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All right guys, this is my first DIY post.
Since many days i was planning to do something with LED to my bike's tail light, not only is it bright, it consumes very less power.
Since, my battery got discharged recently, i thought to myself it was high time, to get things done/ Do it myself...
At first i was searching for LED clusters with a double filament bulb connector, which are readily available in the market,
to my surprise, nothing of this sort was available after searching for long.
Finally i decided to do it myself..
I was pretty confused as to which shape the LED's would look good, i chose to do it in a round shape..
THINGS REQUIRED:
1. LED's number depends on what shape you like, for me it was 24 per cluster.
2. Resistors: for bikes its best to get a higher value resistor, coz when the bike is in motion the voltage is never 12V, it varies from 11.5V - 14.0V. so i used 180 Ohms resistors in series with 3 normal 8mm white LEDs
3. PCB you need something to mount the LED's on.
4. Soldering Iron, Solder, Soldering Flux/Soldering cream, wires (i used a very very old soldering iron)
5. Pliers (preferably nose plier).
Ok , now we're ready to go..
Setting things up
- Mount the LED's on the PCB as you desire.
I did it the following way
- Figure out how you are comfortable soldering the LED's on the PCB.
- Do the Calculations and draw the ckt diag. for your ease.
Here is mine
- Start by the tail light.
- Do the rest of the Soldering carefully and its better if you do it 3 Led's and a resistor at a time.
after you're done, it'd look something like
- Now, unscrew the tail light cover, and take out the bulbs, You dont need to break a perfectly fine bulb, I got 2 fused bulbs from the HH Workshop
- Figuring out the negative terminal of the bulb is a tricky 1, in some bulbs the positive lead has a sleeve under the glass encasing, if not, you'd have to connect it to a series of 3 LED and a resistor and find out. coz filament bulbs dont have specific polarity, but LED's do..
- After you have done this, you are ready to go, cut the PCB with a BIG Scissor (the metal 1 that tailors have or wire cutters can do the job) , so that it fits in the chamber.
Sorry could not click the pictures of mounting on the holder (was running out of time)
- I mounted it using metal wires and power grip tape, until my M-seal model is ready.
- I also used 6 Led's on the top of the chamber on a small PCB with 2 resistors. i used insulation tape on it..
- Was a tedious job mounting both the things.
- After I put back the tail light cover, it looked something like.
Tail Light
Brake light
The images dont do justice, in real world they are very bright,
I doubt on the reliability of the adhesive tape, would do the M-seal really soon..
The main advantage of LED's..
Previously the Power hogging bulbs consumed (5W / 21W) X 2 that is 52W the power consumption is around 4.3A
now with the LED's the total power consumption is around 190mA X 2 that is only 4W on braking
This was the first time i did something of this sort on my bike, comments are encoraged, if any queries, do lemmi know
Since many days i was planning to do something with LED to my bike's tail light, not only is it bright, it consumes very less power.
Since, my battery got discharged recently, i thought to myself it was high time, to get things done/ Do it myself...
At first i was searching for LED clusters with a double filament bulb connector, which are readily available in the market,
to my surprise, nothing of this sort was available after searching for long.
Finally i decided to do it myself..
I was pretty confused as to which shape the LED's would look good, i chose to do it in a round shape..
THINGS REQUIRED:
1. LED's number depends on what shape you like, for me it was 24 per cluster.
2. Resistors: for bikes its best to get a higher value resistor, coz when the bike is in motion the voltage is never 12V, it varies from 11.5V - 14.0V. so i used 180 Ohms resistors in series with 3 normal 8mm white LEDs
3. PCB you need something to mount the LED's on.
4. Soldering Iron, Solder, Soldering Flux/Soldering cream, wires (i used a very very old soldering iron)
5. Pliers (preferably nose plier).
Ok , now we're ready to go..
Setting things up
- Mount the LED's on the PCB as you desire.
I did it the following way
- Figure out how you are comfortable soldering the LED's on the PCB.
- Do the Calculations and draw the ckt diag. for your ease.
Here is mine
- Start by the tail light.
- Do the rest of the Soldering carefully and its better if you do it 3 Led's and a resistor at a time.
after you're done, it'd look something like
- Now, unscrew the tail light cover, and take out the bulbs, You dont need to break a perfectly fine bulb, I got 2 fused bulbs from the HH Workshop
- Figuring out the negative terminal of the bulb is a tricky 1, in some bulbs the positive lead has a sleeve under the glass encasing, if not, you'd have to connect it to a series of 3 LED and a resistor and find out. coz filament bulbs dont have specific polarity, but LED's do..
- After you have done this, you are ready to go, cut the PCB with a BIG Scissor (the metal 1 that tailors have or wire cutters can do the job) , so that it fits in the chamber.
Sorry could not click the pictures of mounting on the holder (was running out of time)
- I mounted it using metal wires and power grip tape, until my M-seal model is ready.
- I also used 6 Led's on the top of the chamber on a small PCB with 2 resistors. i used insulation tape on it..
- Was a tedious job mounting both the things.
- After I put back the tail light cover, it looked something like.
Tail Light
Brake light
The images dont do justice, in real world they are very bright,
I doubt on the reliability of the adhesive tape, would do the M-seal really soon..
The main advantage of LED's..
Previously the Power hogging bulbs consumed (5W / 21W) X 2 that is 52W the power consumption is around 4.3A
now with the LED's the total power consumption is around 190mA X 2 that is only 4W on braking
This was the first time i did something of this sort on my bike, comments are encoraged, if any queries, do lemmi know
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