LED Driving lights, Light up your life.

[Crazcnuk]

Nothing gets dimmer. You can put whatever lights on you want.

What happens is, if you have too much draw, the lights still light up ok, but eventually your battery goes dead, then the bike will quit.

You can run big lights, if you are prepared to turn them off periodically to let your battery recharge.

Derwat used to get about 160kms before his would die. Basically if you ran them out on the open highway, then shut them off for each town, you might be allright. Just keep your revs up in town.

He had driving lights, hand warmers and a heated vest.

In my experience, most driving lights light up about 50' in front, about the same place as low beam. They do very little for highway driving. People seem to think that thier high beam is dim because it isn't reflecting off the road right back at them. Truth is, high beam is not supposed to light up the road right in front of you, it's trying to show you what's way ahead, and if there is nothing there, nothing reflects.

"If you wire in a load resistor you might as well just switch back to standard bulbs for the flashers"

Only if you run with your flashers on all the time. Since the flashers are hardly ever on, run-time wise, you still get the power savings.

[WMarshy]

In my experience, most driving lights light up about 50' in front, about the same place as low beam. They do very little for highway driving. People seem to think that thier high beam is dim because it isn't reflecting off the road right back at them. Truth is, high beam is not supposed to light up the road right in front of you, it's trying to show you what's way ahead, and if there is nothing there, nothing reflects.

Thanks Crazcnuk, I do most of my riding in the "back woods" and not so much in town. It would be nice to have the extra light aimed at the ditches while high beam is on. Last night I counted about 15~25 deer on a 10 mile round trip after dusk. Spot light wouldnt be a bad idea either... hmmm

[cywelchjr]

"If you wire in a load resistor you might as well just switch back to standard bulbs for the flashers"

Only if you run with your flashers on all the time. Since the flashers are hardly ever on, run-time wise, you still get the power savings.

I'm not sure how that would work? Since the lights only come on when flashing, adding the load resister makes them take the same current when flashing as the regular bulb, so I'm not seeing where the savings comes in. Unless your talking about the marker light function often found on the front? That could be a point there, but then again, I find that the auto cancel is almost every time too quick anyways, so for me losing it is a plus, not a minus. Of course I have yet to replace the turns with LED bulbs, since as said they only come on when flashing, but it's in the plans. The brake light however (especially with the Vetter trunk and it's light array) is very well worth the savings. I'll be replacing those in the trunk on friday, cause man does the headlight dim when I apply the brakes, but at least the world lights up behind me when I'm stopping.

[MindWebs]

Overkill

Very good information!! HID's may be an option, the ones i've seen ran
$300-900 bucks. Way out of my limits.

hmm, that has me thinking... dual headlights... HID....

if the current draw is 35watts and standard bulbs run 55watts, that should be
acceptable..

but overkil...

there's no kill quite like OVERKILL

led gauge lights? hmm, I'll have to look into that!! What's the bulb Number?
i'm allready using led's for the rear turns..

i'm needing hard cases, I plan to add led turns and brake lights onto the hard bags

You can NEVER have to many lights..
(i ran a 200 amp alternator on my old chevy PU)

[Crazcnuk]

All the info is here:

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...highlight=LEDS


Yes, Cy, we are not concerned about the current it takes to signal a turn. Just the lights that are on all the time.

Both my front and rear turn signals are set up with dual filament bulbs, plus I have the 4 in the trunk, and 2 in the taillight.

Putting the resistors in, though, would seriously cut into the time I can run my 4-way flashers, in an emergency.

I haven't set my vetter turnk lights up as brake lights however.

Making ALL the rear facing red lights into brake lights defeats the purpose of high mounted brake lights.

I did consider making the outer two trunk lights flash with my signals, if I could find orange lenses, and making the center 2 come on ONLY when the brakes are on, but haven't actually done anything yet.

[MindWebs]

Thank you very much!
I'm still a bit forgetful about searching threads...

i believe the full LED upgrade + the HID upgrade will take care of the power
issue's i'm looking at.

Thank you Gents!