Barbarin
Flashlight Enthusiast
TAIL / BRAKE / PLATE:
For me this one is one of the most important improvement you can do when it comes to lighting. Many bikes including the AT have a quite poor lighting on rear.
This light is the only one that will inform other drivers that you are there in low visibility conditions, but also will inform them that you are braking/stopping. If it fails nobody will see you, and your chances of being overruned increase dramatically.
Why LED?
1. It will not fail never.
2. When you brake it will light up more than 0,25 seconds faster than a bulb. This means at 110 Km/ h that the vehicle behind you will be informed 7,5 meters sooner. Having the car behind you stopping 5 meters behind you or overrunning 2,5 meters is a huge difference.
3. Finally even a really bright tail light will consume less than half the energy of a bulb.
In my case I used Luxeon III red diodes, 160 º, with no optics, four of them. Two are driven at 0,5 Watt each. The other two (brake) 1,5 Watt each). I used regulators to keep the current constant and made everything waterproof with clear epoxi.
I recomend to use different LEDs for tail and for brake. The reason is that it is much more noticeable when it is not just a increasing of the brightness but a change on the pattern. Unfortunately and probably for room reasons most of the bikes tend to use a single bulb, but you can improve it.
Finally, as the old incand bulb is usually responsible of the plate lighting, you will have to get your imagination to work to get it lighted again in white color if you are using just red buls. In my case I used a stripe of cool white 3528 LEDs, direct driven to 12 V. they are just 9, but the light is more than enough. The stripe is covered with clear epoxi, so no problem with water jets.
Here is the end business.
Brake. The quality of the pic is poor, but you can notice how the pattern changes, not just the brightness.
DAY TIME RUNNING LIGHTS/FRONT POSITION LAMPS.
Well, in most countries motorcycles have always their low beams on, so the position lamps are not that important, but if you can get the cars or other drivers to see you better, it will be safer for you. In my case I used a small stripe with 27 cool white 3528 LEDs. It is covered in epoxi, and the light output you get from them is as bright that you can drive on a dark road at 40-60 km/h just with them. If for any reason you need to stop your bike in the middle of a dangerous road they will help you to be more visible and won't consume quickly the battery. The stripe was like 5 Euro, and I glued it to a small aluminun profile.
On the pics you can see that due to its color and shape it is so visible that you can take pics of them even against the 100 Watt High Beams.
COCKPIT LIGHTS
Not the most important by far, but the ones the bike had when came to my hands were dim, some dead, and at the end they were getting 12 Watts (now is less than 1 Watts). Well, I used small cuts of simple led stripe, 6 pcs 3528 cool white to substitute each bulb. If you are interested I can post a tutorial. Here is the result: Better visibility and even distribution of light. Less than five Euro, and one hour job.
Hope you like it, and excuse my english.
By the way, I will do something soon with the high beams and turn signals.
For me this one is one of the most important improvement you can do when it comes to lighting. Many bikes including the AT have a quite poor lighting on rear.
This light is the only one that will inform other drivers that you are there in low visibility conditions, but also will inform them that you are braking/stopping. If it fails nobody will see you, and your chances of being overruned increase dramatically.
Why LED?
1. It will not fail never.
2. When you brake it will light up more than 0,25 seconds faster than a bulb. This means at 110 Km/ h that the vehicle behind you will be informed 7,5 meters sooner. Having the car behind you stopping 5 meters behind you or overrunning 2,5 meters is a huge difference.
3. Finally even a really bright tail light will consume less than half the energy of a bulb.
In my case I used Luxeon III red diodes, 160 º, with no optics, four of them. Two are driven at 0,5 Watt each. The other two (brake) 1,5 Watt each). I used regulators to keep the current constant and made everything waterproof with clear epoxi.
I recomend to use different LEDs for tail and for brake. The reason is that it is much more noticeable when it is not just a increasing of the brightness but a change on the pattern. Unfortunately and probably for room reasons most of the bikes tend to use a single bulb, but you can improve it.
Finally, as the old incand bulb is usually responsible of the plate lighting, you will have to get your imagination to work to get it lighted again in white color if you are using just red buls. In my case I used a stripe of cool white 3528 LEDs, direct driven to 12 V. they are just 9, but the light is more than enough. The stripe is covered with clear epoxi, so no problem with water jets.
Here is the end business.
Brake. The quality of the pic is poor, but you can notice how the pattern changes, not just the brightness.
DAY TIME RUNNING LIGHTS/FRONT POSITION LAMPS.
Well, in most countries motorcycles have always their low beams on, so the position lamps are not that important, but if you can get the cars or other drivers to see you better, it will be safer for you. In my case I used a small stripe with 27 cool white 3528 LEDs. It is covered in epoxi, and the light output you get from them is as bright that you can drive on a dark road at 40-60 km/h just with them. If for any reason you need to stop your bike in the middle of a dangerous road they will help you to be more visible and won't consume quickly the battery. The stripe was like 5 Euro, and I glued it to a small aluminun profile.
On the pics you can see that due to its color and shape it is so visible that you can take pics of them even against the 100 Watt High Beams.
COCKPIT LIGHTS
Not the most important by far, but the ones the bike had when came to my hands were dim, some dead, and at the end they were getting 12 Watts (now is less than 1 Watts). Well, I used small cuts of simple led stripe, 6 pcs 3528 cool white to substitute each bulb. If you are interested I can post a tutorial. Here is the result: Better visibility and even distribution of light. Less than five Euro, and one hour job.
Hope you like it, and excuse my english.
By the way, I will do something soon with the high beams and turn signals.
