[Day Trippin]

I finally got around to taking some photos. I mounted 2 sets of LED lights on my N1K. They both use CREE LEDs.

I mounted 2 of the following. They are 22w and about 2800 lumens. The color temp is about 5000k or so.
2800LM Cree Led x2 - 2allbuyer

In addition I mounted 2 of the following. They are about 15w, 1050 lumens and closer to about 3000k for the color temp.
1000LM Yellow Cree Led Light x2 - 2allbuyer

The install was pretty straight forward. I mounted them on the fork tubes. I used the following brackets.

They fit very solidly and I used the foam with stick tape to help reduce any tendency to slide on the fork tubes.

The bigger lights will not work if mounted on the top of the mount. They will contact the steering at full lock. So mounted them both outboard with the smaller on the top. The smaller ones are warmer in color temp and I like the contrast in certain road conditions. They are not as powerful as the bigger ones but do a nice job.

I also crossed their beams so as to see through the turn better. So the right one points to the left, and the left to the right. I also angled them up a touch to be more effective when leaned over. They also make good daytime running lights. They don’t have what I could call a fog light beam pattern but they are fairly wide but with a hotter center.

The big ones through some serious light down the road. I have the setup to augment the stock lights. Honestly I would like them higher as with a more focused beam pattern, slight misadjustment of aiming means I have too much light in front or a lot in the trees. This weekend I had my son help me dial them in and they are pretty good now. These are some seriously powerful lights so don’t do something stupid like look into them when turned on.

Even on wet roads, this things really light up the night. All this darn rain lately has meant a lot of opportunity to test out the electrics. No issues so far. I also wired in some dimmers as well. I’ll post pics of that when I have time. I’ve included some basic frontal pics to give an idea of the mounting.

Just for grins I took a test ride and rode back toward my son. I fired up all my lights and with the main headlights on high beam. So I had a total of 6 lights. My son’s comment was he felt like he was being engulfed by the sun.

All in all I am pretty happy with the lighting now. No issues with the electrical system so far. I replaced the factory bulbs with LEDs that draw less so I am pretty good on current draw. I can run all 4 of my aux lights for about the draw of just the original high beam. There is no doubt I am seen while on the road now.

My future plans are to mount the big ones up where the mirror stalks meet the fairing and remove the mirrors. I’ll go with bar-end mirrors at this time. The reason I didn’t do this now is I just bought the super heavy bar-ends and they quell the vibration so well I don’t really want to take them off now. I did find some bar-end mirrors that will work nicely and nice mounts for them. They are almost as heavy as the heavy bar-ends I have on there now. I am just a bit burnt out from wrenching on my bike and my son’s. My wife is starting to complain and she is very tolerant so when she starts making comments I know I’v gone too far.

Anyway I highly recommend these lights. They’ve survived heavy rain, wheelies, rough roads, high speeds (won’t post on a forum but think FAST) and more. I wanted the lights more quickly so I paid for expedited DHL shipping which ran about $20 extra or so. They came from Hong Kong in about 4-5 days. I bought more lights than the ones I mounted on the N1K and will be mounting them on my bicycles and other vehicles. The seller is Komy Kwan and I had outstanding customer service. Here is his email address if you have questions. komy63 AT yahoo.com.hk Just remove the spacing around the AT and of course replace the AT with @ . Pretty much everything you need to mount them come with them. I just went with the brackets I mentioned as I knew exactly where I wanted to put them.

Here are some photos. I'll post some photos of the mounting on the handlebars later. Everything is wired in to a switched, with relay, power distribution block.

Let me know if you have any questions. I am currently in NorCal and will be in in the San Francisco Bay area for off and on over the next week or so if anyone wants to see them in person. If the rain would stop I'd be up to meeting somewhere.

The photos are a bit deceptive. The lower lights are aimed pretty much straight ahead but they really don't look that way.

 

[Mikey1000]

Excellent work & write up.

