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minibuck |
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minibuck L Plate Warrior
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Courier265 |
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Courier265 World Chat Champion
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Beehive Bedlam |
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Beehive Bedlam World Chat Champion
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Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010 Karma :
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Posted: 00:04 - 12 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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LED's are 'cold'.
Amps unfortunately are't.
Higher ampage devices like lights are likely to draw more amps through already flakey switch gear and make them and anything els the electric flows through melt...
Actual lamp housng may be quite safe!
OP? 40W LED? Thats a heck of a big current draw, around 4A for something with LED's, that usually, indiviually work on mili-amps.
They are also very directional. And questionable vis the constructor & use regs.
I would be suspicious its actually a 40W LED Array.. that would be HUGE... rather than an LED compound bulb, that has equivalent 'brightness' .... in the editors final opinion.... to a conventional 40W tungsten bulb.
If so, then the 'equivalence' is highly speculative, and a 5w increase, even if it is 'real' pretty negligible, in the scheme of stuff.
Lights are often critasised and targeted for upgrade, but I am very very sanuige about the matter
Rules of the road say ride at speed you can stop in distance you can see to be clear....
Many look beyond the road their lamp lights up, and ride far faster than they can actually see to be clear, peering into the gloom beyond.
Here a brighter lamp, does little more than encourage them to STILL 'over ride' the limits of their lamp. which will likely not light any further up the road... just light the bit they are looking over more brightly.... and go chasing ever more 'watts' of luminosity to alleviate what they 'think' is the problem...
Often far more effectve to simply make the most of what you got; clean the lens! Adjust the beam, slow down and learn to look where you are going properly!
And that's still useful, even if you DO actually make more light, and chuck it usefully further up the road, which usually takes far more than merely a higher wattage lamp bulb, that does little than over load switches, and bring other consequential problems!
HID lights, draw only 35W, properly wired they can chuck out 10 or 20x more actual light, without melting switches or lamp housings.. but still, a dirty lens, a crap or incompatible lamp reflector, bad beam aim, or lens diffraction, can see them no more 'useful'... especially if all they do is encourage rider to ride even faster into the gloom rather than watch properly where they are going.....
Your call, what you do... but I think you have stumbled onto an idea that's not really a solution, to the problem you only 'think' you have. ____________________ My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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uberkron |
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uberkron Crazy Courier
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uberkron |
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uberkron Crazy Courier
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Islander |
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Islander World Chat Champion
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stinkwheel |
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stinkwheel Bovine Proctologist
Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Karma :
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Islander |
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Islander World Chat Champion
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Posted: 11:43 - 12 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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Yes, it does. |
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stinkwheel |
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stinkwheel Bovine Proctologist
Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Karma :
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Posted: 12:23 - 12 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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That being the case, I'd stick LED stop and tail and instrument panel bulbs in and you ought to free up the extra power to upgrade the headlamp bulb.
Then the question will be if the wiring is sufficiently high spec. ____________________ “Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles. |
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Courier265 |
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Courier265 World Chat Champion
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WD Forte |
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WD Forte World Chat Champion
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mudcow007 |
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mudcow007 World Chat Champion
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Rogerborg |
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Rogerborg nimbA
Joined: 26 Oct 2010 Karma :
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Posted: 09:01 - 14 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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They're fine, he's stuck in a 1970s pub with Philip Glenister.
What you do have to watch out for is the difference between steady and stop being significant enough that Dozy Doris behind you realises that you're braking or else you might get breaked. ____________________ Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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MCN |
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MCN Super Spammer
Joined: 22 Jul 2015 Karma :
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Posted: 09:20 - 14 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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If one buys piss poor LEDs then one gets piss poor LEDs. 😊
Improving stuff can be done cheap but invariably it costs a bit of £
Get your head/arse out of Poundland/The local Asian's market stall and into a proper lamp retailer's.
I have a Fenix LED torch that would probably cause irreversible eye damage and burn your fingers too. I'm not the only person who has proper LEDs. 🤣
As suggested, fit LEDs all around and stick a good quality halogen in the headlamp. Or source a good LED equivalent from a reputable retailer.
