Switching to HID bulbs for winter

Now that winter is here I intend to change my front light on my Suzuki Bandit 650 K8 model to an HID bulb as I have found that the standard bulb is not bright enough for my winter journey to work.

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Are there any complications in fitting this and are there any problems with the plastic lens with the extra heat the light will generate, would I need to adjust anything (if I can).

One last thing… is the cost of the HID kit worth it?

Martin Langford, email
 
The High Intensity Discharge lights don’t generate much more heat than a standard bulb, it’s the filament and the gas, quite often a 35w HID casts a better beam than a 55/60w standard bulb.

When people change the dip beam to HID they find it’s more powerful than main beam.

However, an HID bulb can’t run on 12-volt circuitry, it requires much higher voltage, so ballast is part of the kit that has to be fitted.

It’s basically a metal box the size of a pack of 10 cigarettes which the original coupler from the bike’s bulb plugs into. It then needs a separate live and earth, usually from the battery but a good output will do.

The main problem is siting the ballast somewhere, not too hard on a Bandit, but pared back to the bone sports bikes like R1s and GSX-Rs can be tricky.

Then there’s the cost, a single bulb kit costs about £48, going up to £80-plus Go to:
http://www.hids4u.co.uk for more info.