LED spotlights ??

[Sibbo]

A friend sent me the url of these LED spotlights.
.http://cgi.ebay.com.au/12V-LED-Spot-Lig ... 2a0ad26225
They look good , they aren't that expensive and anything that provides more light is welcome .
Would you use them ?
Will my R80 ST be happy with 18 w extra draw ?

[Garnet]

They look great in the advert. Even if they are only "to be seen" lights as opposed to "see" lights they seem worth while.

When ever you are adding another draw to your electrical system you must do an audit of what you are currently useing. Count on the ignition drawing at least 10w and battery chargeing as about 30w then ad up all the bulbs that are on, plus the GPS and the phone charger and the heated ball warmers and all the junk that has been added.

Your bike comes with a 280 or 260w alternator at 4000 rpm. It should never be used at more than 80% continues duty, that gives you just over 200w to use at highway speed. That was when the bike was new. The lower the contiues draw the longer everything will last.

Go around the bike and unplug every electrical terminal that you can and clean all those little spades and bullits. This is very important where the + wire plugs into the diode board, starter relay and battery, as well as clean the main harnes grounds to the frame at the coils (and all other brown connetors).

Then read this article http://www.robfrankham.co.uk/bike/earthing_article.htm

Sorry I got so long winded but our bikes are all getting a bit long in the tooth and the charging system is often not understood and usually ignorerd if the little light goes out.

[Major Softie]

I would doubt very much if these will work as "to be seen" lights, because that would require that they have a beam pattern that doesn't blind oncoming traffic (one that "cuts off" at the top). Lights not designed to be legal running with your low beams generally are not appropriate for such use. Blinding oncoming traffic, while certainly announcing your presence, is not, in my opinion, safer.

Of course the photos and videos on the site are useless. You can make daytime into night and night time into day with the adjustments on the camera. Even when really trying to accurately depict the brightness of a light in a photo, it is VERY difficult to do. If one isn't trying, then it is even less likely.

There's no question that when it comes to lumens per watt, you can't do better than LED's, but there are many different LED's, and this ad only tells you the wattage, not the brightness. Some LED's now are much brighter than others for the same wattage, so it's very difficult to know if these things are very bright - compared to what the best units currently are able to do.

So, they could be fairly useless, or they could be pretty cool. If you order some, make sure you let us all know, and then . . . well . . . then we'll all know.

[gspd]

I have a buddy who spent big bucks to put similar lights (http://www.clearwaterlights.com/) on his KLR.
They are well made, extremely bright and totally annoying for oncoming traffic (or me in front of him when looking in my mirror) and are basically only good for slow trail plonking at night.
The beam doesn't project far enough and isn't focused enough to noticeably improve long distance visibility for real world night riding. I wouldn't put them on my bike if they were free. My PIAA H4 on high is all I need to piss everybody off but it's still inadequate for high speed night use.
Your results may vary.

[Sibbo]

Thanks for the feedback ,an education .I don't know much about LEDs and you certainly mentioned a few good points for consideration.Not being able to dip them is a problem but if they were only required for country roads that might have a use .

[The Bigfella]

T'was I that sent Sibbo the link. I've ordered 4 of them in the 27w version - only US$200 including postage from Honkers.

Some of the guys in the US have fitted them and love them. Time will tell. I want to fit a pair of them to my F650. I've already got a +80 bulb in the headlight, and its got reasonably good penetration - but poor spread. I rode back from up Sibbo's way a few weeks back and the light just wasn't good enough. I'll report back when I get them up and running.

I used to run a Cibie Super Oscar driving light on the R90S - fitted with a 100w bulb, and I never had any battery problems. I did Sydney - Cadia - Sydney at night every weekend. That thing would burn the retinas out of any bastard who didn't dip their lights. I can't see myself hanging one or two off the F650 though.

On a related topic. Shu Roo's.

Has anyone got any experience with them? I see there's an alloy one, quite large for about $550.00 - and a cheap plastic one for $3.50 or so. The F650 had one of the cheapies on it when I bought it... but I've broken it while replacing fork seals.

I had a nasty experience with a large mob of roos up in the Snowies a couple of years back - I went through the mob at warp factor 9.... with the ABS rattling away and me gaining on a 2m tall bastard that went down the road with me. Missed him by about 100mm - but I was in the M5. The thought of a similar situation on the bikes isn't pleasant.

[Sibbo]

I would doubt very much if these will work as "to be seen" lights, because that would require that they have a beam pattern that doesn't blind oncoming traffic (one that "cuts off" at the top). Lights not designed to be legal running with your low beams generally are not appropriate for such use. Blinding oncoming traffic, while certainly announcing your presence, is not, in my opinion, safer.

