Motorbike Headlight and Car Headlights

[Eshal]

Hello to all,

I have a motorbike. According to me it has very low intensity headlight. At night and on the road when any other bike comes in front of me then its brighter headlight makes me dazed. But mine is not so much strong. It is weak.

I have consulted to the bike mechanic but result is 0. I have changed charger, bulb but yet no improvement.

Kindly suggest me what to do. Is there any circuit that I can try for more brightness?

Same goes with my car headlights too.

Thanks for your time

Best Regards,
Princess

 

[betwixt]

Car headlights are normally run from the battery, motorbike may be run from an alternator so the diagnosis may be different in each case.

Can you measure the voltage across the lamp and check it is the full amount the lamp is rated for? In the case of the motorbike, if it runs the lights from an alternator the voltage will probably be AC and will vary according to engine revs, you need the engine to be running fairly fast (while not in gear!) to get a representative reading.

Brian.

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

35W is typical for a Halogen Head light.
High power is 70W and high efficiency which requires special HiV regulator uses HID lamp and regulator in both 35W and 70W.
These are readily available in Halogen, LED and HID, with the latter two costing >3~4$/Watt with focus and fixture.

Blinders used by horses in the old days were used to block headlights from the same effect.
I use the visor.

LED's need big glass lenses for efficient focus but Handheld Torches use reflectors with very narrow beam. If this were on the frame rather than forks, it would be effective and cheap. These come in 10W handled torches using LiPo batteries and quite cheap. ( $1~2/w on Ebay)

Cool white HID's are really irritating unless you have them then they are great.
Higher CCT temps (or Cooler white) of 6000'K improve accuity or visibility but are more irritating than 5000'K

 

[Audioguru]

There are very few motorbikes here, but millions of cars. I looked online at a local department store that sells car accessories. They have cheap headlight bulbs that are probably dim and they have very expensive bulbs that they claim are brilliant.

If the motorbike uses a battery then perhaps it has a shorted cell? Then its voltage output is 2.2V less than it should be.

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

The max power will be determined by the alternator fuse rating minus other loads.
Perhaps yours is < 30W. Check if alternator voltage is 14.2V and report on alternator Amp rating and current bulb power rating.

 

[chuckey]

If the bike is a commuting 125cc or so,its made down to a price so the battery and alternator will have a miserable output. On the other hand if you have a new 1000cc cruiser, then its lights should be as bright as a cars. I would join a forum dealing with your sort of bike, you can put your questions there, other people might have solved the problem.
Frank

 

[betwixt]

Let Eshal reply first, it could be a fault or a bad battery in an otherwise good bike & car. Suggesting alternative lights and commenting on other vehicles doesn't help. We first need to establish whether the dim light is a normal deficiency of Eshal's models or whether some remedial action is needed.

Brian.

 

[Eshal]

Hi thanks to all.

As I said, I have checked it to the mechanic too and he said everything is right. I think everything is not right. Something is wrong.

Many people wrote here, bike has alternator. Right? It means if we accelerate the bike then bulb will bright up and if we decelerate the bike then bulb will bright down.

What if I use constant current to the bulb so that it could stay still regardless of acceleration of the bike. For this, what should I do? And which bulb should I use?

Thank you very much.

 

[betwixt]

It isn't as simple as that Eshal. The constant current idea is good except that you need the current to be constant at the level of full brightness and the problem at the moment is the current is too low unless your engine is at high revs. Constant current works well when you have extra current in reserve and just want to set a maximum amount you want to flow, when there isn't enough current to start with, there is no way to boost it to a higher level.

What you might be able to do is, if your lamps are 12V, change them to 6V and use either a 6V battery with a circuit charging from the 12V alternator or you could use a voltage converter to stabilize the variable alternator output voltage to 6V at constant current. That would give constant brightness regardless of engine speed but there is no way to produce extra power from an already maxed out limited resource. An alternative would be to replace the light with a more efficient type, conventional incandescent lamps are cheap to buy but very inefficient, they produce more heat than light. LED would work and be far brighter than your present lamps but also much more expensive, even if you build your own. With todays technology you are probably looking at needing an array of perhaps 20 or more high intensity LEDs to give enough light output.

No easy solution I'm afraid :-x

Brian.

 

[Eshal]

OK

Let say we don't want constant current concept.

What do you do if your bike head light is low than other bikes' lights and your mechanic could not do anything to increase its intensity. So what do you think to do with the bike? I want to know the thinking an Engineer can think.

Thanks.

 

[betwixt]

It really depends on whether the low intensity is normal for your bike or due to a fault. If the voltage at the light is lower than it should be, then the emphasis should be on finding where the drop occurs and eliminating it. If the intensity is as good as your bike can normally achieve, given the limited power source, all you can do is make the conversion of electrical power to light more efficient. I'm guessing adding a second alternator to the engine and a new battery is out of the question!

To help us advise, please tell us:
1. does the bike have a battery or do the lights run straight from the generator? (= do the lights work with the engine stopped?)
2. what is the voltage rating of the light bulbs
3. what is the power rating of the bulbs (in Watts)?
4. what is the engine capacity (cc)? This will give us some idea of how much power may be available.

It might be useful to know the model of bike in case we need to refer to it's electrical schematics.

Brian.

 

[chuckey]

We are slowly getting back to what I said, a Honda C50 and CG 125 have poor lights, cos' they are cheap machines. The headlights run of a magneto (not alternator) so just about go out at tick over. As you rev up they rely on the iron saturation of the magneto to limit he output voltage. Go to a forum that has your bike on it, you will get good advice.
Frank

 

[betwixt]

I used to own a CG125 - nice machine for short distances during daylight but driving at night with a malnurished glow-worm as a headlight was difficult and dangerous. I went for a bigger bike (CX500) with real electrics and a halogen headlight but I doubt that is an option for Eshal.

Brian.