in my humble little opinion, this is all that is required to a have good, serviceable headlight system. one that actually lets you see the road and potential hazards at night.
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/relays/relays.html
when i look back 35+ years ago, i come to see that i did things without knowing just WHY i did them.....i did things because i WANTED to do them......what i wanted and what i NEEDED where generally two completely different things......as i get older, so do my eyes. glare is becoming a big problem with night driving.....that particular issue is exacerbated by people that modify their headlights without thinking of the potential repercussions and safety concerns of oncoming drivers.
i see this a lot in my industry....my hobby and my lifestyle. i ride Harleys. Harleys never had good headlights.....and the nswer to that is people putting in much brighter bulbs. 55/65 watt bulbs are "legal" to use. when you put in an "offroad" bulb of say 80/100W it becomes much BRIGHTER down road......the biggest problem is the REFLECTOR in the bucket is not always able to focus this safely......the "cutoff" is raised (not properly aimed) and the result is blinding the oncoming drivers......those are the ones that "flash" their brights at you.....
On a bike, all you are effectively doing is helping to make yourself a fu@kin hood ornament. the same principle applies to our trucks.
i see lots of people putting these HID kits in because they WANT "cool lookin" headlights...."modern" if you will.
cool looking and modern were not designed into the SYSTEM when this trucks were built....they weren't even built with a PROPERLY working system......if anyone reading this now has ever read anything i've ever posted on this forum, you know i mostly talk in terms of SYSTEMS.....things designed to work correctly TOGETHER.
HID tech was available before LED tech....so i'll run with the latter
LED lighting is fantastic....but these bulbs were not designed to work PROPERLY in our reflective buckets. case in point; me trying different LED bulbs in the stock buckets on my newest Harley......i even put the auxiliary "driving lights" on her......they're NOT really driving lights, but that's what they call em......anyway, all i was able to determine was i had gotten a MUCH whiter light, brighter with horrible "fill" on the road surface. my stock halogen bulbs produced MUCH better beam pattern than the "replacement" LED's i spent money on.....so i spent money on different "better" bulbs about a year later......same ****, with a little better fill.
same applies to HID.....or at the least, very similar results.
bottom line is this.....i CONFIRMED that i couldn't build a better lighting SYSTEM by simply changing to a "better and brighter" technology bulb.....you want LED's? buy quality LED HEADLAMPS to drop in your mounting brackets.......the good quality companies actually spend MONEY on R&D.....that R&D is what makes sure you get a "better mousetrap".......
a very similar topic was discussed in the BRAKING section......on how to upgrade the brakes on these older vehicles......
the bottom line....and i said all that **** to say this:
what we see from the driver's seat, is very different from what people see when we are driving TOWARD each other on a road.......improper lighting is very DANGEROUS......and on a bike.....often FATAL.
let's at least agree to disagree......food for though only.
safe travels