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LED conversion difficulties
Written by douglasvanb on 2/12/2012 at 04:56 pm

Dave,

The bulbs I bought are as follows:

1157 brake lights (red): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004C8L1AE/

1157 turn signal lights (white): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005NTII0C/

1156 turn signal lights (white): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005296PZS/

T-10 base (license plate / instrument cluster):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047RV8WG/

T-10 base (Honda Marine voltmeter): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JSFH3G/

When I purchased the bulbs, I wasn't able to find yellow LED 1157 or 1156 bulbs
that I was happy with. The white bulbs I ended up with work surprisingly well
though. I used two different T-10 wedge bulb styles because of space
constraints. All of the stock T-10 bulb locations on the bike work fine with
the first link. The Honda Marine voltmeter has too shallow of a space to use
the same bulb. The second T-10 link works just fine and has plenty of
visibility when lit up at night in the meter housing. I don't think the second
T-10 bulb would work very well in the stock T-10 locations on the bike though.

Once I have everything up and running, I will ask BartMan to pose his PC next to
mine so that we can take side-by-side comparison photos.

With regards to resistors, I would prefer to do a full LED conversion without
having resistors so that I don't have big voltage swings when stopped and with
my blinker on. The reason for wanting this is two-fold.

Firstly, my heated gear already pushes the bike close to its limits and I need
to add another piece of heated gear to keep me from turning into a Popsicle.
I've done some testing and found that if the line voltage drops too low, the
Heat Troller that I use shuts down and requires fiddling with the controls to
restart. Those conditions occur when I have my turn signal on, the engine is at
idle, and I add another piece of heated gear beyond the gloves and socks that I
run now. Based upon my probing of the bike's electrical system, converting all
of the lights including the turn signal portion of the lights to LED will ensure
that I never run into this scenario in the future.

Secondly, I will be implementing the fuel injection system I've been working on
and I fear that the system will require more watts than the current carbureted
system requires. A precipitous drop in voltage could reset the fuel injection
computer or drop fuel line pressure. Both would be undesirable.

Bottom line: I'm trying to squeeze every last watt possible out of my bike.
(just imagine me wringing the stator like a wash cloth :-) )

Cheers!

Douglas

--- In ipcrc@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Long" <dave13@...> wrote:
>
> Doug [et al]:
>
>
>
> First, a question. What LEDs did you use in the tail/brake lights? I used
> an 1157(red) replacement and it's a bayonet style that shoots the light
> upward. At night it's OK, but other riders complain by day. I'm trying to
> find a reasonably priced 1157 LED that has the "right angle" configuration
> for the PC's rear light setup. This was to fix my incandescent bulbs that
> were dim. I guess that this didn't fix my problem.
>
>
>
> Next, my experience. I have a brake light modulator that flashed the lights
> three times before they stay on for the duration of braking. I am not sure
> of the brand name-it came with my PC800 so I didn't acquire/install it
> myself. That seems to alleviate the need for resistors in-line with the
> LEDs. [Oh, why are you against some small resistors with the LEDs?]
>
>
>
> Dave
>
> 89 PC800
>
>
>
>
>