| Author | Message | ||
     Jaredc01 |
Finally got around to picking up a fender eliminator kit from Jardine and managed to get it installed in the middle of a tornado watch yesterday. After doing the typical cutout for the license plate light, I was less than impressed with the light output from the factory brake / tail light. As it happens, I have an extra interior LED kit from my car when I purchased a secondary (better) LED kit. After a bit of soldering to remove the festoon ends, I've got a flat, 4 x 4 grid array of LEDs with a couple of wire leads...  And running off of a 9v battery...  It's currently sitting with a couple coats of liquid electrical tape drying, so I'm going to see about installing it in the morning / afternoon tomorrow. I'll take a few more pics along the way and update with the final product. I'm hoping it will look as good as I'm expecting! (Message edited by jaredc01 on April 05, 2014) | ||
| Jaredc01 |
Alright, got it done this morning, and I'm more than pleased with the results... Plenty of pictures coming right meow. I started off by adding a dab of gel super glue to each of the LEDs, and then set the LEDs into place in the clear portion of the taillight (after a thorough cleaning), and finally added a squirt of super glue to each of the open cavities:   This held in place immediately, and looks like it will hold permanently without issue. From there I put the whole thing back together quickly to test the results using a 9v battery: No flash...  With flash...  Looking good (and ignore the off-center look, it's the camera angle). From there I drilled a couple of small holes into the taillight housing for the wires to run through, added a bit of heatshrink tubing to the wires for the LED bulb, and ran the wires through:  After running the wires through, I soldered the factory pigtail to the new wires on the LED strip, and heatshrank them both:  Finally, I used a bit more liquid electrical tape on all sides of the holes drilled to seal them up (as a side note, I'm incredibly surprised at how little sealing there is in the factory tail; I wiped out quite a bit of dirt and dust from the inside of the housing):  And finally, installed on the bike and tested with the bike OFF. The bulb will be a bit brighter with the engine running due to the extra voltage, and I'm already more than pleased with the results!  Considering I had everything on hand to do this project already, I'd say it's a damn good free mod to make the pretty dismal light output from the tail light down onto the license plate considerably better. I hadn't thought about taking a before picture at the time (it was nearly 2 AM), so I don't have a before, but the after is quite impressive. I've got a few more LEDs left if anyone is interested in doing the same thing, though they're 3 x 1 arrangements of larger LEDs. I can probably solder on a couple of leads and attach two of them together to about equal what I've got here. Send me a PM if you're interested, I'll send them out for the cost of shipping with the leads already attached and ready to go. I've currently got enough extra to make 3 sets (so 6 total 1x3 lights). | ||
| Ratbuell |
Nice clean workmanship. My only concern would be clouding from the superglue - when I do installs like this, I use clear RTV to hold it in place, or clear silicone. Just a reference for future projects, in case you do get some of that white clouding. | ||
| Jaredc01 |
I thought about that beforehand, but I'm actually not that worried about clouding. If it does end up clouding it will act as a diffuser to even out the LED spread, or if it doesn't, then I'm still good where I'm at. Since it's in a location that's not going to be seen by anyone anyway, it's not a concern for me. I've got clear RTV silicone here, and had considered using it, but ended up liking the idea of super glue better due to cure time and bond strength. One set made up for Noobuel already...   | ||
| Ratbuell |
I will say (as someone who used to do component-level circuit repairs)...I LOVE seeing someone who knows how to solder  | ||
| Jaredc01 |
I've been soldering for roughly 12 or 13 years now. I'm still not an expert at it, but I've had enough practice to solder pretty well. Thanks for the compliment.  | ||
| Jaredc01 |
If anyone wants the other two, shoot me a PM before Saturday. |
