The light is beautifully made and when installed it casts an even, bright white light with a flat cutoff. The electricals are a straight h4 swap. I am in Australia and although we have right hand traffic I used the US version. The beam pattern is the same. The difference in the RHT version is the ECE stamp and the option of a parking light (which I didn't use on the incandescent so i haven't missed it.) The other big difference is the price. The LHT version is about half the cost. (US$390)
The basic light will not fit inside the standard shell. It is about 18mm to small. I tried to make an adaptor ring but eventually bit the bullet and bought the JW speaker 7" headlight shell (US$ 67). The shell is everything the light isn't. It's cheap and nasty. My main concerns were:
- There are no assembly instructions and after 3/4 of an hour or so I worked out that you had to disassemble it to assemble it.
The trim ring was scratched when I got it
The paint was poorly applied, the inside still had primer showing
The outside edge of the shell has no knurling to prevent is rotating
The shell has no weather proofing at all and would be very difficult to weather proof. This means that all of the internal connections themselves have to be weather proofed.
No grommets are supplied for the rear of the shell in the spot where the cables pass through.
The shell is small, this means that if you have a relay (which may have been seated in the existing shell) you will have difficulty.
I also dropped the mounting of the light by 70mm and moved it forward by 40mm. This is not a requirement but it offsets the prairie dog look of the original mount point. This did require making extra mounting brackets (double thickness 3mm black kydex although I may make stainless ones and moving the screen but I like the look a lot better. I moved the screen by re-drilling the mounting holes and then filling the old holes, (sand polish and paint). I also put some black rubber spacers between the mount and the back of the screen. My screen is painted black to match the bike, this would be more of a problem if you wanted to maintain the clear screen.
So...The light is much better than the original, the electrical swap is easy but the JW Speaker bucket is poorly made. My feeling is that the company has sourced them externally. It wasn't a cheap job but where I live kangaroos are a very real hazard and if you hit one on a bike it is ALL bad, so good lighting is something I am happy to pay for. That said I will probably still put on some small secondary LED spots.
Verdict
Happy with the light but the mounting shell is no where near the quality of the build of the light. The whole job including custom mounts was about a days work. if you don't move the light it would be MUCH quicker.
Regards,
Sol