 

[Day Trippin]

Thanks Mikey. I can't recommend Komy Kwan highly enough. I am not getting paid to say this either. His service is top rate and very good products at great prices. He has a huge selection of lights and they typically come with everything you need such as switches relays, connectors, etc. About the only thing you might need to supply is additional wiring depending on how far you need to run the wires.

What was very important for me is that he has the color temps of LED lights that I was looking for. The 3000k aren't quite fog light colors but they are definitely more yellow than the LEDs you usually see. I really like this contrast. I'll be buying more lights for other vehicles as well.

 

[sprockethead]

Fantastic! Thank you for sharing with us DT. Especially intriguing to me is that the electrical requirements for all the aux lights are less than the stock high beam.

 

[landman]

they should see you coming now !

 

[Day Trippin]

Yes, there is no doubt about that now. These lights are the bomb for me. What a difference to see and be seen. It turns out to be a lot less money than going the BKMoto route and I have a lot of flexibility.

The draw of all 4 lights is about 60-65 Watts based on what I measured when they are all on at the same time. The stock high beam is 55W. So even I run all 4, I am using just a bit more than the stock high beam.

OTOH I am using LED replacements for the factory low and high beams and they pull less than the factory bulbs. So my total current draw of all 6 LED lights is about 100 Watts versus 55 for just one of the factory lights or 110 for both.

 

[That too]

I'm with everyone here, outstanding job and execution Day Trippin. I am interested in seeing the dimmer setup and dimmer mounting. There are several other auxiliary lighting options available like the Denali types on Twisted Throttle and Clearwater lights but they are way over priced.


Pay it a little forward with the wife and get back to us when you can.

 

[Day Trippin]

The dimmer setup Komy sent me was like nothing I've seen on the market. Think of something small, inline, almost like controlling your earbuds & mic on your phone. Just a few, small pushbuttons, that are embedded into a wire.

You can cycle through to get a variety of intensity and effects. Basically you can step down (or up). At one point you actually reach sort of a strobe setting that is pretty cool. It would be great to get someone's attention as well as bicycle usage. It seems to use PWM to control the lights so as you drop in intensity, the current draw is reduced as well.

Komy just got them in and didn't have any instructions for them yet. I didn't mind as I figured them out pretty quickly. What was very kind on his part is he threw them in free as a bonus. I think I ended up with 4 of the dimmers, free of charge. I mounted one each for the set of 3000K and 5000K lights. I plan to use on a Honda I have and one for a bicycle.

I'll try and get some pics if I ride the bike to work today. We'll that is not an option. It is raining outside. I'll see if I can sneak away from my the wife either before or after work to get to the bike.

 

[sdkoskey]

It turns out to be a lot less money than going the BKMoto route and I have a lot of flexibility.

True, but I love my green angel eyes.

 

[Day Trippin]

I am not opposed to the BKMoto setup. Just it is a lot of work and more expensive. If this hadn't turned out as well as it did for me, I'd still be considering going that route. Now that I am so happy with this setup, it is unlikely I will.

I ended up with some advantages though that are pretty important to me. The light triangle is a big one. It really enhances my visibility to other drivers. LEDs use draw less power for a given lumen output and that means I can more easily run my heated gear or more lights.

When I let my son ride the Ninja while I was on his bike, it was really remarkable how easily I could see him even in traffic with the main LED headlight just on low beam and even my 2 low powered AUX LEDs. I have noticed that when I run the high output aux lights and the main headlight people get out of the way quite nicely on the highway.

I still like how the angel eyes look and I'd love to be running both headlights all the time like on my Vstrom. I can't argue though with how effective my current setup is. I have better light coverage than most high end cars just using my "low" setup. When I go full output, all 6 lights, I have amazing light coverage.

Here is a very interesting paper regarding making motorcycles and their riders more conspicuous. It was done in New Zealand but has some very good info. The area on lighting is 5.2.1 but the entire paper is worth a read. It goes into the evolution of making bikes more visible and analyzes a lot of research done over the years and pulls it all together for "easy" reading. They also discuss better brake lights as well.

http://msac.org.nz/assets/Uploads/p...entions-to-improve-motorcycle-conspicuity.pdf