It is not Rocket Surgery. ____________________ Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN. |
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Polarbear |
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Polarbear Super Spammer
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Bikeless |
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Bikeless World Chat Champion
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stinkwheel |
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stinkwheel Bovine Proctologist
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cresad |
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cresad Nova Slayer
Joined: 02 Jun 2014 Karma :
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Posted: 22:52 - 14 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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Hi
I'm have a similar problem to you in that I run a Suzuki en125 ( import )
that has a crap headlight. Tried a bigger headlight bulb and ended up having to keep charging the battery up , and that's with an led stop/tail. I've just bought a led headlight unit - https://goo.gl/gE8kBh - Comes complete , smaller draw and should be brighter - havn't trie4d it yet still waiting for it to arrive. There are other types but my bikes got a 7" round headlight already with a small fairing that I didn't want to change.
Going to do the dash bulbs at the same time.
Adam |
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Courier265 |
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Courier265 World Chat Champion
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Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010 Karma :
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Posted: 09:50 - 15 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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WD Forte wrote: | Leds aint 'cold'
Any device using more then 10W will get bloody hot |
True, but an LED is't a power drawing device. It's a matter of Symantics. But....
A 'Light-Emmitting-Diode' is just that, a diode. It has zero resistance to current in one direction, infinite resistance to current in the other.
'Tehnically' it draws NO current, on its own. You need a 'load' on an LED to cause a current to pass through it, to get light out of it... The component LED shouldn't get hot, as its not drawing current, or dissipating power, the resistor that's drawing the current through it is, and only that may get hot.
Like I said, its symantics. And the confusion of calling both a component LED and a composite LED array, both LED 'bulbs'.
uberkron wrote: | Not to shit on Tef, but hid need dc, if you wire to battery you'll soon discover the weak charging system. |
Well, again to argue symantcs, most High-Intensity-Discharge lamps are a peculiar form of Arc-Light... bit like a spark-plug in a Jam-Jar. To get the electricty to jump from one electrode to another and make the spark that chucks out light, they usually run at inredibly high voltages, and they usually use Alternating-Current, at a very high frequency, provided by a seperate conditioning box containing the electrickery to turn a 12vDC supply from the battery into the Kv-AC supply the actual bulb runs on.
Couple an HID 'system' to a battery? 'Should' run fine.... and in practice, usually does.
I have run an HID off a tiny 3Ah battery... briefly! Or a 4A battery charger, continiousely, before now.
35w draw from an HID circuit is no different to a 35W draw from a conventional tungsten bulb. Charging system shouldn't care whats sucking power from the battery.
Though, IME... HID set-ups are a lot more sensitive to the supply than a tungsten bulb, where, a 12v tungsten bulb will still chuck out some light if the supply voltage falls to perhaps 6 or 7v or less.... wont be a lot... but it will likely still glow!
An HID set-up can 'drop out' and refuse to light if the supply voltage drops benath maybe 10v. You may get no more than a humming noise from the bulb, or they can start to 'machine gun' flicker at around thier preffered threshold voltage, if the battery terminal voltage falls.
Actually seen that most often, when HID lamp comes on with igition, and pressing the starter, doesn't inhibit the lamp circuits, but does cause battery terminal volts to fall beneath what the HID ballast box wants.
stinkwheel wrote: | SMD ones are where it's at. |
SMD merely denotes that they use 'Surface Mount Devices' rather than older fashioned 'through hole' LEDs.
As a indvidual 'component' they are notoriousely more directional than a through hole LED. In an array? Depends on how many there are and the orientation of them.
stinkwheel wrote: | So bright they can overwhelm the lens tints so I'd recommend self coloured ones (red for tail, orange for flashers etc.). |
Ditto, and that's where a lot of the benefit of LED's is to be found.
A tungsten bulb makes white light, comprised of all colours of the rainnbow; the coloured lens infront of one, then filters out and chucks away perhaps two-thirds of the light that the bulb actually makes, to just pass Red or Yellow.
Using lamp-coloured LED's then means you don't make the colours of light you would chuck away with the coloured filter, and provides huge efficency bonus before you begin.
White LED's that make all colours of light to be 'white' are on the back-foot from the off, having to make three times the amount of light to be equally 'bright'.
In a head-lamp that has to be white, you dont have this instant effcency gain to garner.
