Do you travel on highways/poorly illuminated roads during night time?
Here is a review of available aftermarket bulbs and how to increase headlight beam intensity of few bikes
Well I dont recomment the bright white light HID which are commonly seen these days on bikes.The reason is that these bulbs are useless in rainy conditions and on wet surfaces
White color is absorbed by water on wet surface and hence you are not able to see anything on road inspite of so called powerful light
Also whitish tint of lights on new bikes and gearless scooters are totally useless
Headlights of Old Activa are always better than the new Activa/Pleasure/Aviator/Shine/CD Delux
All the above bikes have white tint which is again useless on wet surface road during rainy season
The alternative to this is
Bulb with yellow tint light which are available in all TVS, Mahindra, HH Karizma, Bullet and Bajaj bikes(except pulsar 220)
The reason why I say that yellow tint bulbs are better .I have done an experiment and I can demonstrate you.
You need two torches 1 LED white light torch and one ordinary bulb torch giving yellowish light
In a dark room, you try to see a black object in those torches one by one
Result:
1) in bright white light LED torch, the black object also appears whitish and there is lot of strain on your eyes to visualize that object(So imagine a condition where you are riding a bike at night time with HID white light bulb on a dark highway, the black colored tar road also will appear white and you will not be able to view potholes or any object on road during night)
2) When you try to visualize a black object in yellow light, there is no absolute strain on your eye and the black object appears original black color.
Hence I can make a conclusion that yellow tinted light is the best for night time riding because as per laws of physics white light is composed of seven colors and yellow color propogates to the maximum hence yellow light travels greater distances and hence it provides visibility upto a greater distance
About increasing headlight intensity for fitting a 60/55 watts bulb
It is done by two ways
1) Increasing headlight coil windings
2) bypassing the rectifier-regulator circuit
3) If bike is running on DC, no modifications required.Just fit a 60/55 watts bulb directly(Karizma, Yamaha FZ 16/Fazer).But it consumes extra battery
Option 1 is easily done for all pulsars.Avenger 180/200 have coils which support 60/55 watts bulbs and hence putting avenger stator coil to pulsar 150/180/200 is just enough to support high watt bulb
Option 2 is good for TVS bikes reason why because TVS bikes like Star city, Victor GX/ GL/GLX, Apache have headlight coil generating 50 watts power for lights at 1800 rpm hence you have to bypass the regulator fitted in bike .In my victor GLX I took a Bajaj Super scooter regulator and added it parallel to my bike regulator, then I cut the headlight wirings and connected this scooter regulator to my headlight wirings and thats it.I am using 60/55 w bulb from 2 years without any problem
For other bikes, you have to increase headlight coil windings to support high watt bulb.But the drawback is that bike rpm decreases, hence you have to race hard the accelerator for pickup hence affecting mileage.
Again one thing
Since bike headlight reflectors are 35/35 watts and they tend to melt by 60/55 watts bulb
Here is a solution
1) Take Pulsar round headlight dome
2) Take Pulsar headlight rim
3) Take Ambassador car/Mahindra jeep/Tata Ace/New Classic Bullet round headlight assembly
These headlight assemblies perfectly fit in Pulsar round metal rim
Just remove the current headlight fairings and install this round headlight
About 60/55 watts bulbs
There are many bulbs available in market but here are few good bulbs listed according to their quality
1) Osram Bilux 60/55 watts bulb(Best one but buy it from a good dealer)
2) Bosch/Mico 60/55 watts(Buy from Bosch automotive outlets.This is the best bulb for foggy conditions as well as good yellowish white light while driving at night and that too in rain/snowfall.Visibility is the best in bosch bulb)
3) Halonix 60/55 W(Buy only from Royal enfield shops rest others might be fake)
4) Philips Premium 60/55 W(Lot of fakes available hence purchase from a good shop after ensuring Genuinity)
There are few bulbs which claim to give 80% or 90% more light in 60/55 W category(Osram Night breaker and Philips Extreme Power)
But beware
Though they say 80/90% more but there headlight beam is just 10% better than the above mentioned bulbs but costs near to 900 rupees.Also there lifetime is less(more extra powerful the bulb, less is the life) whereas the Bosch or Osram costs around 90 rupees, Halonix costs around 75 rupees.These are good bulbs
Last but not least
Drive in Lower beam in City limits(Especially to those driving Activa, Pleasure, Shine, CD delux because I have observed in Pune that these idiots drive in upper beam in city limits and inspite of flashing upper-dipper, they dont lower down their beam.May be due to some ego/ignorance)
For other bikes/scooters there is no problem even if they drive in upper beam because there lights are having yellow tint which are not irritating to oncoming traffic whereas activa, pleasure, shine, cd delux have useless irritating white light and their beam is focussed directly on the eyes of oncoming traffic
I dont know why such lights needed for vehicles which are driven in city limits only
Please drive in lower beam and adjust your headlight position and educate yourself regarding headlight beam usage.
Thanks
Pankaj