My LED journey

Having only rode my SECA 500 miles in the last 4 years I considered long and hard about selling it this summer just to relieve some guilt. Even went so far as to list it on Ebay (joke) and here as well. You guys really laid some guilt on me telling me to pack it in mothballs and I think it was Bigfitz that said "you really need to find a way to keep that thing".... Anyway, when the e-bay did not turn out the way I planned I figured I would list it locally so I thought I had better give it a good cleaning... Which I did!

Got up the next morning and thought I would just take it out for a fill up. Wrong! A 3 mile ride to the gas station turned into a 130 mile jolt thru southwest Ohio and southeast Indiana. On the way home as I was running hard on Indiana 126 I remembered why I liked riding so much - HELL NO I'AM NOT SELLING.

This brings me back to the heading on this post. I decided that I would take care of some of the things that have bothered me about the bike. The electrical system always seemed to be week, the flashers would not blink if the motor was running under 2000rpm the headlight would dim every chance it got and the battery never kept a decent charge. Well as luck would have it that last ride took its toll on the battery because Monday night after work it was dead. Great time to buy a new battery so off to wally world for a $31 special. Actually took the time as hard as it was and followed the directions letter by letter not installing it until the tender said it was ready. Sent the wife to the store for refreshments and yaked the cover off of the alternator. Black and dusty inside but the brushes were far from the "line". Cleaned everything up and put the cover back on. 1 beer down..... I thought I could here a cry of jellousy from the starter so I had to give it some attention. It too was dusty and dirty but the brushes were in good shape so I cleaned everything and put it back together. 3 beers down....

The green light on the tender meant it was time to try it out. WOW, the starter has never spun so quickly! The bike started instantly causing the wife to come out to the garage and remind me that I am on my fourth Silver Bullet.

We jumped in the car (she drove) and headed to Autozone to look at their LED selection. All they had were some amber 4 led 194's that I thought I would use in the gauges. Took them home and installed them in the gages as indicator lights for the turn signals. They were way too bright and most of the time would not draw enough juice to get the flashers working so I decided to move them over and use them as the back lighting for the gages. I'll attach a picture but as you will see they are too dim for this application and since they are amber the speedometer and tach needles are somewhat hard to find at speed.

I went ahead and ordered a pair of red 24LED 1157 bulbs for the tail light and a white LED bulb for the license plate from superbrightleds.com. The license plate bulb casts that "cool white" color on my plate and looks good in my opinion. The tail lights while a very cherry red did not put out as much light as I would like.

I found a product you guys may be familiar with called "ElectroPods". They look like little dominoes that you played with when you were a kid. They are designed to connect directly to your brake light and flash repeatedly when you press the brake. I decided to notch out my plates and push them thru from the back side thereby hiding the wires. These are the ticket fellows in my opinion. They are visible during the daylight hours but when the sun goes down they really make the visual statement. They are incredibly annoying to stair at when you are sitting at a red light. I have noticed that cars following me tend to stop further back now than when I did not have them. I'll attach a photo below but for some reason my camera just cant show the true output they give also you will see that my tailight appears orange in the picture but is indeed a nice cherry red.

What the above has given me is the following.

Increased visibility!
No more dimming of the lights when idling.
Nore more dimming of the lights when I hit the brakes
It has allowed me to once again use a 55watt bulb in the auxillary lamp
Best of all, after a short ride I can throw an ohmeter on my battery and get a reading of 13.2 volts

I'll include a video of the Electropods if I am able


Riding is fun!!

 

You don't even have 10,000 miles on her yet?? Go out now and go for a 26.7 mile ride and smile when she turns 10,000. LOL most of us are way past that mark Still going strong almost 50,000 miles later(on this engine, well over 80,000 on this bike) and have heard of them easily going 100,000 miles without any problem. Just keep up the oil changes and stuff.

Sean

 

Thanks for writing this!

Glad you decided to keep the bike, it would be a shame to forget how much fun these bikes are.

So it sounds like you did the following:

Cleaned alternator
Starter
Replaced indicator, gauge, and tail light bulbs with l.e.d's

Is that all?

 

Is that all? HE DECIDED TO KEEP THE BIKE AND RIDE IT!!! the rest are just details...

 

Well this was called "My LED journey"

So I was assuming this was about lighting and electrical

The fact that the author kept the bike is just a bonus

 

Mechanically yes but the benefits are what I was riding at. :lol:

Also wanted to share the amber led in the gages mistake and what to expect or not to expect when they replace the 1157's with led units.

Never added much of anything to this forum so I had to give it a shot

P.S. I ordered a pair of white 6led 194 bulbs today. Will post a before and after pic of the gages when they are installed

 

Yeah, that too!