need help with motorcycle lights(luxeon).....

hey, not sure if anyone has thought of this....but i am tired of the lil toy led arrays used as "aftermarket" lighting on motorcycles, most of the time they arent even as bright.

so matter taken into my own hands... i have 4 turn signals, right rear, left rear, front right and front left. i also have one brake light. each turn signal is about 2"dia and the break light is bout 4"x6". in the rear turn signals i want 2 ambers, and 2 red each...i dont think the stars will fit. how hard is it to do the smd soldering and doing the heat sink. i've only done through hole. i think for the front turn signals, i will just run 2 ambers each. and the tail light will be either 4 or 6 stars(they should fit).

i need help with how i can get the 2 lvls of dimmness that are needed. i was thinking bout getting a few buck puck or what not, and just under powering the lux's with them, then have a second on the brake or turn circut that will give the full juice. also sould i run reg lux's lux III's or the new k2's?

if i did the k2's then i would only need one per turn on each and 4 tail lights right..... thanx guys

btw i have an inova t3 as my emergency light with me at all times on my bike, love it.....

Watch the legality of doing what you're thinking about doing...

What kind of motorcycle is this??

legality isnt a problem. as long as it meets the sight distance and brightness levels, it wont be a problem. The bike is a 04 vulcan 750. there are some aftermarket stuff by signal dynamics, but they arent as bright as stock and they are D.O.T. approved i think. i am looking at the luxeons b/c the bike is a lil short when it comes to avaliable juice. the lux's should free up quite a bit, and in the near future there will be a new hid upgrade in the front (using tsx projectors off ebay) so that should free up quite a bit.

Hizzo3;

I am building a bike now. I plan on using a SHO ME LED Flasher module ( http://www.rimindustries.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=48510 ) , a pair of CC5W regulators from www.taskled.com - one for each side of the bike, a total of FOUR Luxeon III Stars (one per corner of the bike, amber up front and red-amber for the rear), FRAEN optics 25 degree spread, and some kind of custom housing for each corner. The flasher module gives you a reduced level of illumination for running, and turn / brake illumination level increase, and a SICK flasher effect for sitting on the side of the road (like a patrol cruiser's dash-mtd LED setup). My rear lights will be two housings, each mounted about where the rear footpegs bolt on the stock FXS frame. My rear fender is from a Honda VTX1800 RETRO, modified to go strutless. The license plate is hinged inside the bottom of the back of the fender, and deploys when I power up. Shut her down and the tags suck up into the fender. Nothin else on the fender - totally clean, which is why the tail lights are on each side. I have the flasher module and have been playing with it with assorted LEDs. My hope is the Luxeon III Stars coupled with the optics will punch out the folks trying to keep up. Luxeons and optics are in the mail, and the regs are about to be ordered once I extricate more money from my back end.

Keep us informed,a few pics would be nice if you get a chance BG.

C

Will do.

Boltgunner

i had planned on replacing the turn sigs with karyukin silver billets with clear lenses. and just epoxing the lux's on a metal plate...would that work?

The FRAEN optics are cheap, and should make the LED brighter to the front/rear. I don't have results yet but that is the way I think you will get the most bang out of the single LED concept...

Hey BG... was just thinking.... wont the regs smooth out the blinking effect of that flasher??????

I cannot say that I know what will happen. I am gonna check the ohms across the LED that will work with the flasher today just to see what is the deal. I confess that I am plugging and playing and I could end up with some smoking goo or parts for some later fireworks.

boltgunner said:

I cannot say that I know what will happen. I am gonna check the ohms across the LED that will work with the flasher today just to see what is the deal. I confess that I am plugging and playing and I could end up with some smoking goo or parts for some later fireworks.

Click to expand...

C

Well finally got my bike back from the shop. it was in cause someone backed into it causing 1200 in damage. But now that i have it back i can go back to work out this mod again.... i was looking closer at the amount of lum that my tail light should put out (theoretical) vs the theoretical lum yeild with the luxes.... I think i may go with 2 lux III's in red. and for voltage control i am looking at using a volt regulator and set it to an even 12 volts, and let it suck however much it wants in mA's. for the 2 stages (run/brake) looking at a d2dim module, i need to figure out what duty cycles are avialble on it though...
Any comments? i figure that this should be a moderate improvement (brightness) over the stock bulbs, and save quite a few watts.

While waiting for you to get back I found this and installed it on my extra run/brake lights which I put these in also iI had to put in a diode on the brake side feed to keep from grounding the ckt. I found that there is not enought differance in the high and low now so I may go with a single lux+fraen and one of Georges drivers.

my tail light setup the bike is getting ready to roll over to 200k miles this weekend.




C

I have been on hold waiting for the Lux III stars and FRAEN medium beam optics. Now I have them and I THINK I will be trying the Luxdrive Buckpuck 3021 regulator with my flasher module. No one out there seems to know how a regulator will perform when you send it 12 V 7% duty cycle at about 2 kHz - what my flasher module outputs for "tail" lighting. So, we spend a twenty and do a smoke check. :candle:

Did this to my bike over 1 year ago......Lux1 Indicators…..

