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Just not very well

Without going down the headlight conversion route, has anyone found a main beam headlight bulb for the Falco that actually throws light ahead of the bike rather than the sides?
My stock bulb blew and I replaced it with one from an emergency kit which turned out to be woeful. So, I bought a replacement in the form of an Osram Night Racer Motorcycle bulb which is better but still doesn't give any distance light.
Anyone got any suggestions that don't involve HID or candles?

Why not HID - for the dip beam at least ..?


I've got a set of H7 LED 'bulbs' that I'm going to fit soon - gorrem of Ebay for just over twenty notes..

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If you do the above, bear in mind that you are running the risk of getting pulled, and possibly failing an MOT because the bulbs are not self leveling.

It's a risk that I run, though.

Would be good to hear/see how well they do when fitted?

Most of the feedback I've seen suggests that the LED versions don't throw much of a forward beam so I'll be happy to prove that wrong!

If you ever travel that unlit bit of the M40 between junctions 6-8 at night, in the rain, you'll notice that the (lovely and smooth) new tarmac is made out of pure dark...

As for the country lanes well, fair to say my riding style relies on braille when it comes to travelling at any speed

Do the high beam modification on the left hand switch gear?

Let me first say my sight is terrible and I really struggle in low light conditions, I don't do a lot of night time lane riding but I find full beam is good enough for me. I also have a HID which is really good, casts shadows in daylight !
Are you sure you are getting full voltage to the main beam supply ?
Is the 'silvering' ok on the reflector?
When I am riding in daylight and I 'flash' someone out of a junction, I can really see that main beam is on, it flashes on the vehicle I'm letting out.
Do you have the correct UK headlight ?

Self levelling bulbs?? "Possible confusion you are suffering"

as Yoda might say...

Self levelling headlamp on a relatively recent car maybe, but not on a Falco, no Sir, not on a Falco, and it's not the bulb that does the levelling..

HIDs were always a bit iffy, although every bike I've fitted them to passed the MOT without problem. I did have an issue on my F800GS though with the HID capsule producing so much UV light that it 'burned' the reflector - well, that's what the masses said, but it was actually a degradation of the reflector that allowed the black of the plastic moulding to show through. I did also hear that Swiss Police had a habit of pulling bikes and ticketing the rider if it had non-factory lights fitted...
I've fitted HIDs to a few bikes but have left the main beam as a standard bulb because the HIDs take so long to 'warm' up.
The only minor problem I had was that they produced so much light that any dark spots were highlighted, but they were all due to a combination of poor reflector design and the fact that the HID capsule's 'filament' is not quite in the same place as the incandescent filament would be .
I put on one the GSXR's dip beam and it was fantastic - so good that I rarely needed to use main beam, but then the bike had a swanky projector unit for dip but a conventional reflector for main.

The kit I got has only got two LED bulbs, so I think what I'll do is put a 55w HID onto the dip beam and the two LEDs on the main.
It'll be interesting to see how they work though, as they are single 'filament' H7s they shouldn't suffer from the same problem I had with a twin 'filament' H4 LEDs I put in my FJR - the placement of the LED chips on the bulb body made the differential between high and low far too big, so much so that I needed to adjust the headlamps separately with one ideally levelled for dip and the other for main ...

That's pretty much the sum total of my headlight knowledge base - in a nutshell!

I put an HID in my dip light and the set the headlight position until I stopped getting flashed and changed the wiring so that the dip stays on with the mains. I rarely use the mains. I got pulled once since I installed them and that was in Australia, never got pulled or failed an MOT in the UK.

When I was back in the UK recently I bought another Falco and even in the highlands at night the original lights seemed ok to me, deffo not as good as the HID though.

I think Fatboy has a good point about the UK light and worth checking, if it's chucking the light the wrong way it's not going to help.

Have a search about the EU and UK headlight issue

Why not fit extra lights instead, I know on my BM it had 6 forward pointing lights when they were all lit up and no I didn't have to upgrade anything (ie relays, wiring) with them all on it was like daylight

Ah, the GS christmas tree effect lol.. been there, done that...

Interestingly, I've just fitted a set of Luxeon LED H4 units to my VW T4 Transporter, as the standard lights are woeful. I'm a bit like a kid waiting for night to fall properly so I can see what improvement they've made, but even in daylight the difference in light putput (and colour temperature) was very noticeable. These are the ones:

http://www.horizonleds.co.uk/cree-leds/ ... 000-lumens

What's even more impressive is that the current draw is only 25w with the LEDs, compared to 60/55w on the standard halogens.

Well, I definitely have the UK headlight (thanks to the forum for details!) and power supply is fine. For me, the big issue is that I'm riding in the dark every night in all weathers at high speed (obviously somewhere around the legal mark ).
Using high beam all the time is just a bit rude (and likely to cause road rage) and the standard main beam really doesn't give much in the way of distance when it comes to forward planning.

So far my options are :

HID - Problems known - fiddly to fit, run too hot, waiting time for them to warm up

LED - Some mention probs with forward beam hence trying to find out if anyone has fitted them recently. Fine with the fitting (thanks youtube!)

Standard - Leave things as they are and just slow down a bit

Really not keen on 1 and 3...

I think a lot of issues occur when people buy stuff off ebay which has been bigged up to the skies by the seller, but in reality was churned out in a back street in Guangzhou or some place similar. The link I gave earlier is to a very reputable seller that only lists stuff which is the real deal.

These bulbs are direct from Philips in Europe, so they do actually do what they say on the box/tin/web page... And you don't need to buy a pair, as they are very happy to split a pair for bikers. Even then they are still well pricey (£70 for a single H7 bulb), but they have none of the disadvantages of HID (slow warm up, heat) and completely outperform Halogen by a country mile.

I've only driven my van a few miles in town tonight, but even so I can tell the huge difference in light output just on dipped beam. And the beam pattern is crisp and well-defined, and shouldn't dazzle other road users (unless they annoy me, then they get a dose of retina-burning main beam...). And they only draw 25w. What's (pardon the pun) not to like?

The wait time for HID's is literally seconds. I wouldn't fit them to the high beam, but for dipped it's fine.

I've not experienced them overheating, nor are they that difficult to fit. The slimline ballasts are easy to hide away.

I'm firmly of the opinion that LEDs are the future. Development is only in its early stages and already they're comprehensively outperforming every other lighting technology. Every year LEDs are produced which produce more power for less input wattage at a lower price point, and I believe this is set to continue for quite some time. It's truly disruptive technology.

I've never used HIDs because of a number of perceived drawbacks (that may not have been such a problem in real life), but LEDs just tick all the boxes as far as I'm concerned. Whenever a bulb blows in the house, it gets replaced with an LED equivalent. I'm a convert.