Good job, as expected from Joe!

 

Besides modernizing and badassing the front end look I literally laugh out loud when I start the bike and rid at night. The cutoff line on low beam seems impossible as well as the amount of light down the road on hi beam.

I had already in place a high amp wire and relay for the headlight from eastern beaver. I used it to power the lights using power from the 3rd eye power supply. Then I used the power +12 from the hi beam switch on the handlebar to power the servo motor that lifts the shroud inside the lights to reveal the full high beam.

The only issue is the aiming of the light which I am hammering out (trying not to actually use a hammer but I am only human).

I plan to put up a utube vid today.

 

Pretty awesome mod, I was underwhelemed the first time i rode my hawk at night, and therefore try to avoid doing so.

 

OK so here is the first half of the vid I made about building this. The second half shows the results at night. I use another stock headlight wired to a stock battery to show the ridiculous difference.


here is the second vid

 

Turns night into day. Stock headlight is why I avoid riding after dark.
What did you do for aiming the projectors?

 

I gotta find me a spare headlight to do this on.

 

Or accept a bit less lumens for plug n play

https://www.cyclopsadventuresports.c...ulb_p_192.html

I've had their much older version for probably 7+ years that's plenty bright for me but I installed a direct to battery powered loom using dual relays triggered by the oem switch to really ensure stable output...

 

My issue with the cyclops or other LEDs is that they only emit from one side/ plane and still use the reflector which just doesnt focus the light. I even tried an HID with a balast which was super bright but had the same problem.

 

Joe, I know what you're saying and you're absolutely correct.

However, on the other side of the equation, meaning people like me, it's like my friend Boris always says, his last name being Goodanoff 😎

 

And he did just that.

Found one courtesy of 1971allchaos and got to modding it as soon as it arrived.

I removed the lense via the oven method and milled out the raised features that retain the reflector. I filled in the gaps, with the exception of the center hole with epoxy.
I also milled any other features flat so that i could 3D print a mount for the headlights and have it mounted flat against the back part of the headlight assy.


Made a template from tape, imported that into CAD and 3 iterations later had a functional mount.


(projectors are unintentionally mounted upside-down, the fans should be on the underside)

The 2.5" Bi-LED lamps i purchased ( Amazon ASIN B083W48LXW) had cheesy chromed surrounds with single LED halo/DRL.
I swapped those out for full SMD 80mm halo rings (Amazon ASIN B07CYV3CV4)
The 80mm halo ring PCB fit perfectly around the projector lens mount, but the diffuser needed the ID opened up to fit (more milling)




Everything works fine


< 18sec video of projectors on and turn signal/halo



Overall, the current draw is within 2A of the stock H4 60/55W bulb

LED projectors: 5.3A@12V (combined)
LED Halo: .55A@12V (combined)
High beam shutter: 1.1A@12V (combined)
-
Total @ low beam ~5.85A@12V
Total @ high beam ~6.95@12V

Stock H4 @ low beam 4.6A@12V
Stock H4 @ high beam 5A@12V

Headlight fuse is rated for 10A, so well within range of factory wiring.

The caveat:
These things get crazy hot within minutes.
I've been in the commercial solid state (LED) lighting industry for +23yrs and can tell you that the lifespan of any LED is directly impacted by how cool you can keep them.
The fan that is mounted to these can do nothing when they are enclosed in the sealed headlight housing, it's basically a convection oven. I can't imagine that the fans in that environment will last either.
I even went as far as replacing the thermal grease beneath the LED substrate with high quality Shin-Etsu thermal grease to improve the heat transfer from LED to heatsink.
For these to have any chance at a succesfull lifespan, they will need an inlet and outlet of fresh air.
Also it means that my 3D printed mount, even tho it is made from ASA, will likely soften and fail.

Work to do:
The challenge will be to incorporate a ventalation system that can supply filtered air to the headlight cavity, and minimize moisture intrusion.
Also i want to allow the projector bulb assy lense to be removed for service. I don't have a high amount of confidence in these non OEM projectors, so
repair/replacement will be easier if there is no sticky butyl sealant holding the headlight lense to the headlight rear housing.
The 3D printed baseplate will get remade out of aluminum for better heat management.

Credit to smokinjoe73 for the original intent.

To be continued...

 

So Kharma did you incorporate the aiming pins into your base plate you made? I am making another one now for my single sided swingarm bike and wanted to address the aiming matrix. It doesnt seem there is enough room in the housing to do so if you do the double headlight like I did. If you leave the reflector you can mount one light easily in the reflector and use as built by Honda.

I just got my new lights but may opt to not do shrouds, not sure yet but the shrouds do give it a complete look.

