(I guess) 1st scooter with High CRI Nichia LED headlights

This story made my morning! It is nicely different from other mods and gives a peek into where you live too (I have never been anywhere near there but Bali is a special place).

Thanks for the effort of making all those pictures, it is so easy to forget that if you are in the flow of modding.

And, how much I like high CRI, of course it utterly insane to want R9080 Nichia’s in your motorcycle. :nerd_face: :nerd_face: :smiley:

Nice job and great narrative! Nice scoot.

That is one amazing looking headlight!
But i’m not clear about the way you opened it, you put the whole thing in boiling water and were able to open it in 2 hours?
Did you introduce water into the HL? And just dried it? Please tell us more details, this opens up new options, to replace every nasty >6000k, low CRI light in every circumstance :slight_smile:

Cool scooter and nice mod. This is the first time I heard of these E21A LEDs. I couldn’t find a place to buy them. Is there a good source for them?

Very clever clemence. Love the way you persisted got the light apart. :+1:

It’s more likely they just interested in the accent lights. Not so much in the high CRI.

It was my playtime, had to be fun.

Yeah, most of the time we realized we have to document it in the middle of the process. FYI, this E21A has no auto align when reflowed, the small pads don’t create enough tension to self center themselves. A centering jig made from SS/ceramic should make positioning easier.

Thanks

2 hours struggling with hot HL. Let the water reached 80C minimum. Open it slowly from one point using small blunt spoon’s handle when the glue start to soften, put a small piece of bamboo chopstick each time to keep them open. Dip it back to hot water to keep the glue soft.
The hardest part is to completely remove the remaining glue later. I used 2 liter of gasoline to completely get rid of the super sticky gooey. NEVER let the gasoline touched the metalized plastic parts (reflector etc…), the metalization will comes off. And once the glue removed you still have to deal with the glue residue which was super sticky. To clean the transparent PMMA plastic I used gasoline > oleum cajuputi oil > carlack > microfibre cloth polish.
I plan to use normal aquarium silicone glue later. Still thinking to test if Nichia 144A with bigger dies will do better beam.

The result was amazing: much better beam with very uniform distribution, brighter, and I can easily distinguish between clay, mud, sands, or cow’s dung. The OEM LED was too cold and low in CRI, everything looked washed out and flat. Country roads looks so much better with all the browns, reds. and greens. High CRI headlight really boost my mood in solo dark night ridings, everything looks better and colourful now.
I couldn’t get my neighbor’s bike for comparison pic tonight. Will find another soon.

- Clemence

I have some sm303 and sm503 9080 for the next sale thread. But you can also get the Ra8000 from Lumitronix. Djozz bought some from there.

After the heatgun opened part of the HL, it was a no turning back moment. Do it right or buy a new one.

Thank you for the great story, this really gives new inspiration!

Beamshots added!

thanks for posting this! Great read!

I’ve been to Bali 4 times and loved it. I’m sure I’ll be going again eventually. (Wife’s family’s from Semarang) We are in NYC.

Ah Semarang… place where cheap and delicious foods are everywhere. Love the chinatown there. Always gained some weight in Semarang.

- Clemence

Nice pics!

I have been wondering whem for example tractor/machinery work lights will go high CRI

Should makes a difference. For example: excavator lights in an search and rescue, sorting up big waste pile, crops grazing.

Cool mod, I wanted to mod my Shogun SP but got no time yet :smiley:

Shogun bebek?

Exactly.
Greeting from Jogja :slight_smile:

A reviewer from Jogja! :wink:

- Clemence

After many rides, my conclusions are:
For city riding in well lit roads, high CRI front light are useless. You better invest more in the output. The only gain I got is from more neutral CCT. This is very useful when trying to pass a big fat white bus, the back reflection is not as irritating as cool white light does.
But… tailing scooting bikinis , high CRI especially with high R9, makes a huge difference! :heart_eyes:
High CRI front lighting is VERY beneficial in country side/outdoor/off-road rides. Everything looks lively and beautiful, more enjoyable night ride.

Note: my mod creates wider and more even beam. In the bright city roads the beam looks dimmer than the OEM. But in dark country roads/forest, it’s so much better. The side spill is very wide with less hotspot, yet the up front cut-off remains the same.

Below is the example of ~20km beautiful road crossing the oak forest (part of Baluran National Park) in East Java. During the night there was no street lights, complete darkness. Under high CRI, it’s beautiful and not as eerie as it actually is (some road burglary reported).

- Clemence

Nice work Clemence!

Clemence, if you’re out there…Thank you!
I recently got a 21 Honda Super Cub because my commute has gone down to 1.2 miles and my truck never even warms up with that short of a trip. Horrible gas mileage doing short trips.
The Super Cub is a blast but wow the headlight output is a blue/purple that was unacceptable. The tint was so overpowering it was monochromatic.
Thanks to this post I took the plunge. An amazing amount of work to get the headlight out and then apart.
I used some 519a emitters, not perfect but no shorts.
Tested it out before putting it all back together, the blue is banished.
I am old enough to remember when changing a headlight was 1 plug and a trim ring holding in a piece of glass with a filament. Oh well, hopefully I’ll only be doing this once.