All good questions! First of all, Mike, I am planning on running a 3W LED taillight and this ~8W headlight. That's energy savings (while brake light and high beam are on) of like 23W. That's like removing the low beam light. In theory, the charging system will be able to actually charge the battery with the lights on.
Snake, I thought about using the factory rear reflector, but LEDs can be aimed much more efficiently with focusing lenses as I have bought. If you've ever seen a crappy flashlight done up with an LED "bulb" conversion, you'll notice that any imperfection in the reflector's shape is shown by the light pattern. LEDs are unidirectional in a sense that they are usually mounted on a board, but they do shine light pretty evenly in 180 degree pattern while "naked". The lens I bought focuses the light at about 50 degrees, which is similar to the semi-parabolic shape of the rear reflector in the stock headlight. Instead of trying to use the reflector, I'm essentially replacing it with the LED lenses to still hit the whole surface of the stock glass lens of the headlight assembly.
Because I'm using a dimmable driver (no extra cost, just slight power loss) I can have a true high beam. It won't change the angle of the light like a car, but that's usually not necessary on a bike. I can run the full 1700 lumen mode on high beam, and tune my low beam to be acceptable for riding around town at night without blinding people. Very simple resister in the normal high/low beam switch.
Finally, the bulb idea is interesting. For max energy savings I'd be more likely to keep the whole headlight LED. The switch for low beam to high beam on the Superhawk is just 10W, so the high beam doesn't wear the battery much more than the normal low beam does. A bulb-shaped LED holder was something I wanted to do originally to sell as a kit. The problem is heat sinking. LEDs create a lot of heat. They're more efficient than an incandescent light, but they are also more susceptible to heat damage. My project will use the whole back of the case as a heat sink for 7 flat LEDs.
LED Headlight Bulb
Great answers. Thanks. Regarding the low beam bulb, it was just a thought to give you the dipping ability. I believe that the angle changes because the low beam filiment is in a different position, relative to center. Could you not just switch off the top half of the LEDs and accomplish the same thing? Again, just noodling thru options.
You seem to have a good understanding of electronics and such. Do you think that there is a chance now of overcharging the battery with this set up since there is no regulation on the system other than the cababilities of the parts that make it up? The reason I ask is I put an LED tail/stop light on my CL77 and at the end of the season I found my battery way down on electrolyte. Wondering if the added power to the battery with no bleed off like a zener, caused the battery to boil. I had mentioned putting a solid state rectifier/regulator on one of these bikes and either G-man or Wilf thought the added losses would kill any benefits. That was where the balance of the components in the design point was made. Maybe with your lights and LEDs all around, the system could handle a solid state rectifier/regulator like a Tympanium. regards, Rob
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the dipper. I'd rather run the low beam at a low enough intensity that I can aim it mirror-height on cars for visibility. I'm going to be riding around on a clip-on-barred dark grey Superhawk with dull chrome... I can use all the visibility I can get!!!
