I am purchasing a Diablo light from Baja Designs to run on an '00 XR650. They say the stator needs to be rewound--and I'm sure that's optimal--but I've also heard (but not first hand) of running race lights without a rewind. Anyone run a lighting system that draws as much or more power than the Diablo (which is @35 watts) without a rewind?

You might get by without a rewind, but it will be marginal at best. Pretty much no matter what you will need a battery to supply the startup power. A HID will actually use between 40 and 45 watts of power. The actual HID element gets 35 watts, but the ballast is not 100% efficient so it needs a bit more power. For starting it's a quick surge of around 100 watts just for a moment. To get good light at startup they are over driven for the first minute or so. It should be between 70 to 80 watts dropping to 40 over a minute or so. At low revs the stock stator does not really make enough power to run the HID. That is bad because unlike a halogen a HID just suddenly goes out if the input power is not enough to run it. Sudden darkness really sucks.

The Diablo is better optically than the stock unit. You can also get a HID retrofit kit with the H6M bulb style that should fit the stock light. The light pattern is not as good, but it will save you about $250.

it is worth it to have the stator rewound (at low rpm's the stock stator will not run the light), and you will have to have a battery of some sort to get the Diablo to fire.

I have a BD dual sport kit and use the little battery pack that it comes with.

oh, good choice on the Diablo.:thumbsup:

Ricky stator for a rewind. ?

Baja Designs.

Thanks. Sending stator to BD and hoping to light up the night soon.

you know you can buy a rewound stator sometimes for the same price as sending yours in, take a look if i remember BD charges $150 to rewind and you can buy outright a Ricky for same price, something to think about as i would buy one and have stocker for emergency and rewind that one myself later on with help from here, alot know exactly how to rewind one.

One nice thing about rewinding it yourself is you can tailor the windings to the application. Both the Baja Designs and Ricky stator try to maximize the watts at medium revs. They will run two 100 watt halogens. To achieve that they don't really have enough voltage at idle to run a HID. I'm getting ready for some winding experiments that will be more HID specific. I'm going to use a bit smaller wire and try to boost the voltage at the expense of max wattage.

carl you help me out with winding my stocker on my R????

Denn10 said:

you will only need a backup if you buy a Ricky.

BajaD is the only way to go.:thumbsup:

cleonard said:

Wish I read this last week. I got my BD stator rewound and installed yesterday. Will not keep the HID(lightforce 10") going at idle. Works fine at anything other than idle but at idle it starts dropping the voltage down past 8 which finally kicks off the balast and light.

Two choices:

• BD
  
• DIY

I like cleonard's suggestion of tailoring it to suit your specific wants/needs.

I am going with #2. :thumbsup:

I will not do Moose or RS or any other Chinese chit for American dollars. At best, I'd give $5 or $10 for the Chinese crap, and just use the carcass for a self rewind.

I've done the DIY rewind. Be careful when doing it, because I found when I did mine, that when it comes to the point about re-soldering the wires back together, that I found what has been written out there was different than mine. I found that what has been written actually was BACKWARDS to what I needed to do. Do a search on this subject, and look for what I've written. I did a whole lot write-up on the subject, and the perils and pitfalls I ran into when doing it, and then finally getting it right.

I rewound an XR stator...its easy.

I still have enough wire to do a couple more.

If anyone in the San Diego area wants help and some wire send me a PM

Kritter said:

Try connecting the two coils in series instead of only using one or wiring them in parallel. That should give twice the voltage at idle. There are only two ways to connect them in series. One will give almost no voltage and the other will give about twice the voltage. Just try both until it works.