Stand alone motorcycle lighting

construct

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Messages
3
Hi

A friend recently crashed his motorcycle when his headlight failed one evening on his old BMW motorcycle.

This got me wondering if there is any lighting available for motorcycles that does not rely on the bikes charging system / battery?

I have had a look at a few higher powered cycling lights but get the impression that the beam pattern is not really suitable and would probably not be appreciated by oncoming road users.

Is anyone aware of anything that would be suitable?

Thanks
 

eggsalad

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
268
In theory, you could replace the OEM headlight with a 12V LED headlight, which has much less draw. Then you find a place to mount a separate 12V AGM battery, or possibly a set of LiFePO4 cells to make 12V. Then charge that battery every time the bike is parked.

But simply replacing the original headlamp with a SFF LED headlamp will make it much less prone to failure.
 

alpg88

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
5,282
Hi

A friend recently crashed his motorcycle when his headlight failed one evening on his old BMW motorcycle.

just fix the headlight, it is not that it was performing poorly, it was out.

as far as stand alone light, you can power any light with a battery, even your oem factory light.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Alaric Darconville

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 2, 2001
Messages
5,377
Location
Stillwater, America
A friend recently crashed his motorcycle when his headlight failed one evening on his old BMW motorcycle.
That is unfortunate, but I wonder how much of it was caused by excessive speed. The Basic Speed Rule that most states have essentially says to not drive faster than conditions permit, and night driving on a motorcycle often means not going at the posted speed limit, since one is more easily caught off guard by things. And a motorcycle headlighting system is essentially 1/2 a car's headlighting system, so there's already a disadvantage there. It must be bad lighting, road, and weather conditions indeed that a complete lighting failure would result in a crash.

This got me wondering if there is any lighting available for motorcycles that does not rely on the bikes charging system / battery?
No, unless you build in redundancy of some kind to add an alternate power source, but there's already battery voltage so if the charging system goes out one has time to adapt while the lamp is still lit, and it won't go off instantly.

One can also get a headlamp without a filament, such as these, greatly reducing the chance of the light going out. However, you won't be able to use the headlamp performance as an indicator that there's something wrong with the charging system because the color temperature doesn't change with LED like with a filament. But surely an instrument panel light lit up to indicate the charging system problem.

I have had a look at a few higher powered cycling lights but get the impression that the beam pattern is not really suitable and would probably not be appreciated by oncoming road users.
Not appropriate or safe for the application.
 

jaycee88

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 13, 2015
Messages
175
A friend recently crashed his motorcycle when his headlight failed one evening on his old BMW motorcycle.

That sucks, I hope he's doing okay. I know the feeling of having a headlamp go out on a motorcycle at night. It happened once to me due to a bulb failure, but the area I was riding through had sufficient ambient light that I didn't crash.


This got me wondering if there is any lighting available for motorcycles that does not rely on the bikes charging system / battery?

So it was the bike's electrical system/wiring that failed causing the headlamp to go out? You didn't say how old the bike was, but if it's more than a decade old it might be a good idea to go through the electrical system and inspect/test all of the wiring, switches, etc.


I have had a look at a few higher powered cycling lights but get the impression that the beam pattern is not really suitable and would probably not be appreciated by oncoming road users.

Most of them aren't suitable for road use on a bicycle much less a motorcycle. I have one of these high powered lights on my mountain bike and it is most useful only in heavily wooded areas because it throws light indiscriminately everywhere. Great for lighting up a trail and its surroundings but for road use there isn't enough (actually, very little) useful light projected where you actually need it - on the road.

There are a tiny number of bicycle headlamps that actually have some engineering effort put into them to make the light output useful for the road, but they are still meant for bicycles and would not meet any applicable lighting regulations for roadgoing motor vehicles (i.e., illegal), and are expensive enough that you may as well be replacing the headlamp with a legal, legitimate one designed for motor vehicle use.
 
Top