I didnt like the halos around the lights on mine as it looked to busy and overbuilt to me but I have used them on other builds.

The air flow is why I didnt seal the headlight housing. You can just use fabric to avoid big ingress of water but really the light is in a fairing and even heave rain doesnt get in. Its worth a drilled drain hole as well to mitigate that possiblility.

I didnt read your whole post but how did you operate the high beam cervo? It is a conundrum since I found it mandatory to use only the stock switchgear as here in NYC being able to flash the beams is an every mile affair.

Also I just found these bulbs that come with a shroud. I would get these if I did it again.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/39494766161...Bk9SR-DDtpifZA

 

I didn't shave the two M6 adjuster screw bosses from the back of the housing, but did shave the pivot ball boss from the inside.
I was thinking of using 4 M6 screws that passthru the rear of the housing and are secured with spring clip/washers, like the originals but shorter,
then use rivnuts in a aluminum plate, so instead of a 3pt mount it will be a 4pt mount. pitch up/pitch down adjustment will be limited.
Keeping it stable and minimizing flutter is still a work in progress

I also machined the shutter to not have that oncoming lane ____/------ dip. The shutter cutoff will be ------------- (flat) The dip on these is so minimal i will adjust
the cutoff line somewhere near 10cm -spec



I have not looked up the wiring diagram yet, But an H4 bulb uses 3 connections
+ Low beam filament
+ Hight beam filament
- common

So the + and - of the low beam operates the LED
The + and - of the shutter can share the - of the low beam circuit, and run the + through the high beam switch

basically the plan is to use a H4 adapter plug and connect it to the stock headlight socket. I hate cutting stock harnesses.


This way the switch works the same.

Since the PO of my bike put on aftermarket LED front indicators, i'll just extend the halo wires to those.

The 3D printed plate is more for fitment, the actual bulb assemblies will be mounted to a 25mm thick finned heatsink, with a 70mm fan mounted in the
stock headlight hole. Airflow will be drawn through some filter covered panels in the bottom of the headlight and exit via the fan.

The ones in your ebay link look just like mine, only with a non LED shroud.

 

I found that the way you drew it did not work but lmk. I ran a relay from the battery and used the 3rd eye power supply to trigger it. I will put an inline switch to be able to turn off the headlight in summer traffic or when wanting to blend into traffic. Then the hi beam power just has to do the shutter servo. I found the way you have it drawn needed a diode which then got too hot in operation which was a failure point.

 

You got it, Joe.Hopefully , I was helpful in your success

 

Gotcha. Hadn't considered that. I'll also ping my EE coworker about it when he comes in later.

Here is the heatsink i'll be making a mounting plate from:


Still finalizing the layout, but center to center, the projectors are 88mm apart.

 

Karma the way you have it drawn you wont have any light on high beam you will only have an open shutter. Thats why you need the relay from the battery for constant power with ignition on then the hi beam power for the shutter.

Skokie and I actually talked a bit about this as I was building it and that was the consensus of the brain trust LOL

 

I used my existing eastern beaver relay on my daily bike but now will use this on my single sided swingarm bike

 

Ahh, OK, I finally got it now. thank you.
I guess i was stuck on thinking that the high beam switch illuminated the high beam filament while still keeping the low beam filament on, instead of switching between filaments.
I recently restored a mogul base 3-way lamp and guess i was still stuck on it's low+mid=high logic.

 

Yes I was caught in that same matrix which is why I spoke to Skokie (Bret) and my head mechanic at the Harley dealer I work at and we all came up with the same solution of the relay. I sat at my bench for a while trying diff ideas but none were as good including the diode idea which worked but made for a hot diode as a failure point.

 

Simplified standard wiring:


Simplified relay wiring using 3rd eye as the trigger

Something like that?
The relay symbol was cobbled from two different symbol so it looks wonky.

 

As we said on the original Tomahawk ship launched cruise missile* program when I was a young engineer at General Dynamics Convair Division, "Close enough for the girls we go out with..."

*SLCM including Submarine launched, and GLCM, Ground Launched Cruise Missile programs.

We lost the USAF ALCM competition to Boeing because our price obviously was based on our existing and well established GLCM / SLCM production contract design with its Army & Navy extremely fundemental cost escalating Nuclear Hardened requirement that prescribed the little torpedo-based Tomahawk and it's launch system be able to survive the "trauma" of a tactical 2 megaton blast 5 miles away. Which was NOT an Air Force requirement for ALCM because the modified B52H AGM-86 delivery platform couldn't survive a nuclear blast either! LOL

So Boeings ALCM design was predicated on long established costs for a conventional stringer, longeron and monocoque skin air frame that was MUCH cheaper to build.

