Has anyone tried to swap out their instrument lights, the incandescent ones, for LED type bulbs? I was at the local auto parts store this weekend and saw that they had LED lights in the 194 bulb style and also in other colours. I was wondering if they would be bright enough to light up the speedo/tach unit. I don't think they would be bad for the idiot lights as well as the turn indicators in the cluster. My thinking is if you can change to all LED lights then it will put less stress on the stator & R/R. Am I correct or just having a weird dream here? ???
First, the current thinking (no pun) is that more load on the charging system is better, as any unused output from the startor is shunted to ground in the form of head. bad for us.
using lower amp/watt lights (led's) only makes this worse.
i just played with something similar yesterday:
ai have added lights on my bike, one day, long ago i blew the 10A fuse while on my way to work, i only had a 25A on me. it's been fine & i forgot about it.
i blew the fuse yesterday, & thought i should figure out what the curcit should have.
i have 6ea 1157 bulbs on the bike, 90/100W headlight (allways on 'hi' beam) 2 led strips & the lights in the dash.
i figued a total of roughly 300 watts, divided by 14.5V ==just over 21 amps, so giver or take, 25A is fine.
--Lucky
Quote from: Lucky on July 07, 2008, 10:22:15 AM
i figued a total of roughly 300 watts, divided by 14.5V ==just over 21 amps, so giver or take, 25A is fine.
But how much current is the wire rated for? Fuses are there to protect the wiring from burning up.
Brian
I swapped out the bulbs in my car for LEDs not too long ago. I did it mostly for the look, but one of the bulbs in my gauge cluster on the vision is out so I might try it. Here is the website were I got mine:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/mini-wedge.html (http://www.superbrightleds.com/mini-wedge.html)
I will give it a try and let you know what happens.
I put LED bolt bulbs on a new panel I made for my dash. Will try to get pictures up later tonight.
I bought LED taillight bulbs and have combined my turn signals into the taillights but I have not found a flasher that will fire the LED's yet...
This may not be a bother for the Vision, but is of some interest -one of the big drawbacks for Led's on Tractor trailer rigs is that they don't create enough heat to melt the backwashed snow from the tail/ brake light lense as did the older bulbs. :)
On the Road agin Cheers Ken S.
Quote from: Brian Moffet on July 07, 2008, 10:51:41 AM
But how much current is the wire rated for? Fuses are there to protect the wiring from burning up.
Brian
i looked into that, 14 gu wire should easily handle 32 amps, depending on length. figuring 10% buffer, that's only 27.5A...
lots of car curcits are 30a and much longer wiring...
I replaced all the bulbs in my old BMW with leds, The charging is their weak spot, I had to go with a led compatible flasher. The high beam indicator and neutral are very bright. everything works fine, no regrets.
I have leds lighting up my guage cluster, but I also have full custom electrics powering them. PWM boost fed with a voltage regulator. Just taking a 1-1 bulb to LED conversion wasn't really bright enough for me with the ones that I used, so I've got some extras in there.