To piggyback Pauls's comments re Guzzi, I hate waiting for parts. The bike is reassembled except for the rear brake light LED, on back order and is pretty ready to go for the usual big ride of the year, The Snowy run. I am waiting for the LED lights to go into the instruments, 2 or 3 extra W clips I need to add to the headlight to retain the reflector my bike was missing. Both easy but time-consuming fixes pulling the fairing etc with the potential can of worms being opened digging into delicate areas, headlight and instrument wiring just before that ride. Its become a sleeping dog till, after the ride, I am really keen to see how those Instrument LEDs might work.
Headlight Reflector
- Thread starter Vince
- Start date
The instrument backlight and Brake Stop light LEDs turned up this afternoon from The LED Shop. I fitted their recommended rear bulb and it's MUCH brighter, I have a spare STD bulb and will carry it on the Snowy Ride just in case. My last time the LED rear lasted less than a day. I might try fitting the LED dash lights over the weekend. Dash light is 12vBA9s Warm White at $4.40 each and 12v BAY 15D Warm White at $11 plus postage. These are 360deg brighter and apparently cooler and brighter, fit and forget. We will see.
The LED Shop Australia® Low Voltage LED Lights | 6v, 12v 24v
The LED Shop Australia sell Low Voltage LED lights 6v, 12v and 24v globes for Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Caravans, RVs and Boat / Marine. 12 Month Warranty
www.ledshoponline.com.au
Andy
Hero member
- Location
- Auckland, roughly
Hi Vince, I put an LED instrument light in for my high beam warning and it was a bit too bright. 60 lumen. If that happens to you, then an easy fix is to use a marker pen on the end LED. Use the appropriate colour and bobsyeruncle 
And don’t forget you need + and - the right way round
And don’t forget you need + and - the right way round
Apparently, these don't. But I will check before I reassemble. There put out 165 lumens and there are 2 each instrument, hope they don't blind The International Space Station. Hope I don't need a dimmer switch. I just hope there not too long.STD is 22mm and there are 26mm
12v/24v BA9S WHITE LED bulb 360° | LED Shop Australia
12/24 volt BA9S WHITE LED bulb/globe using 6 of the 5630 SMD delivering 165 lumens at a consumption of 2w. Positive and Negative earth OK.
www.ledshoponline.com.au
Dellortoman
Hero member
- Location
- Tasmania, Australia
I like Andy's idea of shrouding the top LED, leaving the side LEDs to give a more diffuse light.
But if they're still too bright, you can dim them with a series resistor. It's a pity they don't give the wattage or current draw in the specs because it would help to estimate an appropriate resistance for a dimmer resistor. But even then it's just educated guesswork. Without that info it's blind guesswork.
If it does end up dazzling folks in the Klingon home world, you could buy a 1KOhm trim pot from Jaycar for $3, wire it in series with the feed to the lamps, then dial it to the brightness you want.
The 0-1KOhm for the trim pot is just my guess. IIS guru Jon Wilson might have a better guess.
www.jaycar.com.au
But if they're still too bright, you can dim them with a series resistor. It's a pity they don't give the wattage or current draw in the specs because it would help to estimate an appropriate resistance for a dimmer resistor. But even then it's just educated guesswork. Without that info it's blind guesswork.
If it does end up dazzling folks in the Klingon home world, you could buy a 1KOhm trim pot from Jaycar for $3, wire it in series with the feed to the lamps, then dial it to the brightness you want.
The 0-1KOhm for the trim pot is just my guess. IIS guru Jon Wilson might have a better guess.
1K Spectrol 25 Turn Trimpot | Jaycar Electronics
These are 25 turn industrial quality sealed trimpots. Pins are in a row, with 2.5mm spacing.Adjustment is vertical. Power rating is 0.5 watts.Value 1K...
www.jaycar.com.au
Andy
Hero member
- Location
- Auckland, roughly
Ahhh you’ll be right mate, just chuck ‘em in and grab a texta.
We’ll be here all weekend if you get into trouble
I need to pull the bevel fairing, drop the headlight which means popping it open to get at the internal nuts AND THAT WIRING, remove the instrument backs and solder in 2 new rubber globe holders for the tacho. Too many cans of worms happening just before a big ride. It all works, a new headlight globe, which needs aiming as its powerful 90/130-watt H4 with relay dazels badly unless its aimed well, and a new LED tail brake light. Its dull speedo and zero tacho backlights have been like that for years and can stay that way for another couple of weeks and 2000ks of some brilliant mountain road and some not-so-brilent expressway getting there. I am really curious as to how bright they will be.
So I haven't started it since Bellingen so I thought I better. Hard to start and running on only No2. Mmm. I had knocked one of the fuel taps on when working on it last week and hadn't noticed even with a strong smell, who knows how much went into the old carpet under the bike. Checked and it needed reserve on both taps. The new taps have a huge reserve setup, way more that the old taps. Pulled the tank and found No3 plug cap off, forgot I did that when looking for the lost spring washer with a magnet again last week. So no fuel for No1 and no spark for No 3. It's now firing on all 3 strongly. Happy that didn't happen at 6am leaving on the day of The Snowy Run. Must fill in my classic rego logbook for the 300m run to the local petrol station, don't want a $900 fine for not doing that. That will be a good excuse to aim the headlight tonight, It a Waxing Gibbous Moon so I hope it's dark enough to do the aiming.