Nothing fancy - Used the K.I.S method.....Just Amber Lux1's with Carclo optics mounted into aftermarket indicator bodies with power resistors to get the current right and an in-line resistor to get the flash rate right.



Close up of the modded indicator clearly showing the optic in its holder...





A bit blurry - but you get the idea...







By the way, I made the number plate light from a strip of 5 x 3mm white LED's

The tail lights are LED too….But I cheated on these.....they're store bought - as a direct plug-in.


Tim.

Timson said:

Did this to my bike over 1 year ago......Lux1 Indicators…..

Nothing fancy - Used the K.I.S method.....Just Amber Lux1's with Carclo optics mounted into aftermarket indicator bodies with power resistors to get the current right and an in-line resistor to get the flash rate right.

By the way, I made the number plate light from a strip of 5 x 3mm white LED's

The tail lights are LED too….But I cheated on these.....they're store bought - as a direct plug-in.


Tim.

Click to expand...

Not bad idea.....i used a resistor calculator.... and i got some funky values cause my bike goes from 12.8 idle to 14.6 a about 5k rpm. it was telling me i need like a 10ohm resistor and it would burn up like 10 watts.... not much better then i have now...but at 12.6 it told me that a 8 would do and burn up 1/4 watt. so to voltage regulation it is lol. anyone know how efficent this method is? keep in mind that my ultimate goal here is to free up juice for runnig tripple hids (1 bixenon headlight at 35/55 switchable, and 2 35w driving spots...haven't decicded if i wanna splurge for the bixenons or not). just stock will strech it with the running, but the luxes in the tail should free up enough for that.... it the start up i am worried bout. so soon i will even look at maybe a running light off switch to turn off all lights or something....dunno yet.

If you're looking for efficiency - A regulator is the way to go.

Triple HID Thats a lot of light.

When you mention 35/55 Bi-Xenon I presum you mean the ones that run a fixed 35W HID capsule with an extra 55W Halogen bulb grafted onto the lamp base as well.

Does the xenon lamp stay on whilst the halogen lamp is running.....I presume it does as HID's don't enjoy being switched on and off in quick succession. Newer ones do cope but their lifespan is compromised.

If this is the case....When all lamps are lit you'll be drawing almost 12A just for the headlights

What does the bike run as standard - on main beam......A single 60W ?
So that would mean with your new lamp set-up youre drawing an extra 7.5A over stock.

You're never going to be able to save that much power.


If you've yet to buy your headlight parts - then you may be better off ditching the single headlamp and fitting a pair of headlights (Streetfighter style) running Bi-Xenons.

The latest generation of Bi-Xenons just run a single HID capsule (No extra halogen lamp) and use a solenoid to move the capsule in and out to change the focal point and effectively give you a dipped and a main beam.
This means the HID arc is not getting switched on an off all the time,
You're getting both high and low beams
Loads of light output
and you're only drawing 3/4A more than stock main beam, which is neither here nor there....You can easily save that with your LED's


Tim

here is the type of hid i was looking at..... its a acura TL projector, has the solenoid in it for hi/low. was going to use standard ds2 bulbs at the i think 4800k color temp. and this is where the ballast comes in. http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=113699 that is the thread talking bout the ballast i want... i want it to switch from a 35 to 50 watts so that when i am out at night on a dark highway (which is what i drive bout 75% of the time) i run up the bulb and get much more light.

right now i am running the standard 55/65 H4 bulb from silverstar. and i've been told i can run 35watt driving lights, but they have to be switched and only turn them on on the freeway. that totals out to 125/135 watts of light putting out about 1900 lumens... the hid set up i was looking at (1 hid headlight, 2 hid fog lamps...the micro dx from hella look like good canidates) will do 105/120 putting out about 8400/9600 lumens. a normal car with hids and halogen fogs puts out @7800 lumens.

My major worry though is the ignighting....i guess i could have each start separatley, cause with the led conversions i should shave off almost 60-80watts of juice, and if i rev the engine during ignition it shouldn't be too much strain on batt, like 14 Ah at 12.5

Oooooh 50W HID :naughty: ....Now you've got me thinking......I want it.

You're gonna look like a 747 cominig in to land when you cruize down the highway
There'll be people getting out of bed thinking morning's here already.

Would love to see a final beam shot of those bad-boys.

The biggest strain on a battery is cranking over a cold engine (Especially a big twin).
Anything you can do to stop extra current draw during start-up is a good idea - then switch your search lights on once the engines running and your alternator is producing power.


Keep us posted,


Tim

Oddly enough, i work in a building that the landing flight pattern for Dallas fort worth international goes right over.....those 747's at night almost blind ya lol....
I just want a great amount of light....used to driving my jeep, and going to a motor cycle has me wanting more... BEAM SHOTS WILL BE DONE