To LED or not?

[spear]

Greetings all.

I recently decided to 'upgrade' the lighting on my bike by replacing the standard tungsten turn indicator bulbs with those LED 'bulbs'. Ordered a couple on eBay. Nuh! No good.

Oh, they work alright but flash like a machine gun.

Spoke with a sparky mate and he told me that lower load is the problem.

So I'm back to the standard bulbs and have put the LEDs in my tin tops' reversing lights.

Anybody else fooled by this? The LEDS are advertised as useable as turn indicator bulbs.

[Silverado6x6]

Here is a redneck fix for those pesky turn signal woes, splice in a parallel light socket for a small regular bulb such as a 194 or such, paint it black and tuck it up in the fairing before the front turn signals, flasher "feels" a regular resistive filament lamp.

[IronMike]

What he said will work as an equilizer and be much cheaper and cooler. Just have a spare.

 

I am returning the custom dynamics turn signals is not Truly FOR the venture but a generic metric kit you must make work with hocus pocus and an equilizer and at the end you can't really use your flashers.

 

But I did install a double bar LED license plate frame with run turn brake and plate light. 100% satisfied!!!!

Also did the 100 LED tail light 100% on that too.

[Flyinfool]

I no longer have a single incandescent bulb on my bike, that I know of. I have converted to all LED and HID.

It takes some work to do but is not that hard. It also takes the use of good quality LED bulbs. Quality LEDs are not inexpensive.

The LEDs and HID I used are all a lot brighter than the stock bulbs, and the reduced draw on the stator is very noticeable. I will never go back to filaments.

[JimElvis]

Greetings all.

I recently decided to 'upgrade' the lighting on my bike by replacing the standard tungsten turn indicator bulbs with those LED 'bulbs'. Ordered a couple on eBay. Nuh! No good.

Oh, they work alright but flash like a machine gun.

Spoke with a sparky mate and he told me that lower load is the problem.

So I'm back to the standard bulbs and have put the LEDs in my tin tops' reversing lights.

Anybody else fooled by this? The LEDS are advertised as useable as turn indicator bulbs.

 

Te right way would be to solder in a resistor for each bulb made for this purpose

[kantornado]

Same as Flyinfool. It was the best move I made and will not go back to standard bulbs.

Well worth the money(if nothing more then a safety reason) At night when I look in the mirrors and start to slow down I can see the road in red behind me. The turn signals are crisp and clean and our seen even in bright sun light.......

[Godlover]

I have Led and installed the Kuryakyn load equalizer so my rear turn signals work as brake lights plus you get the flashing brake light. It plugs right into the wiring harness on my Road Star. Very happy with it!

[Flyinfool]

Greetings all.

I recently decided to 'upgrade' the lighting on my bike by replacing the standard tungsten turn indicator bulbs with those LED 'bulbs'. Ordered a couple on eBay. Nuh! No good.

Oh, they work alright but flash like a machine gun.

Spoke with a sparky mate and he told me that lower load is the problem.

So I'm back to the standard bulbs and have put the LEDs in my tin tops' reversing lights.

Anybody else fooled by this? The LEDS are advertised as useable as turn indicator bulbs.

 

I missed this in the original post.

If they are usable as reversing lights, this means that they are white LEDs, When converting to LED you ALWAYS want the LED color to match the color of the lens or the color of the needed function. White LEDs behind a colored lens will always give poor results.

[MikeWa]

You can also modify the flasher to solve this issue. That said I put leds in the front and left the bulbs in the rear and let her flash a little fast. Gets attention.

 

Mike

[ACE50]

I put LED's on one of my bike's and ended up changing them back. Regular bulbs are uni-directional in brightness while LED's are directional. Only bright where they are pointing. Unless you spend high dollar on the better designed ones. $100 vs $2. What a waste!!!

[Guest tx2sturgis]

I put LED's on one of my bike's and ended up changing them back. Regular bulbs are uni-directional in brightness while LED's are directional. Only bright where they are pointing. Unless you spend high dollar on the better designed ones. $100 vs $2. What a waste!!!

 

I agree.

 

For the tiny amount of current saved, if any, and the 'possible' gain in visibility, if any, I say, stay with the factory bulbs for the turn signals. They just work, reliably, and well. If you can find some 'drop-in' replacement modules that will work with the existing flasher, and are willing to pay for them, ($$$) then I'm not going to argue that of course. But the cheapo fleabay bayonet style LED's, with or without load resistors, is an 'iffy' solution, at best.

 

Now the brake lamp, thats a diffent story, at least on the Gen 2 RSV. The brake lamp housing has no optical reflector in it, to 'aim' the light to the rear, so the factory bulb appears dim...and can use an upgrade. LED modules to the rescue!

 

The forward lighting on these bikes can use some upgrades, too, but in my opinion, a drop-in HID is not the answer. Unless the entire beam housing/reflector is changed, and the ballast is 'motorcycle specific', I will pass.

 

Add halogen or LED driving lights, and you have a winner!