Quite complex, if its too bright then close one eye, that will be half as bright..... if still too bright then close both eyes, or blink at a 50% duty cycle.... so you can see where your supposed to be going with some luck..... variable current ic's are around, pwm as such, be better to have the dimming function for various ambient lighting conditions.... see what is simple, and over the top, blue tooth control of instrument lights.... be surprised what is cheap and low cost these days. Report back later... sorry about the underwhelming eye missives... just sorry not too sorry..jI like Andy's idea of shrouding the top LED, leaving the side LEDs to give a more diffuse light.
But if they're still too bright, you can dim them with a series resistor. It's a pity they don't give the wattage or current draw in the specs because it would help to estimate an appropriate resistance for a dimmer resistor. But even then it's just educated guesswork. Without that info it's blind guesswork.
If it does end up dazzling folks in the Klingon home world, you could buy a 1KOhm trim pot from Jaycar for $3, wire it in series with the feed to the lamps, then dial it to the brightness you want.
The 0-1KOhm for the trim pot is just my guess. IIS guru Jon Wilson might have a better guess.
1K Spectrol 25 Turn Trimpot | Jaycar Electronics
These are 25 turn industrial quality sealed trimpots. Pins are in a row, with 2.5mm spacing.Adjustment is vertical. Power rating is 0.5 watts.Value 1K...
It's fine John, I have blurred central vision in my left eye from a Central Vein Occlusion, eye injection once a month to control Macular Swelling so it's only half as bad. Add that to approaching Cataract Surgery, on the waiting list. Age-related long-sightedness Precourser Glucoma controlled with eye drops and mild astigmatism I am happy to be still able to ride. It sounds horrible saying it all at once but not really that tough to live with. That 100k ride without a headlight heading home from Bellingen was challenging. I like riding at night but prefer not to if possible. I like the idea of a dash dimmer, a cool gadget.
Andy
Hero member
- Location
- Auckland, roughly
Just another thing to have to adjust clumsily while riding, because you forgot to do it when you stopped at that petrol station after you noticed it was too bright/dim…
But if you insist, this’d probably work: Jaycar
Last edited:
Dellortoman
Hero member
- Location
- Tasmania, Australia
IS Jon seems to know his electronic stuff. Get him to build you a voice-controlled dash light dimmer. Just try not to yell "DIM!" as you ride past a policeman.
Wow Vince, your a walking wreck, you most probable would not be able to see the bundle of notes for your Laverda there is really only 3 dollar bills.... as for headlights that look good and work not so good, my TLR1000 with fairing mounted headlight, riding in the rain, country darkened roads, Bowral to Batemans Bay, what a nightmare, every time i cranked the bike over in the corners the trees looked real good all lit up, the road, black as, even worse the odd oncoming car lights bouncing light up off the road into my eyes. More like terror and no where to pull over..... j
Always the ideas man is you Cam, well in front of me.... checked all manner of DC dimmers ( varying DC is PWM ) $12 or so buys 5 pcb assemblies that can touch dim, some variants are setup to work through glass sheet or similar. Noise pulses on the 12V bike electrical system would concern me however, could use a galvanic isolated dc to dc converter, though it becomes silly then...
Series pot, have to do the calcs, as your dissipating power on a plastic track with graphite coating ie the dissipation is proportional to length, the lower the resistance of the trim pot or pot would have a decreasing power dissipation capability. Wire wound pot would negate this factor to some degree, what would work, the now 45 plus year old IC "555" from Signetics in the day ( Philips now ) as a set by trim pot pwm controller. What i put on the relay controlled pcb ( harness adjunct ) and it did have noise issues from the ignition spikes, overcame with added filtering. Another ramble from me.... cannot help meself... j
10 months after the LED instrument backlights turned up I finally fitted them to my 3c today, I was dreading this job but it went much easier than I expected other than losing one of those M3 bolts that hold the tacho back cover on. So I can confirm those LEDs fit, you just need to open the bulb holder a millimetre. So they produce much less heat and don't cook the rubber holders and are quite a bit brighter but you still get that soft green glow but the numbers are clearer which helps my poor eyesight a lot. Apparently, they last I hope forever. I did a 100k night ride last Sunday with no blinkers no tacho backlight and barely one bulb in the speedo working. That motivated me to finally fix the stuff. The Tacho backlights have been missing for probably a decade. BTW one odd effect of my recent Cataract Surgery is how you see streetlights. Looking directly at them is as usual, but in your peripheral vision, I get a starburst flare effect like a firework going off, It's pretty odd but not unpleasant. My Ophthalmic surgeon tells me my brain will in maybe 6 months learn to ignore it.
Last edited:
piranha-bro2
Hero member
- Location
- Melbourne
What are those LEDs Vince? I've got the later model style push in bulbs in the ZXR tacho but the lighting is so dim I can't see the tacho needle at night. Might be that when I fitted a black-background adhesive face to convert 18,000rpm to 9,000 for the Q I inadvertently blocked the opacity of the plastic face underneath. Don't care if it's not super bright but I would actually like to be able to see the needle!
Quote from an earlier post.
Apparently, these don't. But I will check before I reassemble. There put out 165 lumens and there are 2 each instrument, hope they don't blind The International Space Station. Hope I don't need a dimmer switch. I just hope there not too long.STD is 22mm and there are 26mm
www.ledshoponline.com.au
Apparently, these don't. But I will check before I reassemble. There put out 165 lumens and there are 2 each instrument, hope they don't blind The International Space Station. Hope I don't need a dimmer switch. I just hope there not too long.STD is 22mm and there are 26mm
12v/24v BA9S WHITE LED bulb 360° | LED Shop Australia
12/24 volt BA9S WHITE LED bulb/globe using 6 of the 5630 SMD delivering 165 lumens at a consumption of 2w. Positive and Negative earth OK.www.ledshoponline.com.au