There is a chance of overcharging, but I've already moved to an AGM battery and am talking to my contacts at Braille about purchasing a suitable internally regulate Lithium Ion battery which will save some serious weight and add cranking voltage without worrying about overcharging. We'll see. Even with a discount those batteries can break the $1000 mark! All for a bike I bought for $2000! I have just today purchased from Charley's Place his regulator/rectifier kit plus a NOS CYB93 stator. He said on AGM batteries that he sees 14.5V with the headlight on with his recto/reglo. I'll believe it when I see it, but I need all the juice I can get... more on that here: http://www.honda305.com/forums/electron ... t8582.html 
Hi,
It took me a while to decide to interfere in this thread, because designing LED lamps is part of my daily job as a machine vision system engineer. On the other hand, one could conceive my interference as not appropriate or helpful, as I look at it from a different perspective. Please say what you think, as I don't want a harmful discussion. I had a few of these optics you show us on my test bench (at work), and they were acting poor. A huge transmission loss, lot's of undefined straylight etc, no defined bundle etc. If you want to use your original reflector, you have to analyze how the combination bulb - reflector is working. The bulb can be seen as a point source, and is placed precisely in a certain point in the reflector geometry. Led's on the other hand, and certainly High power led are not really point sources, because the energies per square millimeter is (for now) lower than a modern lamp filament. When you look at car LED headlights in detail, you can clearly see that the optics (lenses and reflectors) are way different then a standard lamp. A bulb has a radiation pattern of almost 360 degrees, horizontal and vertical, and uses the reflector geometry for the beam shaping. Most high power led's are having an radiation pattern of almost 180 degrees, horizontally and vertically. If you want a beam like a bulb, you need to use the reflector as a beam shaper, thus make a led device which also has a radiation pattern of 360 degree's around, and these led's should be placed in the same point in the reflector. You can make them yourself, but I like to look first at the markets, and found a view interesting forms. For experimenting only, before designing and making one, I would buy a cheap standard G4 LED lamp, easy to fit in the original reflector (see picture). If the geometry is right, I would change over to designing a lamp, based on the geometry of the G4 lamp. I would use a copper rod (six or eight sided for cooling, as a mounting base for six or eight High power, being Cree, Luxuon, or other brands, Jensen
assembly of Japanese motorcycles requires great peace of mind (Pirsig)
Jensen,
Why would you ever think that bringing your knowledge and experience to the thread would ever be considered interference? Personally, I don't think there can ever be enough knowledge shared in conversations like this. I also find your "meddling" ;-P in threads always adds value. I'd like to ask a question that I think is pertinent to the discussion although a bit off the core topic. Why is it that LED lights seem to be very bright up close but do not seem to transmit their light for a long distance. My question is based on the current LED flashlights, which if you shine them in your eyes, are blindingly bright. Yet, if you try to light up something at a distance, they peter out. Is it because they are a more diffused light and it scatters more than an incandescent bulb? I think the answer is important here since we are all wanting te be seen by cars, both from the rear and in the front. Merry Christmas, everyone! regards, Rob
I don't know for sure, but I believe the reason they light appears to peter out is because they are un-diffused. I think the LEDs are very intense but without a reflector, as Jensen said, the actual light is spread across 180 degrees.
Jensen, I don't want to use the stock reflector for the very reasons you've been sharing. That's why I looked into using the Luxeon lens. Do you think it'll work?
Some progress!!!
I got to cutting out the bulb and filament of the donor sealed beam light and made sure the hole was as flat and centered as possible. This was a struggle. I used a hole saw which worked great-- until it grabbed. My mounting was a bit looser than it should have been, apparently, and the hole saw took and edge and spun the light assembly, which made an ugly groove in the back of the case. It doesn't bother me too much, just an eyesore while I have the heat sink off. On that topic, I bought an EXTREMELY expensive piece of copper and got it cut and bent into the shape I need. I made sure it was straight (roughly) and got to drilling the mounting holes for the LED and lens. The emitter panel will be bolted down to the copper with some zinc-oxide grease to conduct the heat to the plate. The little legs on the LED focusing lens will be epoxied to the emitter panel but protrude slightly through the back and require some holes drilled in the copper plate for the panel to sit flush and therefore most effectively transfer the heat. The copper plate will be steel epoxied to the headlight case. I'm not sure if it'll also conduct any heat to the case, but I don't think I'll need it anyway. The flexbox driver has been epoxied to the copper plate just as a good mounting location and the wires were routed through the plate to the LEDs. I wired it all up and connected it to an adjustable bench power supply. Let me tell you, these things are BRIGHT. I set the headlight case over the LEDs and it put a nice patterned beam of light on the ceiling. Tomorrow I'll be back to finish up mounting everything and I'll post some comparison videos/pictures. Seriously though, easily 3-4x brighter than the old light and using MUCH less energy. Pictures:      That's it for today, hopefully some MORE progress and updates tomorrow!
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