Tail/brake light

[Melena]

I have a new LED license plate brake light I'm putting on to supplement the original tail light.  

When I took the red lens off the tail light housing I noticed that the bottom part has some damage from melting, like from a too hot bulb in there.  The bottom bulb also looks a little dark.  Looks like someone tried to put a brighter/higher watt bulb in there.  It's also the one that is the light for the license plate.  I never noticed if that light was even working or not since I don't ride at night.  Is that lower bulb the tail light while the top one is the brake light?  

From this experience I'm seriously thinking about switching to the LED brake/tail lights.  An array of lights would be great!  I like to be seen.  Is there one brand that is better than another?  I want the brightest I can get.  

I did do a search on LED lights here but didn't find a brand name that I noticed.  Where is the best place to find them?

Now I've just got to finish wiring in the new  brake light.  This whole thing took much longer than it should have.  What a pain to get the wiring up into the tail light housing.  Well, at least until I figured out that a 10 mm socket on the end of a very long extension would fit right onto the end of the bolt without having to see it.    Okay, that was much easier than what I was trying to do.  

[Bob_Roller]

Motorrad Elektrik has an LED replacement for the R65 tail-light - brake light, it's called Beacon 2 and costs about $60 plus shipping. I think it has around 40-50 led's, and it's a plug and play installation, no splicing wires or anything technical, as long as you can use a phillips screwdriver. If I'm not mistaken I think Rob Valdez has one installed on his '79 R65 and possibly Scottyintex has one as well.

[scottyintex]

 Yep.......that little bulb at the bottom is for the license plate. Bob is correct I do have a Motorrad.  The more LED’s a taillight carries, the brighter it going to be. I have a Motorrad Electric # 2 Beacon LED taillight in my cycle......and I am happy with it. Look back...a page or two in this forum..........you will find a photo I made one night showing a LED taillight on my cycle verus a standard R65 taillight on my sidecar. Since then I have replaced the sidecar taillight with a LED. Motorrad has 40 LED’s for the tail light and 6 or 7 more pointing down for the license plate.  Try www.motoelekt.com as a starting point. You may find one with even more LED’s.  I tried LED’s in the turn signal....but don’t recommend them but they do work good in taillights. Also drops the watts you need from 21 down to about 4.5

[Melena]

That is so weird.  I wrote up an answer to you guys and posted it and now it's disappeared.  How strange.   :-?

Well, what I said was Thanks!  That was a very fast answer.  Now that I know where to get those I will try to order them this week.  Anything to make the brake lights brighter!  

I think I said something else too, but I can't remember now.  

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Yes, I have Motorad Elektrik's LED unit.  I like it a lot.

It was not, however, plug & play as advertised.  At least not the unit I received, on my bike. YMMV.
The spade connectors were the wrong size, so I ended up cutting them off and hardwiring it.  No big deal for me, as I have had a soldering iron in my hand since I discovered them in the basement workshop!

[Melena]

YMMV?   [smiley=huh.gif]  (I'm trying, but I can't figure out this one)

Well, Rob, I just got myself a soldering iron.  I did some soldering years ago (35 years ago?) and got pretty good at what I was doing, but it's been too long and I don't remember how to do it now.  I can figure it out, though.   If I look at it long enough it will all come back to me.  [smiley=stare.gif]  

So does the LED piece just replace the shiny aluminum piece that the bulbs are plugged into now?  Also, wouldn't it be possible to replace the spade connectors with the correct ones?  When I call them I'll mention to them that the spade connectors haven't fit correctly for some people.  But then I'm thinking that maybe the year of the bike might make a difference.  Rob, yours is pre 1981 and mine is post 1981.  Might that make a difference?  Just ruminating here.    [smiley=cowsleep.gif]   If anyone has any answers that would be great too.  

[Chris_in_BC]

When I took the red lens off the tail light housing I noticed that the bottom part has some damage from melting, like from a too hot bulb in there.  The bottom bulb also looks a little dark.  Looks like someone tried to put a brighter/higher watt bulb in there.  It's also the one that is the light for the license plate.  I never noticed if that light was even working or not since I don't ride at night.  Is that lower bulb the tail light while the top one is the brake light?  

With the tail light housing off, turn on the ignition. The number plate light and the tail light should be on.

Activate a brake lever/ pedal, should be be easy to see which bulb is which.

My choice, although expensive is BRAKE!
http://www.homebody-design.com/ Most attention getting tail light I have seen. Have it on all of our bikes.

Chris

[thrang]

A mate of Ferrit coverted his custom to diode's I'm pretty sure that he popped an article about how he did it on his webpage.
( http://www.ferrit-dsl.fireflyinternet.co.uk/myweb/index.htm )

[Justin B.]

Chris, my young'un has one of those in his R1200ST, extremely bright and the initial flashing DOES get your attention...

[Bob_Roller]

Melena, you remove whole reflector assembly, disconnect the 3 wires and plug in the new LED unit, the wires are color coded to the wires still in the bike.

[scottyintex]

I didn’t have to do any soldering, hard wiring, or any kind of make it fit............... on my LED taillight replacements, it was strictly plug in and go. It was very simple to install and the connectors on mine were the correct size. Both cycle and sidecar use a standard R65 taillight.
       While I see the flashing taillight before in goes on and stays on.....as useful; I would be sure to count the number of LED’s any taillight has in it. The more LED’s the better off you are for it will be brighter. I would hesitate to use anything with less that forty, would be afraid it did not shine bright enough during the day.
      The LED turn signals worked fine at night but they just were not bright enough in daylight, not enough LED’s in there. So, I took them off................ went back to the standard bulb. When it comes to LED’s more is better!
       I am happy with my  taillights but if I had found one with more.......say a hundred LED’s......think I would have gone with it. Might be hard to cram  a hundred into such a small space.....but ya never know.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

The connection issue might have been just me, or perhaps I was looking at it through Marty Feldman eyes...