THE H1 & H7 Halogen-Booster KIT for your Young & Oldtimer!!!     parts


Do you also have the feeling that your headlights have been better? Then I probably have a solution for you here!

With the Halogen-Booster you can operate your H1 / H7 light bulbs with a selectable voltage of 13.2, 13.8 or 14.4 volts.

The special technology of the Halogen-Booster ensures that the selected voltage is also applied to the lamp! The halogen booster has a converter which generates the desired output voltage regardless of the input voltage. The selected voltage is measured directly on the lamp base by means of a reference line, thus ensuring that line losses etc. are compensated.

The installation requires a separate plus and ground cable for each lamp, which are connected directly to the halogen booster. The halogen booster itself requires 2x 1.5mm2 plus and ground directly to the battery, fused with 20A. A headlight cable (+) is simply connected to the halogen booster for control.

The halogen booster also has an optional switch or light sensor input. If the light sensor is used, it works automatically. This means that the lamps are operated at 'only' 13.2 volts during the day and automatically go to 14.4 volts when it gets really dark. This saves the lamps, especially if you have to drive with lights on during the day.

General features:

* Up to 1000 lumens of extra light from two standard bulbs
* Softstart bulbs
* Switch-on delay
* Permanent PWM operation with PLL regulation
* Built-in step-up converter
* Constant full brightness, regardless of the input voltage
* Selectable voltage to 14.4/13.8/13.2 volts measured at the lamp base
* Variable supply voltage 10.5-16.0 volts
* For standard H1 and H7 bulbs (separate supply connections)
* Powered by two AVR® Attiny45 Microcontroller
* Boardsize (76mm x 89mm)

From the beginning ....


most of the kits on the market consist of a relay and thick cables to get the full battery voltage to the halogen lamp, and yes, the lamps usually burn brighter. Mission accomplished !?

Not quite, ..... most lamps die an early death because the inrush current is extremely high due to the thick cables and the lamps then burn out prematurely because the lamps are already weakened by the higher operating voltage.

Another problem is that despite the direct connection to the battery, the desired 14 volts are not normally present on the lamp. The cause are line losses or resistance losses. With a relay kit you can usually bring about 13.2 volts to the lamp sockets, since these kits cannot do without losses either.

Sounds like it's better to leave everything as it is. After all, there are all of these 100% + halogen lamps or LEDs. However, anyone who has tested such super lamps comes to the conclusion relatively quickly that the + 160% higher brightness is more like + 6%. I tested some of these lamps but they didn't get the result I wanted, they were barely brighter. Then I also tested some LEDs, they are a bit brighter, but rather uncomfortable due to the 6000K color temperature.

So the question was, where can a bright 3500K halogen light come from?

The only way is to take a standard lamp and increase the operating voltage significantly!

Increasing the voltage with a relay kit to 13.2 volts brings already a visibly better result. Unfortunately, that was still not what I imagined under bright light. So, I took my laboratory power supply, voltage further up to 14, 14,5 up to 15 volts. At 15 volts, the halogen light is as I wanted it to be, white and super bright, but still unmistakably halogen light and not as cloudy soup as from an LED, just crystal clear light.

The disadvantage was that the bulbs life was, let's say, suboptimal. The 15 Volt alone was enough to wear out the lamp after a very short time, and what the high voltage couldn't do, the inrush current did.

So, something like an Halogen-driver had to be produced!

The Halogen-driver has to do several things; limit the inrush current, increase the output voltage to 14.4 volts and an under and over voltage protection. For this reason I built a halogen driver that limits the current when the lamp is switched on in order to bring the lamp up to temperature. After a preheating time of 1s, the voltage is increased to an operating level of 14.4 volts.

The Halogen-driver has a built-in step-up converter, which regulates and fixes the operating voltage for the lamp to adjustable 13.2, 13.8 or 14.4 volts. The halogen driver has a sensor line for measuring the actual operating voltage directly on the lamp base. In this way, all external factors such as cable lengths, contact points, etc. that cause voltage drops are compensated for.

The Halogen-driver has a separate input for the supply voltage of the lamps. This cable needs to be connected directly (without a relay) to the battery with a 20A fuse. The Halogen-driver logic itself is operated with the voltage of the original low beam, which comes from the light switch.

The power output at 14.4 volts is approx. 74 watts x2, plus 10 watts control losses. An H1 lamp has a light output of around 1550 lumens at 12 volts, that is 28 lumens / watt. This means that at 14.4 volts and measured 74 watts, a light output of approx. 2075 lumens is achieved. With 2 lamps that is 1000 lumens more light output. The light color changes significantly towards 3500K.

Tests have shown that a standard lamp lasts more than 1000 switching cycles and more than 150-250 hours at 14.4 volts. The service life depends on the brand of the lamp and the selected supply voltage.

If You are interested in a Halogen-Booster, please email me ....

{Side update}

March 2021

{Availability & Prices}

Halogen-Booster
40 Euro Just the Board & AVRs
--- Euro Kit
--- Euro Ready assembled

The Kit includes programmed AVRs and a pre-wound spool

{Manual}

Manual
Handbuch
Partlist / Teileliste
AVR1/2 hex-files

{Recommendations}

Landypedia Lamps
Spannungsabfall bei Kabeln


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HB schematic
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