whats up guys.. I was wondering what solutions you guys were using for either making the headlights brighter or which unit you could wire in for more light but not draw to much on the 110. Night riding is terrible as they look like little candles from a short distance away they dont do very much.. lol

thanks guys

chad

 

I know what you mean about the lights being dim. I do not have a chineese quad but on my Yamaha Raptor I replaced the light bulbs with an HID kit. I got them from an E-Bay Store. I had little issue with the installation. The wire kit pluged right into the factory harness. You need to now the light bulb number or model to identify what kit will work. The HID kit improved my night riding a lot.

 

HID lights are a viable solution. LED lights are even more efficient in terms of lumens (light) per watt (power coming out of the stator), and they have a better MTBF (mean time between failures) than HID.

Both technologies are far, far superiour than the stock incandescent headlights. Both are quite pricey.

But you need to measure what your quad stator can put out (in watts) so you can make an informed choice about what kind of lights (i.e. maximum power) to buy so your stator can power them completely without draining the battery while your ride. Also you need to know whether your current stock lights are AC powered or DC powered. Do you lights work when the engine is stopped, ignition is on, and the headlight switch is turned on? Or do your lights only work when the engine is running? Lights that work only when the engine is running are AC powered. Lights that work when the engine is stopped are DC powered. The latter is easier to adapt.

Do you have a meter that will measure current at 10 amps full scale? You'll need this to measure your stator...

 

The lights come on as soon as the key is turned (if the switch is on) and the engine does not need to be running. I do have a meter, How would I go about the stator?

thank you

chad

 

Set your meter to measure amps on the 10 amp scale. This usually means you have to move the red probe lead over to a special jack that is only used to measure current on the 10 amp scale.

Start up the quad and let it idle with the headlights off. Remove the main fuse coming off the battery. The quad should stay running when you do this because everything is running of the ignition power supply, or from the stator/voltage regulator output.

Insert your meter leads across the fuse terminals (set to read 10 amps full scale). On the 10 amp current scale your meter looks just a like a wire across the fuse terminals, and passes current just like your fuse would. Now all current into or out of the battery is being measured directly by your meter. Pay attention to what you meter reads. Most importantly pay attention to the polarity (+/-) direction of the current. At idle with the headlights off you will probalby see a small current going into the battery. Note the polarity. When you turn on the headlights the current will reverse polarity showing a net drain on the battery. The polarity is critical since this shows whether your battery is charging or discharging.. Watch the current reading as you rev the engine with the headlights on. The current draw from the battery will decrease with increasing RPM, until at some point it will go to zero *and reverse polarity*. Then at higher RPMs the current will rise again (but this time it is a charging current going through the battery rather than a discharge current). Look at this RPM "break even point". Is this a reasonable engine speed averaged overall ? Will your overall average engine speed exceed this?

Next turn off the quad engine. With the ignition switch on (engine stopped) turn on the headlights. What does your meter say? Turn off the headlights. What does the meter say now? Take the difference between these two readings and multiply that with 12 volts. That is your current headlight consumption in watts. For example, lets say your quad draws 0.5 amps with the ignition on but the headlights off. It then draws 3.5 anps with the headlights on. The difference is 3.0 amps, and when multiplied times 12 volts equals 36 watts.

If your satisfied that your stator overall can put out enough current to provide for your current lighting load, and now that you know how many watts that is (like 36 watts in the last example), then you can use that value to see how many new lighting watts your system will support.