LED Auxiliary Lights

[sanjoh]

All lights in stock. The fancy connectors are not.

[FYYFF]

Just placed an order for 2 of 24w 3 mode and the switch. I hope it is not an overkill for a mostly city bike...


E.S.

Originally Posted by sanjoh

All lights in stock. The fancy connectors are not.

[pyrate]

Originally Posted by Hababam

Just placed an order for 2 of 24w 3 mode and the switch. I hope it is not an overkill for a mostly city bike...


E.S.

Nope! Ride mine around SoCal w/ the lights on all the time. Mostly on medium setting. People definitely are seeing me better. No high beam flashes either yet. I think they definitely see you better when you are following them in a different lane (day and night) and I have had fewer issues of people merging into my lane. If anything you can see them looking harder in the mirror probably saying, "What is that?!?! A UFO?" I use the high beams on the back roads. You can always angle the mounting a bit and keep things to your benefit.

Overkill - well, we like overkill but in general I think you will enjoy them and be safer for it.

[FYYFF]

Sounds great. Now all I have to do is go through the whole threat and find out how to install them on a 990 and how to make them work adjustable in low beams but full power with highs, if that is possible. :)

E.S.

Originally Posted by pyrate

Nope! Ride mine around SoCal w/ the lights on all the time. Mostly on medium setting. People definitely are seeing me better. No high beam flashes either yet. I think they definitely see you better when you are following them in a different lane (day and night) and I have had fewer issues of people merging into my lane. If anything you can see them looking harder in the mirror probably saying, "What is that?!?! A UFO?" I use the high beams on the back roads. You can always angle the mounting a bit and keep things to your benefit.

Overkill - well, we like overkill but in general I think you will enjoy them and be safer for it.

[pyrate]

Originally Posted by Hababam

Sounds great. Now all I have to do is go through the whole threat and find out how to install them on a 990 and how to make them work adjustable in low beams but full power with highs, if that is possible. :)

E.S.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showp...9&postcount=53

Post 53, page 4 has pictures of a 950 mounted. I don't know if that carries over to a 990 or not.

If you are using the stock dimmer light I am not sure how you would get the dimmer to work w/ automatically w/ your hi/low beams. But then again, I prefer riding to wrenching.

[FYYFF]

They have a 990 version. Ordered one already. Thanks for the heads up.
I love AdvRider... :)


E.S.

Originally Posted by pyrate

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showp...9&postcount=53

Post 53, page 4 has pictures of a 950 mounted. I don't know if that carries over to a 990 or not.

If you are using the stock dimmer light I am not sure how you would get the dimmer to work w/ automatically w/ your hi/low beams. But then again, I prefer riding to wrenching.

[syspig]

Originally Posted by Hababam

Sounds great. Now all I have to do is go through the whole threat and find out how to install them on a 990 and how to make them work adjustable in low beams but full power with highs, if that is possible. :)

I don't believe that's possible with the adjustables. There's no way to bypass whatever setting they are currently on, to go full power - you have to manually click through the settings. For what you describe with adjustables, you'll have to enable headlight highbeam, then manually cycle through the LED power settings until you are at 100%. Then of course, you'll have to do the reverse when reverting to low beam/low LED power.

This is obviously a pain in the butt if you're going from headlight/LED low to high routinley, as would be common for me. That's why several of us have gone with fixed LED's, with an external PWM dimmer to control low brightness, and relay to bypass the dimmer sending the LED's to 100% when headlight high beams are on.

Sounds like Sanjoh is coming out with something similar pretty soon. If you really want the function you describe - LED's going to 100% power automatically when headlight high beams are engaged - you might want to reconsider your purchase, and go with the fixed version. Until we see what Sanjoh has come up with, here's a post in this thread describing how some of us have done it on our own.

[FYYFF]

I already placed the order and just got the shipment confirmation. :(
I should have read the whole threat before I ordered them. Bummer.
I'll see what I can do with those. Maybe will keep those and got an other 2 with highbeams compatible. Then I can be seen from the moon. :)
One question, can I use a dimer (the one that you guys are using) on an adjustable 24w's instead of the one I got from Sanjoh? If not, why?


E.S.

Originally Posted by syspig

I don't believe that's possible with the adjustables. There's no way to bypass whatever setting they are currently on, to go full power - you have to manually click through the settings. For what you describe with adjustables, you'll have to enable headlight highbeam, then manually cycle through the LED power settings until you are at 100%. Then of course, you'll have to do the reverse when reverting to low beam/low LED power.

This is obviously a pain in the butt if you're going from headlight/LED low to high routinley, as would be common for me. That's why several of us have gone with fixed LED's, with an external PWM dimmer to control low brightness, and relay to bypass the dimmer sending the LED's to 100% when headlight high beams are on.

