Installed a new LED headlight bulb,Results!

Paul Sutton said:

I recently tried two LED replacements for the 1157 filament bulbs:
View attachment 106393
The one on the left is a red unit and was very poor in brightness and had little difference between tail and brake mode. The one on the right is very bright and described as "Motorcycle Car COB LED Brake Tail Light Fog Lamp Bulbs Super Bright Pink" on Ebay and cost £1.64 each including postage. Although it is bright it shows very little difference between Tail and Brake mode. This can be improved by putting approximately 50 Ohms resistance in the tail light circuit and then the brightness performance is very similar to a 1157 bulb. I do not really want to cut into the harness to add resistors....
.....Is this poor brightness differentiation between tail and brake mode quite general with LEDs??

I also tried the following £5.84 H4 LED:
View attachment 106394
Although it claims to have both Hi and Low beam it seems this is purely the result of a resistor in the low setting. No actual dip of the beam took place. The beam was also very poor in shape. Perhaps I was unlucky??? This LED unit will now become a spotlight for working in my garage at home.

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Paul, Led's are getting better, but some still suck. The red ones suck! Shining a red light through a red lense has considerable losses. The one shown on line #19 is a Sylvania, I think. I bought it at an Advance Auto Store, (don't think you have those in the UK), but it is super bright and a big/noticable difference between run and brake. Jet mech Marty rode with me one day and mentioned that it works great! If it's not a Sylvania, I'll get back to you.

Hey, guys, is it me? But adding resistors to LED's is counter productive, is it not? A good LED should: 1) increase brightness, 2) reduce load, and 3) last longer. #2 and #3, at the very least. AND, this is 2019, every house has a box with millions of liquid crystals and/or LED's on flat screens to create fantastically clear 4K images from signals that stream through the atmosphere at the speed of light, (slightly less), so there's gotta be a regulator that can hold an overvoltage at a constant level +/- a few 10ths of a volt.

Sorry, I'm no genius, but this thread seems to be dragging on. Sorry, I'm in a mood. I'm old, leave me alone! Lol!

Signal lights. If you install LED's in your signals, they will flash too fast, almost like a missing or broken bulb. They sell resistor kits for that. Again, dumb and counter productive! I found an adjustable flasher on ebay. Haven't installed it yet, but apparently when all is in place, turn on your signals and simply adjust the speed you want.

I don't have signals on my bike, yet. I'm old school I guess. My 1st bike was a 65, 305 Honda. I learned to ride with hand signals. Even when I got my XS2 in 76, I never used the signals. I crashed shortly after my purchase and broke the front , R lense, so I took them off the front and turned the rears into brake lights. Now, a little older, I worry if others can see my hand signals at night. This winter, hopefully, I will find some descent looking chinese LED signal lights. Again, some LED's still suck and the couple I bought from China, double suck!

They make some cool ones now that have signal lights, running lights and brake lights. Still shopping. Hey, do the newer bikes have the auto cancel option. I only ask because I'm becoming one of those stupid old men that leave their signals on for miles.

Man, too much coffee today!

retiredgentleman said:

In any electrical system, including your everyday house hold 110/220 volt power, supplied by your power company, the power produced needs to equal the power consumed by the loads. Whenever too large of an imbalance occurs, bad things happen.
The PMA lads commonly burn up regulators and/or stators when they have imbalances.

An automotive regulator, such as the VR-115 that I use, works well with my incandescent head light, because my bike consumes enough current to keep the VR-115 within its control range. However trying to use an automotive regulator with an LED tail light and LED headlight, means you are asking the regulator to do something it was not designed to do.

If you could find a regulator that was designed to work with say a 30 amp alternator, that might be able to control a 16 amp alternator.
Perhaps from a small car. I'm only guessing. I'm not going to do any research.....................you would have to do that.

A simple solution, is to install some device that uses approximately 3 to 4 amps, to replace the current that you removed by using the LED head light. Again, you guys do the research.

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Add heated grips, and the issue should be solved. On the other hand, I would believe that the stock VR should be able to cope with running with the lights off, i.e. the only load would be the coils,

Seems to me if the current output of the vr has a minimum output, a high wattage resistor in the field circuit would lower the minimum output. Maybe ?