Re: DOT and SAE standards things of the past

Posted by MarkB_MI on September 25, 2019 at 03:52:02 from (174.230.17.3):

In Reply to: DOT and SAE standards things of the past posted by Mutt and Jeff on September 24, 2019 at 12:29:40:

I had an interesting experience with headlights on my 2008 Triumph Tiger motorcycle. These bikes use projector headlights, which use lenses to focus the beams rather than reflectors. Projector headlights are common on newer vehicles because they're much smaller than typical reflector headlights.

I bought the bike used, and noticed the low beam projector looked a little cloudy. The first time I drove it at night, I realized the low beam was almost useless! It seems Triumph had a run of defective headlight assemblies where the reflective coating would peel off the inside of the reflector. The only repair is to replace the whole headlamp assembly at 350 bucks.

With the bad headlight replaced, the lights were better, but not by much. I then switched to Sylvania Silverstar Ultra bulbs, which was a big improvement. I highly recommend these bulbs; they put out a lot more light that OEM bulbs but draw the same current. The down side to them is their life is quite a bit shorter than OEM, so you need to keep an eye on them.

Still not satisfied with the lights, I experimented with aftermarket driving lights. These got me to where I felt safe riding the bike at night, but the additional current draw was taxing the charging system. At that point I tried switching the H3 driving lights to LEDs. Fuhgetaboutit! Those LED bulbs may be bright, but they're totally unfocused.

I considered converting the lights to HID (high intensity discharge), but this would have involved butchering the headlamp assembly, meaning no way to go back.

Around 2013, Triumph did a minor upgrade to the Tiger, renaming it the Tiger Sport. One change was an entirely new headlamp assemby, which used four bulbs and reflectors rather than projectors. It looked like the new assembly would work in the older bikes, and Tiger owners quickly figured out how to make the swap. So I spent another 350 bucks on a TS headlamp assembly, plus a hundred on a conversion kit developed by an owner in the UK. Problem solved! Not with new LED or HID technology, but rather with old-school reflector headlights. The driving lights went into the trash, no longer needed.

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