Installing LED's in stock rear light

[1Animal1]

I was considering a new rear lamp as the old FZ6 version is a bit dated (especially when following newer bikes).

Looking, there are some good replacement items that are certified for the road (quite expensive for what they are), at the same time there's a few cheapies out there that lack brake light functionality etc and probably will be dull in comparison to the stock bulb.

I fancy doing something different - without having taken the unit off, I gather there's two 'live's' (for the brake and main lights) with one ground. I'm thinking about drilling the reflector and fitting my own red LED's in addition to the current bulbs - two sets for each light source. Possibly a cluster around the centre of the reflector with a larger cluster around the outside of the reflector for the brake lights (higher intensity LED's) - wire these in parallel with resistors & a couple of diodes and surely that would be it?

Am I missing anything.

PS. If this hasn't been done then I'll be happy to do a write up with pics on my progress (might look amazing or equally garbage)

 

[1Animal1]

popular mod then Blah

 

[Carlos840]

Personally i am not a big fan of LED taillights, they might be the future, but i always find that although they are great at night time, their visibility is poor during the day.

Now regarding your plan, all i can say is that there is only one bulb socket in there, with a dual filament bulb, 12v 5w/21w. And if memory serves me right only two wires going to that socket.

I have no electrical knowledge whatsoever, but i wonder if it is worth it, you can buy a quality unit for pretty cheap, will you be able to do something that works as well without spending almost as much?

Also, your creation will never be road legal, which could end up backfiring against you if you are pulled over. Or if you are involved in a crash, your insurance could turn against you if they found out you had a home made not road legal rear light.

 

[motojoe122]

LED lamps in lenses made for incandesent lamps don't work well. I had an LED in my tail light for about a week, it appeared very dim because the lens is not designed for it. Your best bet would be a motodynamics style tail light or sticking with stock IMO.

 

[1Animal1]

Thanks Joe

I've not really seen much on the subject, from what has been posted the conclusion was that LED's weren't as bright as incandescents. So I figured I'd go for high intensity LED's to compensate. I suppose the ready made lamps at least have the reflectors designed to fully take advantage of the LED light.

 

[MattR302]

Ok, I've done something similar to what you've described on both my bikes. I built custom circuit boards and mounted them inside the lens.

Here is the initial build of my FZ6 LED tail. Since then I picked up a few other tricks which will be on my Rev B tail light.

and a comparison to stock (left) vs my custom LED

Here is my Rev B build for my DR350 LED tail.

and a running/brake comparison

I'm currently experimenting with an integrated brake/turn signal unit for a friend's FZ6. Not sure just yet how visible the turn signals will be in the stock housing.

If anyone is interested in an all-red tail/brake light board for their FZ6, plug-n-play into stock wiring, just hot glue or silicone to the stock reflector, feel free to PM me

 

[dpaul007]

^^^I looked in to doing exactly that to my bike over the winter, but I havent had enough time to do it.

If either of you two want to build a few, I'm sure quite a few on here would buy

 

[1Animal1]

Now regarding your plan, all i can say is that there is only one bulb socket in there, with a dual filament bulb, 12v 5w/21w. And if memory serves me right only two wires going to that socket.

I have no electrical knowledge whatsoever, but i wonder if it is worth it, you can buy a quality unit for pretty cheap, will you be able to do something that works as well without spending almost as much?

Also, your creation will never be road legal, which could end up backfiring against you if you are pulled over. Or if you are involved in a crash, your insurance could turn against you if they found out you had a home made not road legal rear light.

The costs are relatively low in sourcing the LED parts and ancillaries, so this wouldn't be an issue.

and having looked, it appears that motorcycles in the UK do not have to have E marked lights to be legal - They will pass the annual MOT with no issues - I have some basic parametwers to adhere to such as making sure no other light interupts the operation, no flickering or flashing and a certain level of brightness.

 

[1Animal1]

Matt, That's absolutely spot on! also looks like the kind of schematic I've been looking at.

How do you get your board to differentiate between brake and side light?

I'll leave the questions there as just seen your statement at the bottom of your post

 

[MattR302]

Matt, That's absolutely spot on! also looks like the kind of schematic I've been looking at.

How do you get your board to differentiate between brake and side light?

I'll leave the questions there as just seen your statement at the bottom of your post

Nah that's cool. There's a couple ways of dimming them to differentiate between running and brake modes, either with resistors to limit the current, or pulse-width modulation (PWM). Brake light would be full brightness, running light would be dimmed either way. You could also do two separate circuits, one for each running and brake. On my DR350 tail light posted above, I've got 16 LEDs running at 12mA for running light, then 32 LEDs running at 62mA on brake light. I used low drop-out 12V regulators for a consistent output and to protect from any voltage spikes.

If anybody is interested in these types of things, I recommend reading through the stickies in this forum LEDs There's a ton of good information om there to get you started. For anybody not handy with a soldering iron, they can message me if interested in buying one.

 

[1Animal1]

Ahh yes I've been reading about PWM's, supposedly the proper way of doing it by all accounts? Not priced those up yet over here.

It's like learning to ride again, I got heavily involved in electronics at college, the calcs are my current stumbling block.

I'll have a look at those stickies - cheers Matt :thumbup: