Howdy folks,
Dropped my scooter off at my local Indie and was showing him the new LED headlight. He was impressed and then asked, "Why does the low beam shut off when the high comes on?" I had no answer and he made sense when he figured that the light would be even better with both on.

What do you guys say? Good idea? Bad idea? Wreck the light idea? What say ye?

Pat (Have I told you lately that I love my Dyna?)

 

I hear of the moisture buildup and that there is a new revision that addresses that problem.
I'm still waiting it out.
Big bucks.

 

The HD part number that ends in an "A" is supposed to fix the moisture buildup problem.

 

It would be nice to have the flood effect of low beam when on high beam, mostly for the critters, not that at speed you could do a heck of a lot about them if they came to "visit".

 

As far as I know all headlights (factory wired) turn off the low beam when the high beam is on, with the exception of "flash to pass" switches on some vehicles which will light both at the same time. I would think the indy would know that. I believe it's illegal to have any other forward lights on when the high beam is on, including fog lights.

 

what he said, legality reasons. to keep the light road legal in all 50 states they had to do this. its the same with cars, when your high beams are on your low beams are off. its also to help keep you from blinding oncoming traffic

 

Not sure if it is true, but I believe this is due to legality, but more importantly heat build up in the housing. Just throwing in my 2 cents...

 

Yeah, the legality issue is a consideration, a minor one, but a consideration none the less. The heat build up has my attention. Even LED's do build up heat and this particular light is certainly a sealed unit, with what appear to be cooling fins on the body of the unit. Interesting!!

 

I wouldn't attempt to run this lamp with both high and low beams active. It pulls 1.71 amps at 13.1 volts. That's 22.4 watts of pure heat (very little of that wattage is actually converted to light). I ran it on my kitchen counter for several hours and that heatsink got too hot to hold onto. I can only imagine how hot it would get with both high and low lit with it mounted INSIDE THE HEADLIGHT BUCKET.

 

That's three thanks to you my friend. I was checking out the beam last night as I rode and it would be nice to have the low on at the same time but I'm not so sure that it matters that much. I just find that when I'm on high beam, it would be nice to have more flood or spill that I currently have.

Once again, thanks Romeo for the heads up on the heat. I had a feeling that this was the case.

Pat who will NOT be wiring them in tandem.

Pat