First night ride and I can't see.

[6adan]

  I went for my first night ride last night and I could not believe haw bad the lights are in my CT. I have a little flashlight that I see better with. Had it on high and it was barley ok, low beam I could hardly see the road 10 feet in front of me. I have looked around for a LED setup but just not sure what to get. Please give me some ideas wo what to get. I have a National Cycle light bar too and would like to get LEDs to match the headlight.   Thanks Dannie

[Ramie]

One option.

https://www.eaglelights.com/collections/7-led-headlights/products/eagle-lights-honda-valkyrie-led-round-projection-headlight

[Chrisj CMA]

Two things. Check the aim on the headlight. If it’s aimed badly it won’t be very useful. Second, you don’t need to convert to LED to upgrade. I’ve had one of these in for years. I rarely ride at night but when I do this works way better than OEM.

[Bagger John - #3785]

If you'll never run a radio (especially a CB or other low-band rig) I'd install an Eagle or similar projector LED setup and not look back.

As it stands...my new LED lights are putting out way too much RFI/EMI and render the CB totally unusable. The usual snap-on choke/ferrite core remedies do nothing to reduce the noise on my bike, so as soon as my next order of parts comes in I'm going to work on a solution and document it for the board at large.

I'm fortunate in that I have a portable RF engineering lab (including spectrum analyzers) at my disposal but hopefully that artillery won't be needed.

[sandy]

One option.

https://www.eaglelights.com/collections/7-led-headlights/products/eagle-lights-honda-valkyrie-led-round-projection-headlight

I have this setup in chrome. Also the cobra light bar has the same lights in a smaller size which fit in the cobra shell. If you want to save money, sylvania silver star ultras are usually found in Wal Mart or Autozone.

[f-Stop]

Sometimes headlight bulbs will form a black film on the inside of the bulb glass as they age.  This, of course, will reduce their light output.  They gotta be pretty old for this to happen, but once it happens they're ready to blow.

Early this year I replaced my headlight bulb with an LED.  No mods needed...just a direct replacement.  To my surprise, the inexpensive LED bulb works really well. 

From my earlier post in January comparing headlight bulbs...

The Headlight was on high beam for both bulbs and the incident light meter was set 10ft from of the front of the headlight in the middle of the beam.  The bike was up on my lift and the front wheel was held steady by a wheel chock.

Halogen Headlight Bulb:  156 foot candles, with a color temp of 2800˚K (about the same as a standard incandescent household bulb)
LED Headlight Bulb:  356 foot candles, with a color temp of 7000˚K (about the same as an overcast day outside)


Simple math yields that the LED is more that 2.28 stops brighter than the halogen bulb.  Since one stop of light increase means double the amount of light, the LED is more than 4.5 times brighter than the standard halogen headlight build.  Not bad for a $30 investment!

Time will tell if the LED replacement lasts or keeps its color or keeps its intensity.  But...so far, so good at eight months.

 

[6adan]

  Thanks' everyone I now have a place to start. The Eaglelights looks good. f-stop can you tell me the bulb you used? I see a bunch of different ones all saying they are the best.

[RonW]

Your headlight is dim maybe because it still using the original bulb? Valkyrie headlight bulbs are $8.75 at oem websites. For other Honda bikes, headlight bulbs are quadruple the price even though it appears the same bulb. So, a 75% discount. I've used them on my Shadow's headlight.

On many led's, the high beam might not project much further than the low beam. Also, the led bulb's overall light pattern varies with the shape of the headlight bucket's parabolic reflector. Led bulbs have improved so they're better today. The newer designs try to mimic the incadescent bulb's 360° glow.

[f-Stop]

  Thanks' everyone I now have a place to start. The Eaglelights looks good. f-stop can you tell me the bulb you used? I see a bunch of different ones all saying they are the best.

Here's the Amazon page for the bulb I purchased (I also put one in my wife's VT1100 Shadow Spirit).  Unfortunately, it says it's not available...not sure what to think about that....it seems the whole world is on back order right now.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TJGZRCT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a photo comparison between Halogen headlight with incandescent running lights and LED headlight with amber LED running lights.  The amber LED running lights measured over five times brighter than the incandescents using a spot meter.  (FYI, Hildr the Valkyrie is all LED except for the dash.  She has a fixed rate turn signal relay installed and has had a successful diode mod performed to avoid the four way flasher condition.)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JqhodfsjACVHHmzqZoII1f2CSdjfCFTq?usp=sharing

[DarkSideR]

I sell LED DayMaker kits for our beloved Valkyrie's. Email me ValkyrieJosh@gmail.com for my Options & Price List. Watch my installation video to see how easy the install is - https://youtu.be/K48cp45_h6Q

I rep Eagle Lights who offer quality headlights with a lifetime warranty.

And here's a video about how my bike came to be - https://youtu.be/oa-5-GsyiOU

FYI - the OEM reflector housing wasn't designed for an LED bulb. Though it does indeed look brighter the light is scattered and not usable at night.

[Bagger John - #3785]

FYI - the OEM reflector housing wasn't designed for an LED bulb. Though it does indeed look brighter the light is scattered and not usable at night.

This bears repeating.

The best LED replacement bulb I've found to date was sold by Rivco; I bought it several years ago at the Progressive Indoor Motorcycle Show in Cleveland. Nice light on weathered pavement or concrete, but on fresh or wet asphalt...fugedaboutit. For that reason I kept my incandescent driving lights in place alongside the LED headlight until I swapped all of them for projector-style replacements.

[h13man]

The Philips Extra vision or a regular Silverstar and reaiming worked very well for me. I worked 2nd. shift for 10 yrs. with this setup on both the 1100 Spirit and the Valk and worked extremely well especially on high beam. As mention the reflector on the Valk work best with a halogen style bulb w/o any dark spots so to speak.

[MarkT]

I've never been short on light on my bikes.  The question is, how much power am I going to use to illuminate the road CLEARLY for half a mile?  I ran 130/90 main headlight bulb and aircraft landing lights spots on Deerslayer.  Yep that's a lot of power so I have a 90w alternator.  On Jade 97 Tour I wired it the same at first but after wiping out an alternator too early - 55k - I went to all-LED's.  Daymaker type headlight - actually Eagle lights Infinity beam - and 4 spots all LED's.  Not as bright as the halogens but much easier on the alternator.  It's still far brighter than the OEM halogen so I'm good with the safety in deer country and texting cager's visibility.

[Fazer]

Just a shout out for the Josh Chambers (DarkSidr) set up.  I have on my Tourer and works very well.  Josh knows his stuff, listen to him.