Modern Buddy

Has anyone installed an HID kit into a Rattler, Roughhouse, or Black Cat?

My Rattler 50 has a smaller headlight than the 110 and Roughhouse. Kind of weak at night. Would like to add a handlebar mounted HID or an HID drop in kit for the stock headlight housing.

I tried a HID setup on my 110... results were not good. Too much power drain from the ballast to sustain a charged battery. I had no intention of up-sizing my battery and charhing it on a tender after every ride either. That's when I went with the PIAA HS1, better than stock but not all the way to HID level. And since it's a 35W bulb, no additional modifications were necessary.

I thought with an hid, they took more juice to ignite then use less power. Which kit did you use?

Technically yes, but it's the ballast that draws too many amps. A HID is 35W (roughly 3amp) vs an automotive headlight at 55W (roughly 5amp). Since HID kits are made for use in Motorcycles and cars the ballast is setup at over 3amps to provide a steady power supply for the HID bulb. Since a larger vehicle is stock with a 5amp circuit (+/-) for the headlight it's a non-issue in those applications. If a scooter consistently put out at least 3amps of power for the headlight they wouldn't dim/flicker at idle and when the power drops too low the ballast cuts out to protect the HID bulb. To keep the ballast from cutting out you need to feed straight off the battery with a relay setup and hope the motor will charge the battery more than the lights drain... it does not. The stock stator is pretty good in the Rattler, even so I had mine re-wound to try and get that extra juice out of it and it still wasn't enough. I went LEDs in the turn signals too in an attempt to free up some spare amps, and it still wasn't enough. You simply need more electrical power or a HID setup designed to replace a 35W bulb instead of a 55W bulb, I couldn't find any when I looked though

Bumping this thread.

Would a 35w HID kit work then?

http://www.xtralights.com/xetronicdigit ... ingle.aspx

Would this work? It is rated at 3.2A.

The difficult part is they rate at about 3AMP, but the ballast draws extra current for consistent power to the bulb. That's the problem I ran into. A 35W HID will only USE 3-3.2AMPs... but the ballast will draw more to supply a constant supply

on a side note, I did order my HID setup through xtralights and they were great about the return. I'd be happy to do business with them again

thanks for clearing things up.

So the only way to run an HID kit on the rat is to just recharge your battery after every ride? If so its definitely not worth the trouble!

What about a kit list this? Price is a little high IMO but I would like to hear you guys thoughts. Thanks.

http://www.scooterworks.com/ScootRS-Hea ... 3C391.aspx

SuperCyclone.81 wrote:What about a kit list this? Price is a little high IMO but I would like to hear you guys thoughts. Thanks.

http://www.scooterworks.com/ScootRS-Hea ... 3C391.aspx

Don't think it would work since it is for H4 bulbs and the Rattlers and Roughhouses don't use H4 light assemblies. I would give a call to Scooterworks though. Maybe a bigger battery and an on/off switch could ease the electrical burden.

Right, I was wondering if this specific kit includes something more than typical kits that would allow us to use them on our scoots. Maybe wire up some LED halos our something for the daytime running lights with the on/off switch to the HID kit so that it's not running during the day. Anyone think that would save enough battery to avoid keeping the scooter on the charger every night when you get home? Just trying to throw some ideas around. Thanks

You might be able to run a Halo off of the "parking light"... never tried that.

Ya is there anyway that I could turn the headlights off so that I could run the halos only? Doesn't sound real legal but the cops here are super relaxed so Im not too worried about that.

Kill the "high beam" wire. Then when you switch the highs on the headlight will go out. I've seen that done a lot on motorcycles with stobe lights installed. You'll have low beam only if you do this (obviously).

hardwire off battery with a switch. i think it would look sweet.

Ya that all sounds good. Could I cut the high beam wire and then wire and then connect that wire to the halo? So that when the scooter thinks the high beams are on its actually the halos?

nissanman wrote:Kill the "high beam" wire. Then when you switch the highs on the headlight will go out. I've seen that done a lot on motorcycles with stobe lights installed. You'll have low beam only if you do this (obviously).

yes

Now where do I need to turn to get another headlight housing? I've only been able to kind, whole front end kits for around $150, I'm just looking for the headlight housing itself? Anyone know where I could get my hands on one? Thanks