Watch out for that tennis ball!

I got hit by a tennis ball this morning riding home from breakfast with your mom. On Geary Blvd next to the school, I saw a tennis ball bouncing on the floor and didn't really do much to swerve out of the way. Luckily it bounced and hit the fender rather than in one of the two worst other possible places like,

1. My head or
2. Under the wheel.


It wasn't coming too fast, but did surprise me. I'm not sure if I ignored the ball and failed to swerve intentionally or if I just froze when it happened. Either case, I'm glad nothing happened. It just bounced on the ground, hit the fender and ended up along side of the road somewhere else. It came on a big uphill slope, so I'm sure it kept sliding down the street behind me as I passed.

Another scooter close call?

HID issues

Originally I didn't care for HID's since there was so much trouble hooking them up to work on the Vino. People have been able to successfully ignite the HID at startup but have had trouble keeping the bulb lit. They suspect it's due to the Vino not being able to put enough electricity to keep the bulb running.

I've opened up some threads from the people at HID Planet.

http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?37218-Not-enough-power-to-maintain-HID-s-lit&p=372574#post372574

Someone with the same issue?
http://www.zumaforums.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4048&sid=819ac6398e3aa7325460c64f2026b484

After hours or research, I think I've figured out how this is going to work. I just need to be sure to hook up a relay directly to the battery and the HID's should be fine. If it still doesn't work, there's one other option. Replace the relay with a 10-15 second time delay relay. This will prevent the HID's from heating up while the battery is already working its hardest to turn the engine over.

Is the risk of this not working worth the money to do this? I remember back in the day when I bought my first HID kit for the Rav4, the used bi-xenon kit was $299! The has dropped significantly in the past 8 years. Nowadays a kit can be bought for $36 shipped! I recently sold $153 worth of extra scooter parts I had laying around when I bought the scooter originally. That pays for a higher end HID kit two times over, but I'm still hesitant to spend the money right now. $150 is 5 months worth of scooter gas!

The two kits I'm considering are made by the Retrofit Resource and DDM Tuning. Both have great reputations, have resaonable prices and also sell some of the harnesses and relays needed for my application.