You also then have the 'niggle' that to get an equal brightness to a tungsten light-bulb, you need a lot of individual LED's working together....
Enter the Inverse-Square-Law. That says light brightness is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between light and what it lights. So, double the distance you get 1/4 the brightness.
Now, a multi LED array, is like trying to luminate a football arena by getting every one in the audience to hold up a cigarette lighter, rather than turning on a single flood lamp.
Cumulatively, the many flames may deliver the same quantity of light, but indvidually, they dont have the same 'penatration' to travel so far.
And the question, ultimately isn't how much light you have, or how bright it is, its "How well can I see?"
And in that, how many watts r lumins, candella or lux you may have, is just a small part, its getting the light out of the lamp, and putting it where it's most useful.
Which is where, if you are in the habbit of 'over-driving' your lamp, looking over the bright spot it lights, into the shaddows beyond, you are onto a looser before you begin.
More watts will make the bright spot brighter, but in 'contrast' that will usually have he result of making the shaddows you are actually looking at seem darker!
Hence, Clean the lens, adjust the aim; learn to properly look where you are going; DONT over-drive the head-lamp. And remember to ride at speed you an stop in the distance you can 'really' see to be clear...
A 'crap' headlamp, is so seldom the 'big' problem in these situations.
In my yoof, little bikes got 6v headlamps, with 25 or 30W bulbs that got brighter and dimmer with the engine revs! Whilst street-lighting wasn't 'usual' especially out in the country-side, of which there was a lot more of!
And headlamp 'upgrades' weren't often even possible, when the generator didn't make the power to light a higher wattage bulb, that starved of amps, was often dimmer, if you even tried it!
They sort of made the lesson to look where you are going and to ride to the speed you can stop, some-what more vital... especially when you only had a 4" single leading shoe drum brake and rather notorious cheng-chit tyres stretching your stopping distances!
Matter of lamp-upgrades, so often these days, is endemic of consumer culture cheque-book engineering, expecting to just 'buy' a ready made cure-all off the shelf, and do no more, and there are a lot of folk happy to take your money .. not so many so happy to simply look properly where they are going to start with! ____________________ My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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Islander |
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Islander World Chat Champion
Joined: 05 Aug 2012 Karma :
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Posted: 11:25 - 15 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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Teflon-Mike wrote: | WD Forte wrote: | Leds aint 'cold'
Any device using more then 10W will get bloody hot |
True, but an LED is't a power drawing device. It's a matter of Symantics. But....
A 'Light-Emmitting-Diode' is just that, a diode. It has zero resistance to current in one direction, infinite resistance to current in the other.
'Tehnically' it draws NO current, on its own. You need a 'load' on an LED to cause a current to pass through it, to get light out of it... The component LED shouldn't get hot, as its not drawing current, or dissipating power, the resistor that's drawing the current through it is, and only that may get hot.
Like I said, its symantics. And the confusion of calling both a component LED and a composite LED array, both LED 'bulbs'. |
Wrong wrong wrong.
An LED is a semiconductor, it is a load in its own right. The only use for a series resistor is to limit current through the device, not to act as a load. No semiconductor has zero resistance to current in any direction - the clue is in the name. Also, you have a forward junction voltage determined by the characteristic of the semiconductor p-n junction. For a standard silicon rectifier, this is around 0.6v, for an LED it can be around 2v. Where you get a voltage drop you get heat dissipation so semiconductors do get hot - this is why heatsinks are used.
Ignore Tef's post OP, it's made of uneducated guesswork and wrongness. |
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Rogerborg |
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Rogerborg nimbA
Joined: 26 Oct 2010 Karma :
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Posted: 11:38 - 15 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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You piece of crap troll. LEDs don't draw any power when they emit light. In fact, if you take the resistors out of the circuit, and point the LEDs at a solar panel, you get infinite energy. ____________________ Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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Islander |
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Islander World Chat Champion
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kramdra |
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kramdra World Chat Champion
Joined: 28 Oct 2010 Karma :
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Posted: 15:24 - 15 Dec 2017 Post subject: |
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Chinese ones have a shit heatsink so they fail quickly. If you have one, drill a channel and watercool it. Passive would be adequate, and would then last forever.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162246801305
Modify a chinese one to fit two of these... |
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 6 years, 178 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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