Rear LED Lights?

Larry Fine said:
My guess is it's for programming: every time you touch it to +12v, it changes the flash pattern.
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No there's a separate dedicated wire for programming the flash modes and is labeled as such. There's also a separate dedicated wire for syncing two flasher units to flash simultaneously.
 
Yep . . . my Whelen LIN3 has 4 wires: hot, ground, sync and one to select flash pattern.

Shuey
 
Shuey,

You have ridden behind me so you know I have some extra lights. Under the number plate I have a Clearwater Billie brake light that I can control how it flashes. It is fairly specific to the BMW CanBus controller so not sure it would work on your "new2u" ST ;). I liked the Whelen T3 you have on my ST1300.

On either side of the number plate I have Red Skene Photoblaster P3s running/brake lights and then on the panniers I have Yellow Skene Photoblaster P3s as Turn signals. The Skene LEDs have a patented "conspicuity" flicker that I really like as it make me VERY visible.

This is what it looks like:
 
Andy,

Thanks for the input. I put a pair of Skenes with the flicker on my FJR after admiring them following you around. The always make me feel like something is going wrong with my vision! ;)

I think I'm going to go with what I have for now. Swapping in all LEDs at the back with brighter red LED brake lights and brighter Amber turn signal LEDs. I'll put a Whelen LIN 3 LED brake light above the license plate and Hyper-lites on either side of the license plate.. I'll test that setup for a bit and evaluate if I need more, but I think that'll be enough for now.

Shuey
 
Shuey said:
Andy,

Thanks for the input. I put a pair of Skenes with the flicker on my FJR after admiring them following you around. The always make me feel like something is going wrong with my vision! ;)

I think I'm going to go with what I have for now. Swapping in all LEDs at the back with brighter red LED brake lights and brighter Amber turn signal LEDs. I'll put a Whelen LIN 3 LED brake light above the license plate and Hyper-lites on either side of the license plate.. I'll test that setup for a bit and evaluate if I need more, but I think that'll be enough for now.

Shuey
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I put my Hyperlites on the round reflectors just under the rear rack. I also put a Whelen stop/tail/turn light on the bottom of my Givi plate. I want to get them up high, closer to eye level for drivers to see better. Hopefully.
 
The round red markers create a nice triangle of light with the tail light.
I also modified the the turn signals with amber/red switch back leds and manually hooked the red to the brake lights.
The amber turn signal takes precedence but the red led in the amber reflector makes the brake lights bigger.
There is a LIN6 brake light under the top box. The side cases have red reflectors.
The TIR-3 leds are ambers but are not used but they some how make the traffic behind me slow down a bit and not tail gate.

RearLights2.jpg

Be safe out there......
 
Willsmotorcycle said:
How does this work?
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Same way the front switchback ones do. :) It's all done by the bulb.

The "red" is always on, but only gets power when the brake is applied.

The yellow turn comes on with the turn signal, and overrides the red (regardless of it being powered on or being off.)

Think of how the white / yellow switchback turns for the front work. White is on all the time, yellow overrides that.
The rear bulbs are red (think white above) and yellow turn.

The key is to add in the extra wire to the bulb holder to power the brake (red) portion of the bulb. The holder is made for just a 2 conductor connection vs 3 for a 2way bulb.

If you buy the red/amber switchbacks, ensure you don't get the ones that go red-off-amber-off-red-off-amber-off etc.
 
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Obo said:
The key is to add in the extra wire to the bulb holder to power the brake (red) portion of the bulb. The holder is made for just a 2 conductor connection vs 3 for a 2way bulb.
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Don't you also need a pair of diodes so the turn signals don't illuminate the brake light?

Never mind, I just realized that the red uses the third wire (with white stripe on a Honda).

So, the red is bright even though it is fed by the "running light" (dimmer filament) wire?
 
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Larry Fine said:
Don't you also need a pair of diodes so the turn signals don't illuminate the brake light?
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We're talking LED bulbs here, but I'll reference incandescent just for ease of comprehension....

No diodes needed. You're adding a new separate circuit into the turns, not sharing the existing one. (you only share the ground)

The turn bulbs are originally a "single filament" bulb and only do turn signals. 2 wires: +12v and ground.

The bulb holder will accept either a single or a double filament bulb. If you use a single you get your turns. If you use a double you still only get your turns (only 2 wires that feed one filament.)

Spidey ran a wire from his brake light to each of the direction signal holders and wired them into that 2nd filament connection, and then upgraded the single bulbs to dual filament bulbs (in this case switchback LEDs)

Here's his photo taken from the above referenced thread.

1709605157762.jpeg

This basically made them a dual circuit bulb consisting of the turns that were already there, plus the new brake circuit.

Again, the red/amber LED allowed the turn to stay amber and the new brake part to be red. Yes, it's still showing thru the amber turn signal lens, but with a red tinge to it.

As Spidey noted the goal was to have a wider larger brake light. I did it by adding higher and lower extra lights and chose not to do this style of mod... I'm just trying to explain it for anyone who wants to do this too.
 
Thank you for, and sorry for you having to type all that. I realized what you said and edited my post. Wiring is one thing I know well. I just hadn't finished picturing what I read when I first posted.

Years ago, I had an '82 Nighthawk 750, and I modded the rear signals by replacing the sockets with front sockets and replacing the amber lenses with red trailer-light lenses I found that just fit.

I wired from the front dim filaments to the new rear dim filaments, and also to the coils of a pair of SPDT relays. Normally, the now-red signals glowed dim, and brightened when I hit the brake.

When I used a signal, releasing the relay for that side switched the bright filament from the brake-light wire back to that side's signal wire, so it flashed, and with the dim filament off, like the front.
 
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Obo said:
The bulb holder will accept either a single or a double filament bulb. If you use a single you get your turns. If you use a double you still only get your turns (only 2 wires that feed one filament.)
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This would be equivalent to what UK riders have/had with front turn signals and no running light. They have/had to add a socket with a third wire to switched 12V+ to get running lights.

The rear sockets of our 1300s could be modified to accept a switched 12V+ which would give an amber tail (running) light similar to the front turn signals of our bikes. With a switchback and wired to the brake lights there's no running light. Apply brakes and there's a red light through the amber lens that shows as some red-orange color. Apply turn signals amber shows through the amber lens. Apply both brakes and turn signals in any order then the switchback function sorts power to the turn signals.

I've yet to do that but I really want to get roundtoit. Besides being very functional it's also very cool. The POP feature for brake lights is not to be underestimated.
 
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Larry Fine said:
I modded the rear signals by replacing the sockets with front sockets and replacing the amber lenses with red trailer-light lenses I found that just fit.
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I wired my 750-4 rear turn signals to add running lights and just left them amber. Not at all legal but never got stopped. A few years later some third party manufacturer made red lens that fit the 750's turn signals but I didn't bother. It was a distinctive look. Over the years I saw just two other bikes with the same mod and one was a CHP on his 750-4. Made me laugh.
 
ST Gui said:
With a switchback and wired to the brake lights there's no running light. Apply brakes and there's a red light through the red lens. Apply turn signals amber shows through the red lens as some reddish color.
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If you are referring to the modifidation to use the turn signal housings as additional brake lights using switch back bulbs, the rear turn signal lenses on the ST1300 are amber. It would be a red light through an amber lens when the brakes are applied, and an amber light through an amber lens when the turn signals are illuminated.
 
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