I saw the writing on the wall as soon as Convair switched me over to ALCM and used a known ploy by asking to be removed from all military customer programs as a conscientious objecter (permissable after the Vietnam war) per US DOD guidelines. This essentially destroyed any chance for me to advance up Convairs corporate ladder but I didn't care because I got a big salary boost skipping over and up to Assistant Contract Manager for the struggling Boeing (our customer ironically enough verses them being our competitor) 757/767 engine strut subcontract. Less than a 6 months later I quit Convair after giving the Assistant Division Manager who originally hired me before he was promoted and had hired me 5 years before when upper management finally realized 80% of their "lifer" engineers, who went back to the WW2 B24 & PBY years, would either retire or die within 5 years. No joke. I gave him an ultimatum (skipping 2 steps past my immediate boss and his boss) that I would quit and take my ball and mit and go home at 1530 and not come back if I didn't get a couple of computer mainframe programmers to enable utilizing a Silent 700 modem to connect to our San Diego corporate program mainframe so we could quickly make the revisions to a Change Order (which could encompass 200 ~ 300 individual Boeing material or design changes to their / our original Baseline Contract) while were were still up in Seattle (PSA airlines was our flying commuter "train" up the coast) to then and there close-out the current Change Order (of hundreds) before Boeing came up with even more adjustments (in their favor) and further delay paying Convair to take advantage of "the cost of money"; i.e. holding their funds in an interest bearing account as long as possible when such a thing actually still was offered back in the late 70s before the next bank over-extention implosion.

The Assistant General Manager said he wanted to order the programmers that logically were necessary but couldn't because it would mean taking the advice of a young kid over the newly installed program manager, which would be an affront to his authority as a 30-year lifer. I knew this upper management executive very well. It was a Catch 22 situation but this guy already didn't like me and ignored my rationale because he didn't know what a mainframe computer was, let alone what it represented in the progression up the road to the fast emerging computer technology revolution.

And so it goes and those were the days...

https://www.airforce-technology.com/...s/b52/?cf-view

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM

 

So yes that is a good diagram of how I did the wiring. Like I said I like to have a switch inline from the 3rd eye power to be able to shut off the headlight for covert ops but thats the basic setup.

I am still pondering the aiming matrix for this second build.

 

I think I've finished the internal wiring on mine, except maybe for installing a 20ohm drop resistor on the vent fan to quiet it down.

I'm using this SP21 12pos bulkhead connector:

5A rating per pin, using 20awg for headlight LED connections.

Here is my wiring:

It requires adding a jumper in the headlight switch and routing the two turn signal wires to the side indicators, otherwise, all power goes through the stock headlight plug.

As for aiming, I first aimed both projectors at the white wall in my shop to ensure the shutters were parallel with the external housing and aligned to each other (I also machined off the step feature on the shutters) then secured the projectors together with a brace.


For aiming up/down i am using M6 set screws in oval standoffs at each corner, one side is M6 thru to secure the heatsink the headlights are mounted to, the other side is M6 threaded for the set screws.
Adjust the securing screws to tip/tilt, then tighten the set screw to secure it in place. It's pretty basic, and i thought about using springs like sealed beam headlight enclosures, but this was the easiest for me.


Total current draw with both shutters engaged is ~7A@14V, with a nominal operating draw of 5.6A (BI-LED w/fans, halo ring and vent fan.

As for securing the lens back on the housing, but keeping it serviceable, Instead of using seam sealer, I am using self adhesive 5mm foam in the housing trough:

and will be using Morimoto compression clips to ensure the lens stays in place.

Not sure when i'll get it on the bike tho, likely when the fall weather sets in around here.

 

So Z, i did not realize you installed a 3rd fan in the stock H4 opening. What did you do for air intake into the housing to breath but not get wet?

Also is the aiming setup externally adjustable like if you carry a passenger (and like the stock system?) or only with housing apart/faring off?

I just did a second light for my single sided swingarm bike. The aiming was spot on, even better than my daily bike.

I find there is so little give to the mounting system in the stock fairing that if makes it hard to re aim from the housing.

 

I should be able to adjust the aiming using an allen wrench from the back.
The fan is blowing out, just to help with heat buildup, there is no external intake.
I may use a filter housing and foam filter for a 40mm fan with a duct on the side of the housing for an intake. Maybe a smaller one if i can find it, I thought i had some pneumatic breathers in my shop, but can't find them


I'm a fair-weather rider, for now anyway, so I'm not really worried about water, i'd be more worried about dust getting on the LED substrate.
The next test would be to put a thermocouple in the headlight housing and measure the operating temp with without the 3rd fan and with or without an intake
but once i cut a hole in the housing. it's not trivial to patch it.