I've been using the activa for 2 months now with the mods and zero problems yet.


1>.the beam pattern with 55w upgrade is same which means less glare compared to other mods.
2>.If you are worried about electrical load-
activa alternator is designed for maximum load of 35w headlight
21w turn signal
21w brake /rear light,
5w number plate light /meter light
10w horn.

hence it's capacity is easily sufficient unless you're trying to use everything at once.

 

[K!NkY]

Re: Make your Scooter/ Motorcycle Headlight Brighter by 80%

I used to do this on my pulsar 150 but it drains battery very well. In a 30 min ride the battery low indicator would glow. Might be this works welk for AC settings as pulsar is DC.

 

[bhvm]

Re: Make your Scooter/ Motorcycle Headlight Brighter by 80%

I used to do this on my pulsar 150 but it drains battery very well. In a 30 min ride the battery low indicator would glow. Might be this works welk for AC settings as pulsar is DC.

activa uses ac for headlamp. actually Battery has no relation as headlamp is powered directly by alternator.

 

[Releesh]

BHVM@

AFAIK, most of the new model 2 wheelers coming with 35 W halogen bulbs.
Except the old Activa/Dio/Eterno, most of the other 2 wheelers coming with normal bulbs were giving better light output. Ex- TVS 2 stroke bikes.

Changing from 35 w normal bulbs to Halogen bulb give better lights, though usually it will loss the light focusing in ordinary bulbs.

When we replace it with a 55 -60 W bulb in most of these bikes, it doesnt give enough light like 35 w halogen bulb. light variation will be more according to change in acceleration.

We had tried this in many 100/125/150 cc bikes.

We have already 25w/35W halogen bulbs available for old Activa/dio. Which will give better light output. I had using one this type halogen(Stock replacement Osaram 35W white light bulb) in my dio. I had just bought & used a halogen bulb from a local spare shop which can be fixed in activa/dio stock headlight holder.

One of my friend, who had a dio and a unicorn had replaced 35W common halogen bulb in his dio. he had a damaged head light assembly of his unicorn(which he replaced by claiming insurance after an accident). The bulb holder assembly of unicorn was a straight fit in the dio and he fixed the halogen bulb, which given better light output.

We had plenty of 55-60W spare bulbs from cars and we tried this on stock holder of our differnt bikes like passion, Zeus, Gladiator ,Fiero Fx & Unicorn some years before. Though in unicorn& fiero Fx, the head lights were comparatively better compared to others , All of these bikes given less light intensity than stock 35 W bulbs. So we all are replaced it with stock watts.

 

[bhvm]

reelesh,
I could have went with same 35w tublar bulbs but the upgrade will be from 600 lumens to just 700 lumens. a 100 lumen is not much 'Upgrade' in my language.

this mod gave me fantastic output esp when bike is moving.

 

[Releesh]

What i mean is, I didnt tried 55-60W bulb in an activa or my dio. So i cannot comment on that. But i tried 55/60w bulb in the above mentioned bikes agianst stock 35w bulbs and always got less light output than the stock 35 w bulb. also it takes more time to light up than the 35W bulb. This makes the headlight flash switch noneffective too. In some bikes, with some adjsutment in dim-bright toggle switch, we can able to light up both pints of bulb which will give more light output But this is also not possible in the bikes which i tried. It will then give a very low light output. I have no idea about the technical reasons behind it. Most of the bikes i used have battery with the capacity of either 5A or more than that.

 

[bhvm]

I guess the bikes you tried used DC system and Battery to power the bulbs. here, activa uses Ac system to power directly. also the voltage is very healthy around 14v compared to 12.5v of a loaded Battery.

hence maybe your bulbs didn't get enough volt to function properly.

 

[Releesh]

^ No. Except the unicorn none using the battery to power headlight.

 

[stingray91]

headlamps get AC voltage, so it dimms and brigtens up until rpms are bit high.
DC from battery is continuous and supplies continuous current..
manufaturers test and give us only the better options,
also activa is a scooter and self started scooter, so making direct connections will drain battery..
avoid it!

