I fitted one half of the HID kit to the main beam today. Half an hour from start to finish but I have done it before.
Here is the kit I bought off ebay from ULTRA-HIDS. It is a 55watt 6,000k car kit, Canbus ready....
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CANBUS-ERROR-FREE-55W-SLIM-Ballast-HID-XENON-CONVERSION-KIT-H7-10000K-50W-Metal-/262765431106?hash=item3d2e0a4942...and select 6,000/H7 for the best colour and bulb fitment type.
and this is what you get for your money....
The two black boxes connected together are the Canbus error cancelling capacitors which are not needed on our bikes, everything just works as it should.
This is one half of the car kit....
and this is it all connected up prior to installation, all foolproof connectors that only go one way, apart from the power leads....
For those who have never fitted an HID kit before, there is really nothing to it, technically, on the S bikes; can't speak for the R or the GT, as I have never been inside one. However, you must keep the ignition OFF while doing the install and don't be tempted to 'try' anything before you have all the connections made as you can get seriously dead from 23,000 volts, even at not many milliamps!
This shot shows the two spade terminals (top right) that simply push into the connector that you pull off the back of the original bulb.
That is the only thing you need to do to your original fitment; no cutting or shutting of wires or anything remotely scary. This also means that, should you choose, you can simply revert back to your original bulb. In fact, I always carry the original bulb with me just in case the HID electronics pack up, that way I can always stick the bulb back in and be on my way again without having to remove the entire kit, merely the burner.
I took the screen off as it is easier to get to the bits that way. Here is the left main with the cover removed....
I fit the HID into the left main and use a Philips X-treme Vision +130% in the other main; this gives 'instant on' for the Philips and no waiting for the HID to come up to speed before you can see where you are going.
First thing to do is remove the old bulb, instructions in the user manual if you haven't done it before. Then, with the power socket and the bulb retention spring held out of the way, it is time to fit the burner, the 'bulb' of the HID. I have to say that the fitting of the H7 bulbs and burners in the K1300S isn't anywhere near as straightforward as other H7 fittings I have used; nowhere near as solid a location and difficult to get the bulb feeling like it is correctly fitted! Looking in the front of the headlight whilst fiddling with the bulb is the best way to make sure it is in correctly, you can both feel it and see it. When it looks right, it is right.
However, having got the burner in place and with all the cables tucked out of the way, like this....
it is time to get the boxes of tricks fitted.
Now, the instructions tell you all about cutting a hole in the cover and routing the cables through it and mounting the Ballast and the Ignitor and somewhere about the bike. None of this is necessary on the K12/13S as all the hardware and cables fit 'neatly' inside the headlight shell as long as you are not anal about everything being properly cleated and fixed in place as if it were an aircraft installation; I'm not, obviously!
The Ballast in the kit I bought is larger than the one I have fitted in the K12S and just about fits through the back of the headlight shell opening. This shot shows the size of the Ballast I bought....
It is 100mm long by 70mm wide by 17mm thick.
The trick to installation is to envisage where the Ballast (the big silver box) is going to end up; in my case, for the main, it is going to end up above the top of the reflector above the bulb. It will go through the aperture if you offer it up as if you were holding a credit card in your right hand so that you can read the wording. In other words, just like it is in the phot above. That way, it slides into the housing from right to left and I then simply twisted it clockwise and shoved it up out of the way. On the 12, I wrapped some anti-slip flubber round the Ballast, like this....
to stop it rattling about, but I couldn't get this one in with the flubber on so I removed it and merely shoved it in after the Ballast was inside the shell, packing it between the Ballast and the shell to stop it from rubbing against the plastic housing. I used the anti-slip flubber as it has holes in it to stop the Ballast from overheating in the confines of the shell. To be honest, unless you are riding the Road of Bones, I doubt you will ever use your main beam for long enough to get anything to overheat in our overcrowded little island!
Once the Ballast is in the shell, I merely stuffed the Igniter in behind it, folded all the cables in, pushed the two spade terminals into the original connector, eased that in last and finally put the cover back on. This is a shot of it all in situ prior to re-fitting the cover....
and it may not look pretty, but it is all in there, nothing can go wrong and never has on the 12 in the 2 years it has been in there.
Now then, the only connections that aren't fool-proofed are the two spade terminals, one black, one red, that go into the original bulb connector. One might assume, like I did, that red goes to brown and black to white with a yellow stripe. Nope! But don't worry if you get them the wrong way round as the only thing that happens is nothing happens. It merely doesn't work. So do a functional test before you stuff the connector back in the shell and you will be good to go.
This is a shot of the finished article as seen from the business end of the burner....
As you can see, a lot more light from the burner than from the adjacent bulb, which is the Philips +130 item and that is giving off a lot more light than the standard dip bulb above it.
When I first got the bike the headlight beam was so low I couldn't see to ride it in the dark even on main beam with the adjuster on the 'High' setting. I have since adjusted it up to somewhere near correct but I need to be out in the dark to do a final level setting and bearing in mind my previous issue with dip and main not being 'aligned' correctly for me, I will do that with the standard bulb in place before fitting the HID to the dip.
I will report back on what it is like after I have done that, but if the HID in the dip gives anything at all like a bad cut-off, then it will be coming out pronto; I'm not one who likes to be dazzled or to dazzle others!
Brian (who thinks it a half hour well spent and the whiskey is slowly warming the parts the central heating can't reach
)
PS All credit and thanks to David (black-k1) for his original installation of HID kits on his bike and showing me how his looked when finished!
