Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

I have been thinking about getting 55w bulbs for the headlights as i find the 45w's not bright enough. would the wiring and relays handle these bulbs? dont want to get them and put em in and burn something out and end up costing alot more money.

H.I.D conversion on fleabay only 35w draw but HUGE amount more light!!!

The 55w bulbs will draw approx 4.5amps, the 45w bulbs will draw approx 3.75amp, your hi/lo beam switch should handle this without to much trouble, but with more current, comes greater arcing at the switch / relay so it will wear out quicker. just a matter of how much quicker.

I have seen the hid conversions on there ranging from $45 + postage to approx $200. quite hard to tell if the cheap ones will do the same as the dear ones as they all seem to say the same thing about their products.


zx6rider: when you say it will wear out quicker, will this be something that happens fast or just dependant on how often you switch the hi/low.

At a guess, and my experience in the industrial electrical scene, if the life expectancy of your relay / switch under normal switching conditions with factory wattage globes was say 5 years, you might reduce that to 4 years 6 months. But this will also depend on what your switch / relay is rated at.

If the switch / relay is rated @ 5amps for example, it may wear out substantially quicker than if the relay / switch was rated @ 10amps.

I hope this makes sense

yep makes alot of sense. i will check the relay as to what it is rated at and take it from there.

i was going to put the 55w globes in my 7 when i put it on the road, so ill be interested to find out the outcome. cheers

zx6rider wrote:At a guess, and my experience in the industrial electrical scene, if the life expectancy of your relay / switch under normal switching conditions with factory wattage globes was say 5 years, you might reduce that to 4 years 6 months. But this will also depend on what your switch / relay is rated at.

If the switch / relay is rated @ 5amps for example, it may wear out substantially quicker than if the relay / switch was rated @ 10amps.

I hope this makes sense

"RELAY" being the key factor here ... ie you should run a quality C/O relay and 4 or 5mm wiring on the high beam side at least . Running a relay means the switch block only needs to deal with miliamps rather than the full current load of the globes . Wire it correctly and you could run 100W globes if you wanted too.

Re the HID kits , IMO ; look for Philips/GE/Bos globes appr 4300-5500 Kelvin (more = less) . Do not waste your time with the HID/H3 halogen high / low hibrid globes (10yr old technology) Most of the kits on ebay are pretty decent but old tech' ie 12 months ago. All this generally means is slightly slower ignite / switching is all (millisecs). As long as the connectors are the quality weatherproof Bosch/Deutch type and the ballasts are the alloy heatsink type you can't go too far wrong. Slimline ones are easier in bikes but make sure you get correct globe type with high and low beam both HID.


eg: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/8000K-HID-Headli ... 7C294%3A30