worldbound4now
Well-known member
A few years ago there was an HID thread that caught my attention regarding telescopic HID bulbs for the FJR. These kits were a cheap $110 kit from ebay as described in this thread.
I have been using these telescopic H4 HIDs without issue for the past 3+ years and they impressed me every dark evening I have ridden with them. I have no idea who the manufacturer was of my current kit and don't plan on looking for the brand name until I remove the old kit and install a new kit. The 4300K temperature color rating has been perfect and the telescopic bulb placement with proper aiming of the beam cast has provided a fantastic visibility improvement over the stock bulbs without the dark hole pattern seen with some of the shutter-type Hi/Lo HID kits discussed on this forum.
Alas, my cheap HID solution may finally be failing. Last night when riding home from work, I noticed a flicker type response from one of the bulbs. The right headlight bulb now has a more purple hue instead of the bright white color, and the noted drop in illumination of the right side of the road is quite high. On multiple on/off cycles the bulb seems to ignite properly but will slowly fade to the purple color over approximately 30-40 seconds time. I assume this indicates that the ballast is failing to regulate voltage properly, causing a higher color burn temp. Who knows, but the failure cause is really a moot point. Fully acknowledging that I got what I paid for in 2007, I'm going to replace the old setup entirely instead of trying to chase down replacement parts.
When out hunting around for replacement kits, I considered another cheap ebay kit, DDM Tuning kits, Volt kits, and several others. I finally settled on the DIGITAL brand kit from retrosolutions.com, which is another telescopic HID kit. I like their reported low DOA rate, lifetime warranty on bulbs and ballasts(who knows how easy warranty work will be), and estimated 3500 hour bulb lifespan. They also describe their ballasts as "waterproof, dustproof, and shakeproof and feature instant hot re-strike technology to protect already warm bulbs from excessive damage when restarting." These features are handy for motorcycle use. I also stumbled upon a coupon code "ACCORD" which took 10% off of the purchase price, but shipping pretty much negated this savings. The total price for me was $151.73, which is not the cheapest kit out there, but is by far not the most expensive one either.
When the new kit arrives, I will try to post-up my initial impressions.
For those of you with Gen II motorcycles, I see that retrosolutions also has slim ballasts for around $20 more per kit. On my 2005, I have plenty of places to stuff the more traditional fatter ballasts.
Ride safe everyone,
worldbound4now
I have been using these telescopic H4 HIDs without issue for the past 3+ years and they impressed me every dark evening I have ridden with them. I have no idea who the manufacturer was of my current kit and don't plan on looking for the brand name until I remove the old kit and install a new kit. The 4300K temperature color rating has been perfect and the telescopic bulb placement with proper aiming of the beam cast has provided a fantastic visibility improvement over the stock bulbs without the dark hole pattern seen with some of the shutter-type Hi/Lo HID kits discussed on this forum.
Alas, my cheap HID solution may finally be failing. Last night when riding home from work, I noticed a flicker type response from one of the bulbs. The right headlight bulb now has a more purple hue instead of the bright white color, and the noted drop in illumination of the right side of the road is quite high. On multiple on/off cycles the bulb seems to ignite properly but will slowly fade to the purple color over approximately 30-40 seconds time. I assume this indicates that the ballast is failing to regulate voltage properly, causing a higher color burn temp. Who knows, but the failure cause is really a moot point. Fully acknowledging that I got what I paid for in 2007, I'm going to replace the old setup entirely instead of trying to chase down replacement parts.
When out hunting around for replacement kits, I considered another cheap ebay kit, DDM Tuning kits, Volt kits, and several others. I finally settled on the DIGITAL brand kit from retrosolutions.com, which is another telescopic HID kit. I like their reported low DOA rate, lifetime warranty on bulbs and ballasts(who knows how easy warranty work will be), and estimated 3500 hour bulb lifespan. They also describe their ballasts as "waterproof, dustproof, and shakeproof and feature instant hot re-strike technology to protect already warm bulbs from excessive damage when restarting." These features are handy for motorcycle use. I also stumbled upon a coupon code "ACCORD" which took 10% off of the purchase price, but shipping pretty much negated this savings. The total price for me was $151.73, which is not the cheapest kit out there, but is by far not the most expensive one either.
When the new kit arrives, I will try to post-up my initial impressions.
For those of you with Gen II motorcycles, I see that retrosolutions also has slim ballasts for around $20 more per kit. On my 2005, I have plenty of places to stuff the more traditional fatter ballasts.
Ride safe everyone,
worldbound4now
. I've double checked all the wiring, connections, etc. and I know it's not a case of insufficient battery power, since the lights are turned on manually by me (tried various waiting periods, etc.) When one of the lights decides to stop firing up, the only way to bring it back to life is unplug and reconnect the plug from the balast (I've already double checked that these connections are solid/good). My guestimate is that it's flaky design issue, but would love to hear other ideas.
