The F650 GS comes with a H4 style headlight that gives decent visibility. But as I like to travel in remote country I want to see farther in front of me and illuminate the ditches to keep deer where they need to be - off the road!
I really don't want to spend $500 plus on a pair of Touratech high beam / fog beam lights so I made my own from a Hella Optilux 1300 driving light and Hella Optilex 1450 fog light. These lights can be purchased for about $40 a pair from the FLAPS and come equipped with 55W H3 bulbs. The output with these bulbs is OK, especially if you run a pair of lights at a time, but I want to use a single driving light and a single fog light to keep everything simple so something had to be done about the output. 100W bulbs in a small enclosure would surely result in cracked lenses due to the heat and a fried alternator due to the excessive current draw. The solution was to use a slim ballast HID kit that you can pick up on eBay for about $100 - current draw is about 35W and the light output is said be three times that of a 55W halogen bulb. Because I want whiter light (not blue) - I used 4300K color - and they have light out higher output, one of these lights is significantly better than a pair with halogen bulbs and turn night into day. The 1300 reaches significantly farther than the stock high beam and the 1450 lights up close and into the ditch quite well to keep those deer at bay. On coming traffic never flash me with the 1450 on, but will definitely flash me if I am slow at turning off my highbeams!
What I did with the "H3" HID bulb was cut the terminals off of the end of them and pushed the ends of these wires through the original rubber grommet on the light housing - the Xenon bulb is larger than an H3 on the back side but there is just enough room to get the housing back together again. I reattached the ends with solder and made everything water tight with shrink tubing - this leaving a compact HID light for each side of the front fairing on the bike.
The driving light is connected exclusively to the high beam of the motorcycle and is triggered to come on with a relay. The fog light is triggered by a relay and only comes on when the engine is running just like the stock DTRL - the relay can be interrupted with a switch so you can run with this light off if you should choose to.
Hella Optilux Fog Light (left) and Driving Light (right)
4300K Xenon bulb installed
Each of the slim ballasts were installed in the cavity under the speedometer housing with the connector for the HID lamp just at the edge of the opening towards the rider. Relays were installed next to the battery. The fog light is triggered with the park lamp so it is on all the time. The high beam is triggered by the high beam circuit. Fuse are installed in the headlight cavity.
Headlight cavity of the BMW 650 GS
I cut and shaped some 50mm (2") aluminium L sections and drilled holes that correspond to the M5 bolts that hold the signal marker trim on. M6 nuts are used as spacers.
Bracket used for the fog light
Hight beam Hella Optilux converted to HID mount on BMW F650 GS
Front shot of BMW F650 GS showing both fog and high beam lights.
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