Headlight Bulb upgrade OR extra lights for Skorpion Tour?

[J-Ball]

HI All,
I was wondering if anyone had any leads on a headlight bulb upgrade for a 2000 Tour? OR any one had anyluck fitting aftermarket driving lights with no ill effects. I can find 50 watt aftermarket driving lights but wasn't sure if the alternator can keep them and the battery going. Any advice, I've gotta get more light out in front of me to help me spot DEER!

THANKS

[Linegeist]

I'm looking for a similar solution - I just want a brighter headlamp to replace the jar of glow-worms currently (sic) fitted. I am keenly aware, however, of the limitations of the bike's generator and shrivelled battery.

So far, I'm going down the path of substituting all the bulbs for LED's (except the headlamp, natch') to minimise energy consumption (the only drain then, will be the electronic ignition - which is fairly minimal), and then fitting a single, high output, Xenon headlamp bulb.

My initial calculations would seem to indicate that a 65w lamp should be feasible, provided all other drains are minimised.

'Course, you could always invest in a nice, compact, ground radar set for spotting them deer .................

[J-Ball]

Linegeist,
That sounds all feasable. Where are you sourcing your L.E.D's? I've seen the tail light assembly in LED's but that's all so far. Is it not possible to simply remove the current bulb and have the local car parts store rummage around untill they find a match that's brighter? That's how I replaced my tail light. Do we know how many watts the stock bulb is?

If your trying to do a single 65watt then I guess that means the stock bulb plus two 55 watt auxilary lights would be too much eh? I bet sombody manufactures LED auxilary lights for this purpose if I had to guess. Hmmm?

As far as the deer, radar would work but I was thinking about a large caliber machine gun mounted on the handle bars, you know, it would less taxing on the battery and all... heh..heh..heh.....

[Linegeist]

As far as the deer, radar would work but I was thinking about a large caliber machine gun mounted on the handle bars, you know, it would less taxing on the battery and all... heh..heh..heh.....

Hold the next plane! Me and my Mig Welder are comin' right over!!!!

WRT to your question about sourcing the LED arrays, So far I'm planning to buy a bunch of superbright LED's from our equivalent of Radio Shack (RS Components) and build them straight onto suitably shaped veroboards. I want to drive the indicators through a low-wattage (or electronic) flasher unit using the existing cabling (they won't work the ordinary flasher relay because they don't pull enough current) while the taillight assembly should be a straight cut-to-fit part, replacing the current bulb holders.

The stock indicator bulbs, BTW, are 12v 10w IIRC - pretty dim affairs ... worse if you factor in a coating of road-crud.

If you connect identical LEDs in series (I wouldn't really do it any other way) you can light several LEDs with the same amount of current as just one on its own. You need to supply roughly 2V for each LED (actually about 1.8 - 1.9v) plus another 2V for am upstream resistor. So, 5 or 6 red LEDs in series need a supply voltage of around 12V + 2v for the resistor - meaning a bike supply of 13.xxxv when charging is fine. A resistor of about 220 Ohms for each series array should be about right.

Here's how it fits together.

LED array.jpg (20.7 KiB) Viewed 1774 times

The current draw for such an array would be somewhere around .015Amp ... I'd use 2 arrays arranged in a circle for a central rear light plus 2 more for two outer brakelights - the resistor for the lighting array could be slightly higher so the brakelight would appear comparitively brighter. All of this should fit comfortably inside the stock lamp assembly. It'll also leave spare juice capacity for a decently bright glow-worm up front ............. and some spare cash too. The cost of ready-made LED lamps is pretty breathtaking!

Note (blue and white LEDs take 4v and cost more - Red & Orange ones are cheap as chips)