Of course the photos and videos on the site are useless. You can make daytime into night and night time into day with the adjustments on the camera. Even when really trying to accurately depict the brightness of a light in a photo, it is VERY difficult to do. If one isn't trying, then it is even less likely.

There's no question that when it comes to lumens per watt, you can't do better than LED's, but there are many different LED's, and this ad only tells you the wattage, not the brightness. Some LED's now are much brighter than others for the same wattage, so it's very difficult to know if these things are very bright - compared to what the best units currently are able to do.

So, they could be fairly useless, or they could be pretty cool. If you order some, make sure you let us all know, and then . . . well . . . then we'll all know.

Major , for we LED newbies , what are we lookin for ? Lumens is the unit of brightness ? How many ,how do I judge from an ad ?

[The Bigfella]

There's more than just lumens that come into it.

For instance, reflector design.

We are still in the early stages with these things - as we are with LED commercial lighting - and there are some significant concerns about some of the industry claims re LEDs there - eg that they go blue fairly quickly, etc. One requirement being suggested is that suppliers be required to give a guarantee that their lamps achieve a lumen maintenance of at least 80% after 2,000 hours of operation.

I'm sure that once we get some decent reflectors hooked up with Chinese manufacturing, we'll see some decent, cheap lights that we can use for daytime awareness. I've always been a bit reticent about daytime lights-on though. I seem to recall that it degrades other drivers' depth perception - making it harder for them to figure out how far away you are and how rapidly you are closing.

When I was riding in Vietnam, I had absolutely no hesitation on hitting the horn. I'd honk it hundreds of times a day - every time I went near another vehicle or person - but since getting back, I just don't use it here. Given the number of idiots driving around with their head buried into a phone, maybe we should just start honking until the cops discover that there are actually bigger villains out there than someone who slips up to 103kph.

[vanzen]

I would doubt very much if these will work as "to be seen" lights, because that would require that they have a beam pattern that doesn't blind oncoming traffic (one that "cuts off" at the top). Lights not designed to be legal running with your low beams generally are not appropriate for such use. Blinding oncoming traffic, while certainly announcing your presence, is not, in my opinion, safer.

Of course the photos and videos on the site are useless. You can make daytime into night and night time into day with the adjustments on the camera. Even when really trying to accurately depict the brightness of a light in a photo, it is VERY difficult to do. If one isn't trying, then it is even less likely.

There's no question that when it comes to lumens per watt, you can't do better than LED's, but there are many different LED's, and this ad only tells you the wattage, not the brightness. Some LED's now are much brighter than others for the same wattage, so it's very difficult to know if these things are very bright - compared to what the best units currently are able to do.

So, they could be fairly useless, or they could be pretty cool. If you order some, make sure you let us all know, and then . . . well . . . then we'll all know. :mrgreen:

Pay attention – the Major knows his lights !
(... or at least, I have learned quite a lot by doing just that. )

[Major Softie]

Major , for we LED newbies , what are we lookin for ? Lumens is the unit of brightness ? How many ,how do I judge from an ad ?

Yes, Sibbo, Lumens is a measure of light output, rather than watts, which is a measure of how much electrical power the lamp uses (kind of - I know, watts is really a measure of "work" over time, but we use it in the electrical world to represent an amount of electrical power - kind of).

Just as Halogen lights put out more light per watt than the "conventional" incandescents that preceded them (Halogens are also incandescents), LED's put out even more light per watt. Plus, unlike Halogens and other incandescents, LED'S produce very little heat. Incandescence is, in fact, literally the process of producing light by heating something until it glows.

There are various levels of LED's, and they all produce different amounts of light per watt. The really bright ones cost a lot more than the simple "first generation" LED's. As far as telling what exactly you are getting from an ad, there are two issues:
1) What does the ad tell you?
2) Can you believe them?

In the ad for the lights we're talking about here, they just don't tell you, so there is no way to identify just how bright they are. Some sources list the Lumens per Watt for LED's as varying from 4.5–150! So, there's a very wide range. Halogens put out around 25 per watt.

If you go to a site like http://www.surefire.com/, they will give you very clear numbers on the the specifications for their flashlights, but, when you're looking at something on eBay, unless it comes from some well known manufacturer, you have absolutely no way to know what the product specs are. They often don't tell you, and if they do, you have no idea if you can believe them.

All of that is just about the lamp - the light "source," but, as The Bigfella says, reflector (and lens) design are extremely important factors in how any spotlight works, and headlights have very specific requirements for good reflector and lens design, with different needs for low beam and high beam, especially with the control issues that the low beam presents. A well designed reflector/lens system can put 4 or 5 times as much light out in front of you where you need it as a poor one (with both using the exact same lamp), and the well designed one will also have much more even coverage than a poor one.