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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