Workshop Blog - December 2022

As it was miserable and rainy outside, I thought I’d while away an hour in the garage testing some LED replacement bulbs to see if they were any better than standard. These are a couple of years old, so technology may have moved on, but both these bulbs (or very similar ones) are still available. Just by looking at them, it’s obvious that one looks more expensive than the other and it was at about 4 times the price. It was also the one I was most interested in trying.

My test rig? A fairly standard round headlight unit purchased from ebay some time ago, mounted on a GS500 and a phone camera to take pictures.

Let’s cut to the results and work backwards. From just testing these in the garage, I can’t actually tell if they’d be any better or not. I can tell you that the cheap and nasty looking one really is cheap and nasty and that LED bulbs produce a whiter light than a standard bulb. It also looks like you might have to reset the dip beam level.

I was really disappointed with the expensive bulb. The light was really poor and there was no difference between high and low beam. The I realised that I’d forgotten to plug it into the loom and the light I was getting was just from the sidelight. Doh! It worked better when I plugged it in, but it did have a strange high beam pattern.

I’ve put the results together in some pictures for you to see and make your own mind up. One day, I’ll park the bike the other way round and point the headlight out of the garage door onto the next door neighbour’s house. That may give a better indication of their relative merits. I’ll time how long it takes the him to complain about the light shining through his windows. The brighter the light, the quicker the complaint. Should help with ranking them!