Sounds like Sanjoh is coming out with something similar pretty soon. If you really want the function you describe - LED's going to 100% power automatically when headlight high beams are engaged - you might want to reconsider your purchase, and go with the fixed version. Until we see what Sanjoh has come up with, here's a post in this thread describing how some of us have done it on our own.

[syspig]

Originally Posted by Hababam

One question, can I use a dimer (the one that you guys are using) on an adjustable 24w's instead of the one I got from Sanjoh? If not, why?

I'm just a dumb "follow the bouncing ball" kinda guy...other than being able to follow the instructions I linked to earlier, I don't claim to have any real understanding of how it all works. That's the long way of saying, "I don't know." ;)

Based on my understanding of how the adjustable units work, I'm guessing it might not work as expected. First, you would need to manually click through the adjustable aux lights to get them on 100%. Then assuming the dimmer would work in front of them, you might still have a problem with a relay tied to your high beams. Reason being - turning your high beams on/off quickly, might cycle the built-in intensity setting on the adjustable LED's.

Still, if somebody doesn't know for sure - it's certainly cheap enough to try. There's the eBay dimmer linked to earlier, or if you can solder, this dimmer kit can be had for $10 + shipping. I've used both it and the eBay dimmer, and find the kit works better and is far more flexible. One can click through 5 different power settings, use a dimmer, or both - all in conjunction with the high beam relay bypass that sets the aux lights to 100%. It's also easy to separate the dimmer/pushbutton from the circuit, unlike the eBay one. If one wants to get really fancy, it also supports LED indicator lamps showing the power status, and brightness settings.

I'm quite happy with it, and given that both the design and source code for the dimmer are available from the guy who designed it - I plan on flashing a custom setting to the chip that controls it, with only the settings I want.

But again - even if the above will work with your adjustable lights, my guess is Sanjoh's upcoming dimmer solution would as well - likely with less hassle. Might be worth waiting until we see what he has coming.

[viz]

Job done:

Not the best of pix - sorry. And please excuse the bugs - just completed a 2000 km trip to Wuk Wuk (look it up) - the insects there have taken over the planet!:





Handlebars - 5050 SMD strip leds - 5th one clipped off.

Top: daytime variables and fogs (gotta find a yellow lens cap for them). Have them running on medium in the daytime.

Inner bottom - 10w spots
Outer bottom - 24 watt floods.

Floods are excellent - variables and handlebar lights very good keeping the cages in line.

Spots - jury still out. Have not used them in real anger yet - only drive at night in the country if I really need too. Too much bouncy beef.

Am a bit concerned about the mounts - want to know from sanjoh if there are spares in case of a spill; will need to modify screws and nuts etc. Vibration loosens them and they are not a good option for fixing them in place. Spacers and a decent bolt with nyloc nuts will be sourced to improve the mounts.

Other than that - all good.

viz

[viz]

Yeah - one can never have too many lights

There is a local guy here who sells Vision X lights (I think that's the name) and rides an 1150. He has a whole heap of lights on his rig, tries out different combos. Looks like the Enterprise.

viz


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[oregoncoast]

Originally Posted by viz

PANIC AT THE DISCO!!


I just wanted to say that my one light got delivered promptly..thanks Sanjoh. I didn't realize these were supposed to be ordered in sextuplets

I post up pics of the light on the vintage race bike when it gets installed.....

[NomadS]

Originally Posted by syspig

Still, if somebody doesn't know for sure - it's certainly cheap enough to try. There's the eBay dimmer linked to earlier, or if you can solder, this dimmer kit can be had for $10 + shipping. I've used both it and the eBay dimmer, and find the kit works better and is far more flexible. .

seems kind of big. Where and how did you mount it? Pics?

[syspig]

Originally Posted by NomadS

seems kind of big. Where and how did you mount it? Pics?

Nah - it's tiny. About 1.25" by 1.75". The eBay one is about 1.5" x 1.5", but with the dimmer attached to it directly it's tougher to find a good mounting point. Here's a couple pics of both.




In the second pic, two kits are shown in addition to the eBay unit - one fully built with all the options, one bare bones with only the components installed necessary for a remote switch and/or dimmer.

Mine's not mounted yet, I've only wired it up for testing. I'm still looking for a good enclosure, have a couple on the way. I'll be mounting my dimmer module under the fairing somewhere - it will be small enough to zip tie securely in a number of places.

I've got this setup from HDB on the way, which I'll be using for on/off and cycling through dimmer settings. If I go with a remote adjustable dimmer knob as well (the kit supports using both), I'll just wire up a cheap potentiometer into my dash, and seal it up with silicone.

[sanjoh]

Originally Posted by Hababam

can I use a dimer (the one that you guys are using) on an adjustable 24w's instead of the one I got from Sanjoh? If not, why?E.S.

The 3 mode lights will not work with an external pwm dimmer is it will fight the pwm dimmer that is built into the light. The light will become a very bright strobe light.