NC35 - improved headlights wanted.

[racingt]

Hiya guys,
Decided to make my NC 35 my main bike for a year.
Pretty confident about this, it's in great nick, but the headlights limit night riding to those times with a full moon only. Frankly my bicycle light is better.
The bulbs will be OE jap spec, of this I'm pretty sure.
Now I don't expect a fantastic performing light, but want a bit more than I've got.
And I'm poor at electrics, so a simple bulb swap would be my preferred option, with no risk of frying component.
All suggestions gratefully received.
Cheers!

[Dynamohum]

Decent bulbs like osram night breaker h4 is what you need if your prepared to wire in a low beam relay and fit h4 adapter rings there's a detailed how to in the document section for the nc30 unsure if wiring differs on 35 though but without a relay fitting higher wattage bulbs burn out the left switch gear .

Pretty sure someone got an improvement by doing a wiring modification on the standard h4r spec bulbs also if you use the search function.

[newtothis]

I've been having a look into the LED options (not literally) to see if there is a practical and usable way of getting more light output without overloading the standard wiring - or further cooking the lens. It appears that the newer (with the LED element made by ETI rather than CREE) H4 LED bulbs have sufficient output to be viable AND their light distribution is about right. Admittedly it won't be exactly the same as a filament bulb but they are much better than a few months ago and a number of people have posted comparison photos which show the cutoff and beam pattern is pretty good.

You'd still need to do some mod to put the H4 bulb into the headlight unit. However one of the brands uses a standard bulb module with clip on baseplates to fit various different mounting options. It might be feasible to trim or modify the H4 baseplate to fit the H4R, which avoids having to chop the expensive bit about.

Most of the bulbs have a cooler / heatsink which site behind the bulb mounting face, clearance to the fork looks sufficient but there might be an issue with the throttle cables on left lock.

[Neosophist]

seriously as above.

forget led and what not.

Decent H4 bulb like osram or philips H4 with a relay and power directly from the battery.

Your old wiring loom will loose a few volts most likely to the bulb.

Also check your nc30 headlights are not pitted and the reflector material is in good condition.

I did this to my NC30 and the differecne was incredible.

They really are worth the money, they use proper quartz glass instead of just tough normal glass and have improved light output, the relay even makes a lot of difference to stock bulbs, as power directly from the battery with some nice 2mm wire.

For the cost of a relay and some decent wire its not worth messing about with anything else, tried it myself.

[racingt]

Cheers Neo.
Problem is if I start re wiring, I'll cause more issues than I solve. Was hoping LEDs would provide a solution.
Perhaps give Ferret a call.
Or maybe buy an additional mount for my cycle lights :-)
Any more ideas?

[manicguitarist]

If you can solder then the wiring is easy enough to do - I did it on my NC35.

That all said - my NC35 was running standard UK bulbs when I got it - with no detriment. The headlights on the NC35 are permanently on - and as such don't go through a switch (so nothing to burn out). They are switched with the ignition and use a relay as far as I can tell (I am saying that because they are switched off when you press the starter button - which implies to me a relay - and yes, switched off as opposed to drop in voltage).

I will check the wiring diagram and get back to you to confirm.

They will be brighter if you do a wiring mod - because the old wiring loom has some resistance in it (I found about 1/2Ohm - which equates to a couple of volts at the lights...)

[Neosophist]

Cheers Neo.
Problem is if I start re wiring, I'll cause more issues than I solve. Was hoping LEDs would provide a solution.
Perhaps give Ferret a call.
Or maybe buy an additional mount for my cycle lights :-)
Any more ideas?

Thats a half assed excuse to hide from a job thats will be the best and chepast improvement you can make to your bike.

i dont see how are you going to cause any more problems?

it is very easy to do with plenty of guides on here and the net.

you dont touch the original wires so much.. just add a new wire from the battery to a relay.

take the original headlight wire and connect this to the relay and add an earth to the relay and jobs a good un.

there are loads of guide about how on how to install a relay.

installing a new wire striaght from the battery will give you more power to the bulbs and increase brightness.

its easy and if you cant do it get somebody to help you, no real other viable option.



simple as above really..

7. Connect each of the wires to a terminal on the relay as follows:

30 – take a 2mm sq or thicker wire directly from the battery, make sure to put a 15 amp fuse inline too
85 – earth, i locate the relay on the lower left hand side, there is a frame earth tag here to i use a spade-> ring connector wire here.
86 – white - from switch
87 – white - to lighting (i.e. the wire with crimped connectors at both ends)

the white headlight wire is in the block connector on the left hand side by the earth tag where you put the relay anyway.

instead of it going through the block connector you put it through the relay.

i think you can do it, its very straight forward if you take your time, espeically with knowledge on here.

there is a way you can do it without taking a wire direct from the battery but its not as good as direct power.

[Cru Jones]

Rather than hacking up the stock harness and because my soldering skills are sub-par I opted to go with a guy who made one that's plug and play.


https://ecliptech.com.au/headlight-upgr ... ht-driver/

With this I run 60/55 without fear of my headlight switch getting f'd again. You can run a single LED and maybe both assuming they're quality LED lights w/out the relay upgrade/mod. I ran a single HID for about 2 years without issue. When I tried to run 2 I ran into issues with it overloading my headlight switch. At that point I didn't want to run a single HID anymore, so got the relay/box online.

[manicguitarist]

Rather than hacking up the stock harness and because my soldering skills are sub-par I opted to go with a guy who made one that's plug and play.


https://ecliptech.com.au/headlight-upgr ... ht-driver/

With this I run 60/55 without fear of my headlight switch getting f'd again. You can run a single LED and maybe both assuming they're quality LED lights w/out the relay upgrade/mod. I ran a single HID for about 2 years without issue. When I tried to run 2 I ran into issues with it overloading my headlight switch. At that point I didn't want to run a single HID anymore, so got the relay/box online.

What a properly good idea that is! It'd be straight forwards to make that kit up - but kudos to the guy thinking about marketing them!

Out of interest - how much do they cost? Just wondering if it is worth our while on this forum to make a similar kit (on demand) for people.

[racingt]

Cheers, Neo, cru, manic.

Thanks for website link, I'm in touch with them, out of stock at the moment, but plug&play looks the best option for me.
If I can't get one, then I'll have a go at making my own,Neo.
Whichever route, you seem unanimous in recommending the same solution, so I'll just have to crack on with it.
If I manage to purchase the plug and play i will post progress and let you know how I get on.
Cheers