 

[shreeni0403]

Honda alternators doesn't pump up 55w halogen to full glory so your calculation of 1100lumens will fail. You can probably design a circuit to switch over the power supply to DC at lower RPM's and AC after certain RPM's.

At low RPM's 55w bulb will not help much unless you go ahead rewind your alternator.

If you are worried about electrical load-
activa alternator is designed for maximum load of 35w headlight
21w turn signal
21w brake /rear light,
5w number plate light /meter light
10w horn.

Above info is not 100% correct.
Alternator takes load of 35w headlight, 10w tail light, 5w speedometer light, 5w number plate light.

Rest all mentioned are driven by battery not directly from alternator.

^ No. Except the unicorn none using the battery to power headlight.

Even Unicorn doesn't drive headlight from battery. It is only the pass light.

 

[Releesh]

^^ Shreeni, You are right.In the case Unicorn, i had confusion, because of the pass light working while switch on condition and headlight varry according to accelerater input.

 

[bhvm]

shreeni,
thanks for the detailed info. you're really well versed with scooters it seems.

apart from everything else,I can assure you that the headlight is much brighter. more like a car headlight than scooter.

 

[TSIVipul]

^ No. Except the unicorn none using the battery to power headlight.

Hello Sirji, Namaste from the side of this poor Electrical and Electronics Engineer who has been riding Bajaj Pulsar 220 since around 4 years and his motorcycle has been using full DC electricals since the same time.

Pulsar series, I mean all of them from 150 to 220 have been using full DC system since 2007-08 I guess.

apart from everything else,I can assure you that the headlight is much brighter. more like a car headlight than scooter.

That's a fantastic DIY sirji; easy, safe and practical.
Sirji, the reflector is also a culprit. Try to go with a projector and then see the magic.
BTW, I guess I know a couple of power electronic jhol jugaads which may help here... let me think [thinking]

 

[bhvm]

That's a fantastic DIY sirji; easy, safe and practical.
Sirji, the reflector is also a culprit. Try to go with a projector and then see the magic.
BTW, I guess I know a couple of power electronic jhol jugaads which may help here... let me think [thinking]

hello vipul!
I have to agree that the reflector is kinda small to gather all this output , but the beam pattern is perfect! the low beam cutoff is still there as required. I'll try to get a wall shot for explanation.

for projector, yes that's my future plan if this reflector burns out, I can take it apart and install a bi-xenon projector with 35w hid kit!
now that would be some bright scooter!

 

[Releesh]

Hello Sirji, Namaste from the side of this poor Electrical and Electronics Engineer who has been riding Bajaj Pulsar 220 since around 4 years and his motorcycle has been using full DC electricals since the same time.

TSI Vipul Sirji, you may be very busy/tired when reading this thread and that is why you missed the posts above than this one. I was replying for BHVMs post, which i marked in bold below.

We had plenty of 55-60W spare bulbs from cars and we tried this on stock holder of our differnt bikes like passion, Zeus, Gladiator ,Fiero Fx & Unicorn some years before.

I guess the bikes you tried used DC system and Battery to power the bulbs. here, activa uses Ac system to power directly. also the voltage is very healthy around 14v compared to 12.5v of a loaded Battery.

hence maybe your bulbs didn't get enough volt to function properly.

^ No. Except the unicorn none using the battery to power headlight.

Pulsar series, I mean all of them from 150 to 220 have been using full DC system since 2007-08 I guess.

I ride pulsar for the first time was in 2003 i belive and it was P180 owned by my friend and it was with me for 3 months. It was a fantastic bike with superb pickup, comfort and brakes.it was that bike which i ride first time above 125km/hr in my life and i didnt belived my eyes when i looked on the meter. That was the comfort and stability that bike given.
As per my experiance, performance and control reduced on later Pulsar DTSI varients which came after that except P200. the only P220 i ride was my cousin brother's and never taken it above 70 km/hr due to its slight twist in its handle due to an accident.
I am well aware of pulsar's Dc light system and i love p's siwtches with back light.