Luxeon III Tailight Retrofit

[Noodlenoggan]

Here are some pictures as promised.

Note the tiny turn signal light below the rear lights...those puppies are going to be retrofitted with Lux3 as well. I'm not overly concerned with active cooling for the turn signals because they are not ON for long periods of time. I think the flashing action will keep the temp down.

Note also the row of 5mm white LEDs in chrome housings over the turn signal. They light up via a switch near the front of the bike. They are driven by a DC to DC converter that I got from a computer show vendor. Converter was meant for a car (has a cigarette adapter and interchangeable plugs on the other end with a voltage switch that allowed me to go from 12V to 3V. I currently have it set at 9V to run the 5mm LEDs. 12V setting is unregulated which for some reason gave me problem, so I use the 9V which is regulated. Haven't had any problems with this setup for the 5mm LEDs yet.

By the time I'm done with this bike, incadescent bulbs will be a thing of the past!

The only bulb left is the headlight bulb.

[Noodlenoggan]

more pix.... the lux on copper pipe in the middle pix was my original design. bad design because 1) if one lux burned out, there's no easy way to remove it from the copper pipe. my second designed and a little less headache, i cut 3/8 x 3/4" sheet metal and drilled a hole on one end and fastened them to the pipe. this makes it sooooooo much easier to replace the lux should one or more dies on me. the white stuff alongside the L brackets are thermal compound to help transfer the heat to the copper pipe. You see this on the other pix, not in this group.

The white stuff you see under the Lux in the middle pix is the Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive. mixing a 1:1 ratio of merely 1 drop from the tube allowed to secure 4 Lux ...with probably enough leftover adhesive for 1 more lux for a total of 5 lux per drop of adhesive. I completely covered the bottom of the Lux base to make certain there is no metal to metal contact as you know the emitter bases are not electrically neutral.

[Noodlenoggan]

some more

[Noodlenoggan]

yet more pix

[Noodlenoggan]

The first pix shows just the center pod's light without any brakes applied.

the 2nd pix shows both side pods and the center pod with brakes applied.

What a difference!



I'll work on the center pod this weekend to retro fit it with some remaining Lux3 and use the dual brightness formula. Depending on my luck of what resistors are available at local stores, I hope to try a 1/4 and full as well as a 1/3 and full brightness setup.

[Noodlenoggan]

Here are pictures of the center pod hotwire bulb replacement with Lux3 conversion.

[Noodlenoggan]

More center pod pictures.  Also included is the flushmount side turn signal mod.

[Noodlenoggan]

More turn signal pictures.  Although you only see 2 Lux3 here, in front of the bike is another flushmount turn signal which houses the other 2 Lux3. A long wire from the rear of the bike to the front connects the two flushmounts.

The entire setup consists of 4 Lux3 in series to best use up the energy as light output instead of heat had I used less than 4 in series. 

Note: For the rush to see what it was like, I used the Red-Orange Lux3 in the Amber Lense turn signals. The color output was still Red-Orange with a little (very faintly) of yellow. But ask anyone and they'll tell you, it's RED. Anways, do to my initial learning doing all of this, I killed a few Lux3 LEDs, so I only had enough LEDs left over to do one side of the bike. Since the Red-Orange LEDs shined through more on the RED side instead of AMBER and not risking DOT laws, I will be ordering the Amber LEDs and replace the FRONT signals.



UPDATE: In the very top picture, you'll noticed that I had 2 strings of parallel resistors because I thought I couldn't use higher wattage resistors. I'm new to EE.  Anyways, the store had 1.3ohm 5 watt resistors available so that's what I'm now using for the entire project.

For the center pod requiring the dual brightness, the exact resistors as per my original posting, weren't readily available. So instead of a 25% vs full brightness configuration, I went via 15% vs full brightness. It came out to using a 1.5ohm for full and 8.2 ohm for 15%. It worked wonderfully.

UPDATE: I need to re-visit this dual brightness setup as it didn't work as wonderfully as I thought. I must have been blinded by the light output to noticed it wasn't working correctly.  Either 1.5 or 8.2 ohm resistors had the same light output. Back to the drawing board.

[Rob]

Excellent work!

I seriously appreciate you sharing the lessons learned, and all the great pictures.

You now have a custom title.

[205GTi]

Hey Noodlenoggan! Nice work!

I am planning to retrofit my car's taillight with Luxeon LEDs too...

Are you mounting those LEDs with a copper tube that sticks out to the atmosphere for cooling purposes? How about if it's raining? Was there anything done to ensure a water proof seal?

And lastly, how hot does the tube/LEDs/taillight housing actually gets when running for a while?

Cheers!

[Saint Kosmo]

lol i love it... give people the tools and this is what they come up with... cheers to you .... 

[Noodlenoggan]

Well, better late than never. Work has really taken all of my time lately.

205GTI, the copper couplers (home depot/lowes) are housed inside the light pods.  The rear portion of the couplers (potrudes out of the light housing) is exposed to air but it sits underneath the motorcycle's seat, so it is somewhat covered from the top.  Yeah, that was done for cooling purposes. The cooper becomes luke warm after about 1-2 minute of the LUX constantly being ON. It gets warmer but not scorching after that.  If it is let to stay ON for 10+ minutes in a stationary position without any airflow, it may get really hot. But since it's on a moving bike, it's not a big deal.

Since the original post, I modified the center stop light to include pirahna LEDs as running lights because I didn't want to run the LUX all the time.  I still left the LUX there to light up (when braking) to output more light but only during braking.  I look in my bike's mirrors from time to time to see the faces of drivers and passengers looking really red. I hope it's just the reflection of the LED light and nothing else...hehehe.  The good affect I've seen is that people do stay further back instead of being 2 feet behind me at stop lights.