Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Seeking LED advice

I'm thinking of removing the stock front turn signals on my 05 Speedmaster, and replacing them with these

http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wcs/sto...1&langId=-1

Apparently, each lamp has a total of 42 LEDs.

What if any modifications will I need to do to the Triumph electrical system?

Thanks

Before you pay out the cash check your local DMV laws. Some states have a law that any vehicles made after (some specified year) must have AMBER turn lamps, not red as your link shows.

No sense getting a citation for illegal turn signal.

But good luck anyway.

The fronts are amber, and the rears are red - they're dual faced, but I'll check the the laws to be sure. It's legal for rear facing red signals on certain trucks, but I'm not sure about bikes. Thanks for the tip.

FWIW, I priced them at $36 each delivered. They're made for trucks, which is why they don't cost $136 each, which would be the case if they were made for motorcycles. ;-)

Martin, be sure to ck. if they run DIRECT off of 12VDC as some LED fixtures I've looked at have to have an expensive power supply(not a space problem in a truck).
Also, if you use the dual face version on the bike front you may have to put some foil or other barrier on the back side to keep from blinding you during night turns.
Please post your findings and esp. if you buy them as I am interested. Be careful. Bob.

Good question on the power supply. I'd never heard of that, so I just emailed Truck-Lite for the answer. I'm also curious why there are three wires. Perhaps there is a running light involved.

I'm looking forward to the rear signal illumination for daytime signaling, to give a little extra mid-ship communication, but you're right about the night. They may prove a bit bright. Chances are they will mount horizontally off my auxiliary light bar when I get time to make up some bracketry.

Got a timely answer back from Truck-Lite:

Martin,

The lamps are 12V only.

Red = Stop & Turn
Black = Tail or Park
White = Ground

Thanks,

Karen DeRemer
Technical Support Representative
Truck-Lite Co., Inc.

You're aware those things are 4.5 inches wide and 2 inches thick? They're gonna be huge sticking out either side of the bike! It doesn't list the width of the mounting bolt but it'll be sizeable. There's also only 21 LED's per side - there's easier and probably cheaper ways of getting that many (or more) led's.

If you want to use LED's as turn signals you'll either need to put load equalisers on to slow the flash rate to normal, or replace the flasher with one designed for LED's. Using them for tail/brake lights doesn't require any wiring changes to the bike.

The lamps arrived today. They definately aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I like them. Years ago, most truck lights resembled these, with small hemispheres molded into the lenses. They're a bit of nostalgia for me, if you will. I'm leaning toward mounting them directly under the Triumph auxiliary lights in a vertical orientation.

As for the lens colors, I'll look into swapping out the lenses. I don't think the police will bother me too much though. I'd like to have an extra set of red lenses shining rearwards for night riding, as the one little tailight isn't much to wake up the drunks behind me. Is it legal to have a rear facing amber running light? One would think so.

One more question - I had the fuel tank off the other day, and there were three plug-in modules on the top of the frame. Was one of those the flasher? If yes, which one, or, where is the flasher unit?

According to superbrightleds.com there are at least three types of 3 prong flasher units. Ours is the German/Euro type.

can we replace just the rear turn signals with an 1156 type red LED bulb, or do we need some kind of resistor/ballast so the front ones will continue to work? If the LED appears like a short to ground (very low ohms/watts) then it would seem that the electrical current would bypass the front turn signal and go thru the low-resistance LED strait to ground instead??? If we need a resistor, does it go in series with the rear turn signal (vice in parallel across it)??

Replacing globes with LED's in turn signals requires you to either replace the flasher with one suitable for LED's, or put a "load equaliser" in parallel with the LED's. This applies even if you replace just the front or rear, tho if you're going to do some you should probably do all, just to gain the benefits of LED's.

You'll also probably find that if you're putting LED's in turn signals you'll need to modify the turn signal warning lamp too by adding some isolation diodes to it, or you'll end up with 4 way flashers instead of turn signals. For more info about this, see this thread and this one too.

How about this for a mod? A switch in place to disengage or engage the diodes?

Emergency flashers or not!

Switching the diodes in and out would work - you'd need to flick the switch and select left or right for hazard lights, but I can see three problems with that:
- it'd be even messier than wiring the flasher up for 4 ways
- the warning light wouldn't work during 4 ways
- the limited amount of spare space under the console (especially if you have a tach or clock) would make it impractical.

In the next couple of days (work permitting) I'll be doing a write up on how to make a very simple & cheap LED replacement globe for the turn signal warning light WITH the isolation diodes built into it. I'd recommend you do that, and the 4 way mod on my site. (You'll also be able to use that circuit to make "daylight visible" LED globes for the other warning lights by ignoring the diodes and selecting the appropriate coloured LED).

The finished product - in hopes to help reduce the ever popular: "I never saw him coming" factor.

The stock Triumph light bar was moved forward on two sections of angle iron, so as to preserve the integrity of the Memphis shield.










The new LEDs positioned at outermost portion of light bar are both running lights and signal flashers, and are visible to motorists approaching from the rear with rider aboard, giving me three large rearward red running lights, as opposed to one dinky tail light, in hopes that may keep a drunk or two from climbing my backside. The excess lamps (except for front signals circuit) are wired through the stock light bar switch, so I can shut off all the excess lamp bagagge when starting the engine. By using the flasher unit from superbrightleds.com, which fits perfectly into the factory socket and rubber boot, I needed no other modifications to make this work.

One note of minor interest - if one uses the handlebar end signal light wiring circuit, the front signal will alternate flashing with the rear signal, apparently from the way the front signals are grounded. If one uses the signal wiring from the wiring harness inside the headlight bucket, the front & rear signals will flash in unison. I opted to use the headlight wiring harness to drive the fronts. The quarters inside the headlight bucket are cramped at best, and with a two inch section of wire to graft into, making a solder gun and heat shrink work in there takes some patience, but isn't too hard to pull off. I think I only burned myself twice in the process.


The LED mounting bars are 3/8 thick radio antenna mounts made of heavy polished aluminum strap stock - around $10 with holes already drilled to perfect sizes. The upper amber lamps on the windscren are scavenged Triumph front signal lights, pressed into duty as running lamps. I'm toying with the idea of hole sawing the windscreen and placing the scavenged lamps within so as to illuminate the entire windscreen in amber at night. I do believe this would work, kind of like fiber optics, if you will. (I am a sick puppy, I know.) I'll be fitting some 3 watt LEDs into the running lights to ease up on the wattage requirements. The over all look is definately not to everyone's taste, but it works for an old fart like me. Arrive alive! If Ol' Mr. J. C. Whitney himself could see this testament to electric gee gaw-dom, I believe it would bring a tear to his eye.

postscript -- The little doo-dads visible on the LED mount bars are deer whistles - The little black square things near the mirror mount stalks are wide angle mirrors - I told you I was a sick puppy.

Next project - combining 1" stainless U bolt clamps with Panavise mounts for sat radio and Valentine One implementation.


At $20 each, the Panavise cell phone mounts seem much cheaper than anything I could find labeled "for motorcycles."
http://www.panaviseonline.com/product.php?id=238
http://www.dxengineering.com/products.asp?ID=14

what is that !!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????

christmas tree????????????????

man better buy a goldwing

upon reflection, post edited

dirt on a bike !!!!!!!!!

mine almost always look like off road !!!!!!!
just now I'm taking rear mudguard off need to take all rust off and spray

Are you still getting the vibration from those outer signals?

Yeah I noticed that at Pat's. Looks good now.