Kortbroek
Race Dog
I've decided a while ago to improve on the 1/3 of a candle that my XRR has for a headlight and over time I got all the bits but never got around to doing anything about it.
I got hold of an Auto LED headlight replacement bulb. Myself and a buddy bought a set of 2 on special for R500 and he used one on his klr, the second one being destined for my XR. Then last year sometime extreme lights had a special on 10w spotlights and I bought a set of 2.
Now as many of you know the XRR's lighting circuit runs on AC directly from the stator and the flickers/horn/etc runs of a parallel DC circuit. I've already added a Fan, GPS, USB/Cigarette socket to the DC side so I would prefer to run the lights of the current lighting circuit.
From a friend I got a lekker beefy bridge rectifier (25A A12V I think) and a 1000uf capacitor (I would have preferred 4000uf, but had a 1000uf and it is good enough if not ideal).I've been told by the previous owner that the bike has an upgraded stator (200w) and the existing 55w auto headlight bulb confirmed this. Another crucial point was checking that the existing wiring on my bike corresponds to the wiring diagram and hasn't been butchered and confirming that this AC line only powers the lighting circuit. From the wiring diagram for the DK model and using a multimeter I identified the AC line that provides power to the headlight switch.
I then cut this AC line at the front of the bike before it goes to the lights switch and crimped on a male and female round insulated connector on either end. For the earth on the AC side I used the earth going to the headlight and put a spade connector on there. Having these connectors in place means I can always go back to the stock AC configuration merely by unplugging my addons. The bonus being that if the LED setup quits on me I can literally fit a normal auto bulb from any spares shop/garage.
Plugging the bridge rectifier and capacitor setup into these lines gives me DC in the lighting circuit. Attached below is a wiring diagram drawn poorly in paint to illustrate what I did. From here it was merely a plug and play of the LED replacement bulb to confirm that it works and it does. Man it is literally a day vs night difference from the old bulb. I still need to mount and wire up the spotlights which will be powered from the Brights with a handlebar switch as well to isolate them. This way they can't be on when the headlight is dimmed. Due to the low power consumption no relays are needed (45w = 3.75A @ 12V). And the real voltage on there with the LED turned on is 15V so even lower current then.
This weekend I will make a mounting for the LED controller and tidy up the wiring as well as fitting the spots. Can't wait to go test it at night :ricky:
Footnote: Issues I had - When measuring the DC voltage output from the rectifier without any load on it gave me a reading of 30vDC which is way to high for the LED. However some internet research indicated that in my case this was likely due to the multimeter measuring the relict peak from the AC source that was not completely filtered out. To test this I connected the old 55w bulb to the DC setup and measuring under load it gave 15V, which is the same value I get with the LED connected. A better setup with a large +-4000uf capacitor and a small 10-50uf capacitor should filter it better. I have however been advised that this is not too much of an issue for the LED's so long as the voltage is correct. Another easy solution to this is to fit a 12vDC voltage regulator after the rectifier.
I got hold of an Auto LED headlight replacement bulb. Myself and a buddy bought a set of 2 on special for R500 and he used one on his klr, the second one being destined for my XR. Then last year sometime extreme lights had a special on 10w spotlights and I bought a set of 2.
Now as many of you know the XRR's lighting circuit runs on AC directly from the stator and the flickers/horn/etc runs of a parallel DC circuit. I've already added a Fan, GPS, USB/Cigarette socket to the DC side so I would prefer to run the lights of the current lighting circuit.
From a friend I got a lekker beefy bridge rectifier (25A A12V I think) and a 1000uf capacitor (I would have preferred 4000uf, but had a 1000uf and it is good enough if not ideal).I've been told by the previous owner that the bike has an upgraded stator (200w) and the existing 55w auto headlight bulb confirmed this. Another crucial point was checking that the existing wiring on my bike corresponds to the wiring diagram and hasn't been butchered and confirming that this AC line only powers the lighting circuit. From the wiring diagram for the DK model and using a multimeter I identified the AC line that provides power to the headlight switch.
I then cut this AC line at the front of the bike before it goes to the lights switch and crimped on a male and female round insulated connector on either end. For the earth on the AC side I used the earth going to the headlight and put a spade connector on there. Having these connectors in place means I can always go back to the stock AC configuration merely by unplugging my addons. The bonus being that if the LED setup quits on me I can literally fit a normal auto bulb from any spares shop/garage.
Plugging the bridge rectifier and capacitor setup into these lines gives me DC in the lighting circuit. Attached below is a wiring diagram drawn poorly in paint to illustrate what I did. From here it was merely a plug and play of the LED replacement bulb to confirm that it works and it does. Man it is literally a day vs night difference from the old bulb. I still need to mount and wire up the spotlights which will be powered from the Brights with a handlebar switch as well to isolate them. This way they can't be on when the headlight is dimmed. Due to the low power consumption no relays are needed (45w = 3.75A @ 12V). And the real voltage on there with the LED turned on is 15V so even lower current then.
This weekend I will make a mounting for the LED controller and tidy up the wiring as well as fitting the spots. Can't wait to go test it at night :ricky:
Footnote: Issues I had - When measuring the DC voltage output from the rectifier without any load on it gave me a reading of 30vDC which is way to high for the LED. However some internet research indicated that in my case this was likely due to the multimeter measuring the relict peak from the AC source that was not completely filtered out. To test this I connected the old 55w bulb to the DC setup and measuring under load it gave 15V, which is the same value I get with the LED connected. A better setup with a large +-4000uf capacitor and a small 10-50uf capacitor should filter it better. I have however been advised that this is not too much of an issue for the LED's so long as the voltage is correct. Another easy solution to this is to fit a 12vDC voltage regulator after the rectifier.
