led brake lights

Is it possible to just wire in an LED tail/brake light?
By the way, YOU GUYS RULE!
Thanks for all the help.

 

its overly possible
(you just have to find one bright enough)

 

they wire in no problem, I'm not sure what kind of bike you have but if you have a seca with the computer on it then you will get a warning light because they do not draw as much amperage (which is a good thing). I think I saw a topic somewhere that tells you how to fix this with some soldering.

 

I put a 4" Brake/Park/Turn LED setup into my rear brake light housing and it works awesome. The unit came from Princess Auto for $14 CDN. I stripped it out of it's housing, trimmed the board down so it would slide into the red plastic lens housing, then siliconed it in place. As it also had 4 of the LEDs in a license plate configuration, I made sure they were pointing down through the clear portion to act as the license plate lighting before using the silicone. Finally, I took the glass bulb off of one of the actual lights, fed the 2 wires into the bulb housing and soldered them into the respective holes. I filled the bulb housing with potting compound for strength, then plugged the bulb into the original socket and voila...LED rear lighting. I could tear it apart and take pictures if anyone wanted to replicate what I'vve done. The result is a much brighter lighting that can be seen easily by anyone following me.

 

All you need to do is replace the stock 1157s with the LED version. IMHO they are brighter too. But if you want to change out the tail light any LED version should work.

I also wired an LED strip to mine that I hung off my plate. They are designed to flash 5 or 6 times when you apply the brake then stay on solid.

 

Hello Johno,
Do you have a pic of the final product handy?
Can you remember the part you got from Princess?
I've been planning on doing something like this and your description sounds like a good fit for my bike.
Thanks

 

SirHedgehog:

Sounds like royalty to me...here is a picture of the bike with the tailght showing. If you want closeups, I can go down, take em and post em. Here is the led assembly from the P.A. online catalogue...I got it when it was on sale, this is the full price.
LED STOP/TURN/TAIL LIGHTS
G) 4" ROUND LIGHT
• 8 to 14 VDC
• Clear polycarbonate lens with 10 pc. super
flux LEDs
• Lens appears clear when not activated
AMBER-TURN/TAIL
8181919 – Wt. 0.4 lbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.99
RED – STOP/TURN/TAIL
8006326 – Wt. 0.4 lbs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.99

 

Thanks Johno!
That'll do fine for pics.
How's the weather on the other side of the country?

 

Although I've been out 3 times in the past 2 weeks, the temp is still averaging at 4C...WWAAAAHHHH. Snowflurries today mixed with rain and hail and sun...really weird. But this is life in April in Nova Scotia, gotta love it!! I'm glad the led info helped. If you need more (Your Honour), let me know.

 

I used an oblong LED brake light made for a trailer on mine. It's really bright and looks better than the old two bulb unit that comes stock on the Seca.
With the running light on:



With the brakes on:

 

Oh ya, another idea that I'm actually doing on my Honda Shadow is...
I'm taking the LED lights out of another LED trailer light and gluing them inside the stock tail light lense on my Shadow. It'll look stock until I hit the brakes! The Shadows tail light happens to be just the right size to accept the LED curcuit board.

 

Here's the link on modding the SECA computer, in case you need it: http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... art=0.html

Cheers,
Paul

 

Pictures of that would be awesome!

 

I added some LED pod lights to the back of my sissy bar works great people seem to stay back further from me. I spliced them into the brake light wiring and they only go on when the brake is applied.

the reaction time between the stock and led lights is about a second or 2 . And just tapping fast the brakes makes them look like a strobe

 

Pictures? You say you want pictures? Maybe tomorrow.
I took the guts out of the LED light today (the curcuit board with all the LEDs in it) Now all I need to do is solder the three wires to the base of an old 1157 bulb and screw it in. Then screw (or glue) the LED curcuit board in place. I may just use the screws that hold the lense on to hold the board in place instead of gluing it. If for some reason I want to remove the LED lights, I can always just put the old bulbs back in.
Another idea would be to just get rid of my stock tail light all together and use the entire LED light, like I did on my Yamaha, but I like the stock tail light that's on it now.

 

Here's the light I used. The first photo is the light:



This is after I removed the curcuit board from inside the light:



Now all I have to do is wire those three wires to the base of a 1157 bulb. I just broke the glass out of an old bulb and used the three wires that go to the filiments and soldered the tail light wires to them. Now all I have to do is screw the base in like a regular bulb and the LED lights right up! The curcuit board fits right into the lense of the Shadow, so all I should need to do is use a small amount of Goop to keep it in place on both ends.