Diff3RentBreed
XS650 Member
I am looking to upgrade my current headlight on my stock 1977 XS650. Nothing has been done to the bike except for fixing it up and getting it to stock running order. I have a few questions. I am looking for the brightest / most visible light possible since I do a lot of riding at night.
First, are HIDs brighter than LEDs? I do think they are from my research but I haven't really seen anything that says yes or no.
I am looking at two things;
These HID lights that I would put in my stock housing (Amazon):
http://goo.gl/sMv2AJ
And this LED headlight (or others if you know of any spectacular ones) (eBay):
http://goo.gl/dVVH5r
Now I am not set in stone with this LED headlight because I just started looking at LED headlights today and was directed to this one. My worries with this are that I am not sure if this can be mounted into the stock headlight housing and how it would be so I would have to figure that out but this is pretty much what I would be looking at.
My other concern with HID is that my charging system cannot handle it. Which is what I was told when directed to the LED headlight but I have been looking around and it seems like some people have gotten HID headlights to work on stock charging systems with no problems. Which is what I want to do but before shelling out the money to get the parts, I want to make sure that it is 1) the best option for most visible light and 2) that it is even possible with the configuration I have now or what else I would need to get to go along with it.
Any opinions / guidance would be highly appreciated. Thank you!
______EDIT for Picking_______
I am still not sure which is brighter but because I was worried about the old charging system not being able to handle the HID and the more expense that the HIDs were going to be. I went with a LED headlight that I will be writing about once I get some nighttime pictures of how the light looks.
First, are HIDs brighter than LEDs? I do think they are from my research but I haven't really seen anything that says yes or no.
I am looking at two things;
These HID lights that I would put in my stock housing (Amazon):
http://goo.gl/sMv2AJ
And this LED headlight (or others if you know of any spectacular ones) (eBay):
http://goo.gl/dVVH5r
Now I am not set in stone with this LED headlight because I just started looking at LED headlights today and was directed to this one. My worries with this are that I am not sure if this can be mounted into the stock headlight housing and how it would be so I would have to figure that out but this is pretty much what I would be looking at.
My other concern with HID is that my charging system cannot handle it. Which is what I was told when directed to the LED headlight but I have been looking around and it seems like some people have gotten HID headlights to work on stock charging systems with no problems. Which is what I want to do but before shelling out the money to get the parts, I want to make sure that it is 1) the best option for most visible light and 2) that it is even possible with the configuration I have now or what else I would need to get to go along with it.
Any opinions / guidance would be highly appreciated. Thank you!
______EDIT for Picking_______
I am still not sure which is brighter but because I was worried about the old charging system not being able to handle the HID and the more expense that the HIDs were going to be. I went with a LED headlight that I will be writing about once I get some nighttime pictures of how the light looks.
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