By Joe Gresh
As you’ll recall from the Oxilam headlight review we published on ExhaustNotes a while back, I loved the thing. It gave a much brighter view at night and the light source was positioned in the correct spot for the reflector on the ZRX1100 Lawsonsaki. Low beam was wide and had a sharp cutoff so as to not blind oncoming drivers, and high beam lit up the dark New Mexico roads nicely.
Unfortunately. the bulb burned out on my bike after only 3000 miles. Considering the original halogen bulb lasted 35,000 miles, 24 years, and was still going strong, I was disappointed.
Taking the bulb apart revealed a neatly constructed circuit board, a cooling fan, heat transferring grease to the large aluminum heat sink, and broken solder connections at the main board/plug connector junction.
The board connections are tiny and I may try to re-solder the connections (there are four of them broken: two on either side of the circuit board) but I don’t hold out much hope.
The Oxilam kit came with two bulbs, and I’ll pop the other one in to see if my failure was just a fluke. I do like the quantity of light produced and riding with a plain old halogen seems dark now.
My new, revised rating on the Oxilam LED headlights is: Don’t buy them just yet. Wait until the second Oxilam has proved itself for 24 years. I’ll be sure to report back here if I’m still alive.
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😂Just make sure the heat from the bulb doesn’t destroy the fixture 🎯
I tried soldering the broken connections. The joints were so close together as soon as I melted the bad joint it ran over into the next one.
I ended up tossing the bulb.
Trump won , the lights in America are back on !
Indeed they are!
Too bad about the light failing prematurely. LED lights are the best, as long as the user has them properly adjusted. There’s not many things in life more annoying than riding along a two lane highway when some yoyo is coming the other way with his newly installed LEDs aimed too high.
But anyhow, I decided to try KC’s Gravity Pro 7″ LED conversion in my Jeep Rubicon. They are AWESOME, about 1260 lumen, low beam out to 407 m and high to 560 m. They only draw 1.88 amps so they are great for the charging system. I paired these up with KC’s “fog” lights which throw another 866 lumens each to the lower part of the road. This system totally lights up the trails in all off-road driving conditions. They completely replace the need for those ridiculous light bar setups the mall-crawler kiddies love hanging of their roofs, hoods and bumpers. And the KC headlight & fog light conversion setup is streamlined and looks stock, but really lights up the night!
Oh, and the KC LED’s are IP68 rated which makes me wonder if the failure of your bike lamp could be moisture related. Incidentally (and oddly), the KC warranty for the Gravity LED lights is 23 years. Not 20 years, not 25 years, but 23 years. Maybe that’s a warranty in the metric system? LOL
I think we should go back to regular old bulbs. I am so tired of being blinded by these new headlites. Not just in coming traffic , but from behind in my rear view mirror.
Now I admit i don’t see well at night .
Additional lamps would help . But being blinded is dangrous.
There must be a happy middle ground.
Hack,
I agree the new bulbs are too bright and make it hard to see. I hold up my hand and block the light from oncoming cars.
I figure if you can’t beat them join them.
Try going with a halogen lamp with a higher K rating. I use Sylvania SilverStars. The wattage is the same but they put out a much whiter light, which works better with our eyes. You can easily see the difference at night. The downside is that being a high performance lamp, they don’t last as long either. My estimate is 10,000 miles.