Headlight LED-unit upgrade

I'm a light addict. There, I've said it.

I've been runnung Osram Nightbreaker in the CB500's headlight since 2014. Okay light.
Still, there was this new thing called LED, promising hitherto unimaginable amounts of the good stuff.

I've tried poking at the subject and found LED H4 'bulbs' of that generation (twas 2015...) to be utterly inadequate, bordering on dangerous to operate. That story can be found here.
Sigh. And so, I decided to wait and see what the future would bring.

Today, you can have LED H4 bulbs with considerably better geometry, thus claiming much improved light dispersion, sharper low-beam cutoff and whatnot.
However, those bulbs still aren't legal for road use. Talkabout slow-moving legal system and national law-makers dragging their feet. Sigh again.

Then, by pure chance, I stumbled upon a small company offering complete headlight replacement units. Swap-out the bowl, glass and the H4-bulb itself for one of these and you'd be done.
Bought one fitting the CB on introductory offer and went to work. It indeed swapped right in, and after a little fiddling with cabling in the headlight housing, it all went together nicely.

Some say the new design looks daft, som say it looks cool. Oh well, taste is individual.
What cannot be denied is that it does indeed lift the lighting to a new level. Next level.

This post is a micro-review of said lightsource, installed on a bog-standard CB500.

Light source (FBI2940): https://www.fullblast.dk/honda#sp

Looks:



High beam:


Dipped beam:


Parking light is the 'halo ring'.
Dipped beam is a bit sharper cutoff than OE headlight. Improvement. As can be seen, there's no left/right issue to worry about.
Highbeam is fairly pencil-ish. I wouldn't want to be on the business end of it on a rainy february night.
Power consumption: 20W on high beam. Leaves room for eg. a set of little fog-lights or perhaps some heated grips.
You may have noticed your regular H4 halogen light dimming a little when you idle the engine. Not here.
Colour temperature is in the 4-5000K area, further improving nighttime vision, yet not getting to the point of looking cheap.
When replacing OE reflector bowl, you find there's no provision for the left/right adjusting mechanism. It's a non-issue.
ECE, RohS and E-marked/approved, making the headlight generally usable everywhere in Europe.

Note that unless you provide additional power consumption (eg foglights) to bring usage back up to 55W like the OE H4, your regrec will carry the extra load, likely shortening its life.

Anything offered for Cb500 Sport?
I ask because yours looks immense and I'd consider going for it on my own.

cheesepiece1 wrote:Anything offered for Cb500 Sport?
I ask because yours looks immense and I'd consider going for it on my own.

I hoped that particular question didn't come up...

The thing is; ECE-approvals do not come cheap. If you look at the Fullblast website, the vast majority of bikes catered for are ones using a 7" round headlight.
7" round light units transplant easily, as opposed to specific shapes designed for one model only. I looked and found only a few for BMW, Yamaha and Ducati.

So they focus on 7" + adaptors to skip the approval process/costs.

The CB500S simply doesn't fit the bill. A destiny it shares with Blackbird, Suzuku GSXF-750 and a lot of other bikes. Sigh.

As a next-best option, did you check out the GTR lighting - illegal, but functional - option: GTR Ultra2 H4 ?
Actually, you might want to check Headlight Revolutions' review of that one compared to a few similar choices. It's interesting. Makes you wonder why law-makers are dragging their feet, considering the obvious advantages found in modern-day quality LED bulb units.

Thank you. Yeah, if the conversion from S to Naked were a little easier I'd be all over the one you linked in the op.

Man I'd love this but €266 is a bit much

I fitted a HID unit to my cb500s, it’s a vast improvement from the original and drains less current. It’s a legal replacement for bikes from the mot perspective but not legal for cars as an upgrade.
Bought the unit from eBay and cost less than £40.

Yes please, Rob. Still got the CB500S sitting here, though its days are numbered.
If I have another in future this mod would be high up my list of priorities. Fleabay links may help those looking to do the conversion relatively soon though.

Truly easy to fit and can be changed back to original order in a very short time. The unit consists of a short wiring loom which is fused and connects directly to the battery then thread the loom discreetly along the existing loom that runs  under the  tank by this point you will end up with the enclosed transformer that boosts the voltage to 370 v  keep everything loose at this point, insert the adapter ring into the back of your headlight ready to accept your new H7 bulb insert the bulb and lock into position attach its plug block and you will have two wires leftover connect your  high and low beam wires onto these two wires ,just flick your lights on and check the hire and low function on your switch gear and swop them round if its not correctly working. At this point your high beam indicator on your instrument cluster will be working completely normal your headlight should be giving you just over 5000 lumens and only burning 35 watts of power. Tidy up all spare wires with cable ties and attach to the front fairing bracket make sure it won’t fowl anything from lock to lock and bobs your uncle. The fairing hides everything so it’s weather protected and very discreet. I fitted it  on the first lock down and it’s been through two MOT test with no advisory notification. I don’t have a link of where I got it from on eBay but there are loads so very easy to find. It probably took about 3 hours to fit as my machine was in pieces anyway so I think it would be better to plan on six hours, I’m really happy with the results especially as I don’t like playing with electric stuff. It was very easy. Over the years I have purchased many different bulbs and slowly turned the headlight lens yellow with the heat from 100 watt bulb, I fitted the HID unit to a nice clean light unit that I also bought from eBay….. I hope this helps. The transformer unit is very small about the size of a box of Englands glory matches.

A 55 watt bulb is about 1600 lumen