Losing volts to headlights  By  kurmyt (Read 2,645 times)

check the connectors that hook to the battery the chinese then to over crimp the ends and cut the wire making bad connections and trace the grounds to the frame and clean any paint or rust form where they connect and just go through the wiring makeing sure all the connections are good and tight

Well I'll hope for a grounding issue and move from there to r/r. Away we go...

you need to test your stator first to make sure it is putting out enough

very well said , however I prefer to go with low hanging furit . I'm willing to bet that the switches are riddled with dirty contacts . I would spray the switches with WD40 and switch them for a good 10 or 15 minuets till the WD40 spray comes out of the switch clean . Wipe them down and spray them clean with air in a can (keyboard spray ) . If that does not work unplug the stator plug and take voltage readings from the yellow and white wire to ground , test at idle then again at 5000 rpm . check the plugs at the switch hi/low and if you have another switch on the right handel bar that has effect on your running lights check that as well .

John

Yes an 11 pole upgrade would need a matching regulator . My tail light went out on my Magnum and was a good excuse to get an 1157 LED instead of 1157 light bulb . It has dual 35watt bulbs and brightens and dims with RPM changes and also would dim when brakes applied . With LED it did have a tad more brightness . You can also replace the running and dash lights with LEDs . If you opt to use LED blinkers it will require a matching relay for them .

I am so lucky my Echarm has a 12 pole stator and DC headlights that always stay the same level of brightness . My old TaoTao was barely above a candle and no good for late night rides in the country .

There is the option of HID headlight(s) but costly and more than just a bulb swap . The do put out more lumens but the blueish hue blinds and glares to me as I prefer a slight yellow hue with my bad eyes

Here is my experience with Headlights on scooters.

I had an original Tomas 50cc 2 stroke moped. It had no battery. It had a 35watt headlight. I added a 35/35 watt car sealed beam to the front. It worked great. I ducked taped it on. I got the lamp at Advanced Auto.
this scooter/moped soon reached it's "end of service life" and was retired.

Some time later I got a 50cc China scoot from a pawn shop. $235. I pushed it home. After redoing the belt/variator setup I ran this thing 12000 miles. Along the way I put the 35/35 watt headlight on it from the Tomas. It was OK. I still wanted more light.

I decided to put a 55/65 watt 6x7" car headlight on the scoot. I got the power from the tail light. I used a LED tail light . This freed up some power to make the 55/65 watt work.
This worked fine because I wasn't running a battery.

I was getting 55 watts at idle and 65 watts up off idle.

This headlamp mounted to the front of the scooter looked Mad Max. Everyone seemed to like it. Cops even liked it. It was my trade mark.

Ok so the time came to make a decision. The scoot had reached the end of it's service life. I was going to scrap it and get a New one from Italy.

Then I realized a New Scooter isn't any fun cause you cant mess with it. I would wreck the value of such a fine machine bu moding it. So I looked at the old china scoot and said it is time you gave something back. Research Baby. Your a Guinea Pig now.

So off with the engine and on with 80ccBBK+ new crank+ all the Jazz.

Off with the headlight and On with an HID.

The HID project was involved. It included a Stator Mod, a new regulator, a rewire of the basic feed points to the battery. And testing.
It also involved a fabrication of the headlight assembly. A new lens setup and fitting the new lamp into lens assembly and setting focal point. Setting beam pattern. Gluing it all together. And more testing.

The project has advanced to this stage:

stator rewire to full wave. (completed)
Add fullwave regulator/rectifier (complete)
rewire basic circuits for all DC electrics. (complete)
Fabricate Headlight lens, reflector HID assembly. (complete)

Testing Phase.
observations.
1. the light is extremely bright. It is brighter than expected. It is so bright I decided to add a daytime Headlight 30 watt halogen so not to have to use HID when not necessary.

There is also a High Voltage aspect. I don't run it wet. If it is raining I don't run it. 18000 volts dancing around can be a problem.

This setup seems to wear on the battery. To soon to tell but I suspect the battery life is shortened by alot. Still testing.

There doesn't seem to be interference to the gps unit. ( from the high voltage) (high speed switching power supply) The gps works fine mounted 4" from the lamp.

Testing is still ongoing and what I like so much is on back roads, country back roads all black this thing lights the night up. It is so amazing to see the night turn into day.

Special consider needed to be made to not blind on comers. I have found a glass store front works good for testing. Point the light at the windows and get a reflection. The Glare test. Using foil tape to mask our certain areas of the lens that cause glare.

There seems to be a lot of country boys with 4x4 trucks going to HID on stock lenses. These thing are Blinding. They are quite a few now.