Comments on Touratech fog headlights

[KEIFER]

At the moment seriously considering getting a pair of fog headlights for the africa twin from Touratech. But at £99.17 a pop don't want to waste the dosh if they ain't very good.

Anybody else have experience of using them? They look relatively easy to fit .. but I thought that when I got the crashbars and it took me all day to get um sorted

Of course if there are any alternatives out there would love to know too!


KG

[iswoolley]

Why do you want more lights?

[KEIFER]

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on the time of year!) I have to do a 100 mile a day commute to work, the majority of which is through country lanes. To be honest in the dark the existing lights just don't give enough visibility.

Plus, I thought they also looked a bit cool. The possiblity of being able to blind on-coming idiot drivers also had a certain appeal.


KG

[samih]

Another possibility is to replace the stock Stanleys with some Hella H4s of equal size. I have seen an article somewhere in Web, probably in Finnish though I think the guy spot welded the new lights to the Stanley frame and took it from there.

The low beam with Hella was way better, if my memory serves me well.

I have been thinking of this conversion as my lights are continental, and masking them with Gaffa tape doesn't do any good to the light output on low beam...

Edit. And the stock wiring is really small gauge causing dropped voltage at business end. Even the Stanleys would be much brighter with good feed straight from the battery and relays.

[jvaughan]

I was looking into these too. Quite fancied the HID Lamps or maybe the HID / Fog combination
I think they would look good in the side airscoops on the AT.

[SteveLee]

I managed to pick up a pair of small PIAA lights on e-Bay for about £15 a while ago. I have mounted these on brackets from the indicator mounts and run them on high beam. They work well although the stock lights are pretty good with Philips vision Plus bulbs in anyway.

Steve

[icenian]

I thought the OE headlamps were excellent! This is a 2001 bike (XRV750Y) if that makes any difference.

Did consider the Touratech fog lamp to give better illumination of the road just in front of the bike - on country lanes with dodgy surfaces, on dark winter nights, it would be good to get a really clear view of what's 6 foot in front...

Making the existing lights brighter isn't going to help you see further, at least not much. Suppose you were able to divert the entire 360W generator output into the lights. With 3 times the light. you only manage to see 73% further ahead (square root of 3). If you can see 73% further, this allows you to extend your braking distance by 73%, so you can increase speed by 32% (square root of 1.73).

=> If you are happy doing up to 60mph with the OE lights, with 3 times the light you can go a whole 19mph faster!

Actually you'd probably want much more than 3 times the light to get that 19mph increase. It's harder to see things at distance (it's that square law again; twice as far away, a quarter the visible area) so you probably need to increase lighting disproportionately more than the range. Also the eyes focus on brighter objects, and bright lights illuminate the foreground so much you may find you can't see "dim" objects at distance - I'm not clear on this, ask a psychologist.

Clearly getting lots of light isn't going to help you much. Different lights with better beams has to be the way to go.

[Recycler]

Bugger me, it's Isaac Newton reincarnated!

[Maverick]

bu**er me, it's Isaac Newton reincarnated!

Went right over my head mate As long as I can see in front of me I adjust my speed accordingly, escpessialy in the dark.

[icenian]

bu**er me, it's Isaac Newton reincarnated!

Of course, I negelected one effect. Bear in mind the the atmosphere is not actually clear, especially when there is dust or water in the air, so it is important that your lights can penetrate. Longer wavelengths offer the greatest penetration, but as your speed increases the wavelength of the light emitted will be reduced.

see I can do Einstein too