Night Safety - Lighting

[Kevindolin2]

I am trying to find a solution to add some extra lighting to my '85 Nq50. For turn signals I'm adding some LED's like this guy did: http://www.kawiforums.com/two-wheeled-d ... gnals.html

I am using 1W 8mm LED's as apposed to the .5W 8mm LED's in the link above.

But what I need help with is a solution to make my headlight brighter. Is there anyway I can get a brighter bulb in there or should I go with a whole new design and custom make a LED headlight? I'm open to all suggestions!

[Pancake Sauce]

I put a tractor fog light thing on a chinese moped of mine back in the day. The headlight burned out and it was $20 to order a new one from china so I screwed a $5 tractor light in the right mirror slot, tucked the wires inside the plastic dash cover and attached them to my headlight wires. It was much brighter but I'm sure it looked pretty funky. The coolest part was that I could angle it according to where/when I was riding. I could even check out animals on the side of the road by spinning it. Anyway, you might want to consider just adding a second light for cheap if cost or time is an issue.

[mousewheels]

Some members have modified their headlights to accept a halogen or HID lamp. HID requires changing over to DC power for the lamp.

Link to wiki topic

[Kevindolin2]

Some members have modified their headlights to accept a halogen or HID lamp. HID requires changing over to DC power for the lamp.

Link to wiki topic

I like this idea. Will probably go this route but I am still looking for a few more possibilities. Thanks for the post!

[Kevindolin2]

Also I found a HID kit that runs on AC

[fatcharlie]

I run a 35w HID on my Aero, beware though, the stator does not provide enough current to keep the battery charged once you do this. I get about 1.5 - 2 hours or riding before the battery will drop to a critical voltage for the HID (somewhere around 11 volts). This is obviously an issue if you are riding at night.

I'm working on a backup lighting battery plan using a 3S LiPo for RC cars, but there are inherent dangers (I.e. FIRE) that can come from using those improperly.

[mousewheels]

I run a 35w HID on my Aero, beware though, the stator does not provide enough current to keep the battery charged once you do this. I get about 1.5 - 2 hours or riding before the battery will drop to a critical voltage for the HID (somewhere around 11 volts). This is obviously an issue if you are riding at night.

Your post brings up the difference between what the alternator (stator) output is in watts vs battery charge current.

Others running HID's off the battery have posted limited run time too. I've stated a few times, to charge the battery within MFG specifications, battery current must be limited. Yuasa's technical info says C/10 (in amp-hours) is a good figure. This puts a limit on sustainable DC draw from the battery. I've run numbers, factoring in the taillight lamp. A HID load puts the battery into a net loss of charge. A conservative model matches fatcharlie's actual numbers.

Room for growth - Grab power from the AC headlamp coil (It's good for 25 watts - the OEM headlamp rating) , rectify and filter, run a DC/DC converter and diode "OR" (FET switch works too) power with the battery to supplement engine idle 'brownouts'. That should extend run time by a good margin.

[fatcharlie]

Your post brings up the difference between what the alternator (stator) output is in watts vs battery charge current.

Others running HID's off the battery have posted limited run time too. I've stated a few times, to charge the battery within MFG specifications, battery current must be limited. Yuasa's technical info says C/10 (in amp-hours) is a good figure. This puts a limit on sustainable DC draw from the battery. I've run numbers, factoring in the taillight lamp. A HID load puts the battery into a net loss of charge. A conservative model matches fatcharlie's actual numbers.

Room for growth - Grab power from the AC headlamp coil (It's good for 25 watts - the OEM headlamp rating) , rectify and filter, run a DC/DC converter and diode "OR" (FET switch works too) power with the battery to supplement engine idle 'brownouts'. That should extend run time by a good margin.

Good point... I never thought of using the lighting coil.

1.5 hours is realistically about what I'm getting out of it right now, this is assuming a fully charged battery fresh off the Battery Tender to start with, and more riding than idling. I've drawn the battery down a few times to below 11 volts... and have cycled it to ~11.5 volts countless times I'm conscious of the draw on my battery (Daytime I can get away with turning off the headlight if absolutely necessary) but at night that's not an option.

My usual late night ride is about an hour, most of the time I'm at or near WOT except for about 20 traffic lights, so I'm putting as much as I can into the battery while I'm drawing it down. If I'm sitting at a light without traffic coming up behind me, I stay off the brakes to keep the draw low and watch my blinker usage. (Of course... safety dictates the situation... a headlight does me little good if I'm laying under a car). I usually finish the ride with the battery sitting around 11.9 - 12.1 volts. This is checking with everything powered down for a moment or 2 so there is no charge or draw on the battery, and it hasn't had the chance to build up a surface charge.

Experience has shown that my HID will begin flickering at about 10.8 volts... this is a deep discharge on a lead acid battery... fortunately this is above the danger voltage of a LiPO battery. (A 3S battery fully charged should measure 12.6 volts, and fully discharged will measure 9 volts). Assuming that I never walk away from the bike with the light left on, I'm in no danger of over-discharging the LiPO (Very dangerous). Of course, a LiPO must be charged on a special charger, so it must be isolated from the rest of the scooter's electrical system.

Considering that the HID is rated to pull 35 watts @ ~12 volts, that is a current draw of 2.9 amps on a 3Ah battery. That will give an approximate run time of 1 hour with no external power coming into the battery to replenish what you are using. (consider that Ah ratings aren't necessarily standardized, and that the cutoff voltage that is used can sway this rating).

If the charge rate is C/10, then you are feeding 0.3 amps into the battery while pulling 2.9 amps from it... (Anyone ever put an ammeter in line with the battery and see what its actually charging at?)

Adding a 5000mAh 3S LiPO into the mix gives me some options...

Run off the scooter battery until it can't power the headlight (You'll know when you drop to idle and it begins flickering) Lets say 1.25 hours.

Then

Plug in the 3S LiPO. While this is a 5Ah battery, you are unable to use all that capacity since the HID will shut down before the battery reaches cut off voltage. If the discharge rate is linear, then you would hit the critical voltage for the HID after using 44% of the battery pack. (now you can rate for 2.2 Ah) This gives you about 45 more minutes.

During that 45 minutes, hopefully your scooter has been charging the battery. In my case, I've observed that riding for 1 hour has dropped me from 12.8 to 12.0 volts... making the assumption that a "dead" 12v lead acid is 11.4 volts, I've used 55% of the available capacity. Since I KNOW that I've been drawing nearly 3 amps to power the light, that tells me that I'm putting in approximately 1.3 amps to charge the battery.

In theory, if I'm pushing 1.3 amps to the battery (lets factor in a 10% charging loss - 1.17 amps) my battery should rise from the critical HID voltage of 11 volts to approximately 11.85 volts in the 45 minutes of riding on the HID... which should give me about another 20 minutes of riding before all my batteries are dead.

This gives me a total of about 2 hours and 20 minutes of total riding time.

Now... these numbers don't mean much... for several reasons.

1. Charge and Discharge rates are NOT linear.
2. Current draw will rise to keep the light fired as voltage drops.
2a. 35 watts at 13.8v (charging voltage) is 2.5 amps... but at 11.4v, its 3.1 amps.
3. I'm tired and may have done the math all wrong.
4. I may just be talking out of my *.

I'll have everything set up pretty soon and know the results.

[vcracer]

hid lighting is the way to go you just need to figure out how to manage the current properly im running 2 batteries on mine soon one for the motor the second for the extra lights and air compressor for the suspension...lots of trial and error