One more question... LED's

[whid]

In my other post, I mentioned doing my PDI this weekend and will have the bike naked.
I have been recommended some very nice looking LED replacements for the stock bulbs. ALL of them.
Unfortunately, they require ordering them online.
It is my understanding that to change pretty much any of the bulbs, you have to disassemble to get to them on the Jonway YY250T.
By any chance, has anyone used the ones offered at Auto Zone and Pep Boys? They seem to have a very wide variety... I really don't want to mess with resistors. Just swap them out during the rest of my PDI.
Especially the useless little guy next to the headlight.

Though brightness is a major factor on the front two, Just moving to LED for the electrical system and being able to support more LED's like side marker strips and such, is my main goal.

Please suggest any you think I may have some luck with.

[trailheadmike]

type "auto zone LED" in the google search pane below and I see that you will get a bunch of threads from people who've bought there. The google search is good - the board search is useless.

[whid]

Awesome! Thank you for the direction... I did try searching the board and the whole 4 character thing kinda threw me... LOL I am certain it's been addressed plenty of times on here... just not finding the answers I need fast.
Thanks again!

[prodigit]

Do know, that when changing the blinkers to LEDS, sometimes the blinkers will start flashing a lot faster. Also, when changing the front headlight to a LED, you most likely will blind all the people ahead of you; as they are not tuned to direct the light beam to low or high beam.

IMHO, it only makes sense to convert the rear light (tail and brake).
Doing this you'll save some power (go from 25-35W to 5W), meaning you can add another 4 x 5W LED strips to the bike without using more power.

I tried putting 12V LED strips on my BMS 260, but failed miserably. For some unexplainable reason, the bike does not have sufficient voltage to make the LED strips shine bright enough.
I suppose the LED strips (made in China) where made for 14+V, instead of 12V.

[whid]

Thanks prodigit... yeah I heard about the hyper-flashing issue. Seems hit or miss. The headlights will remain stock until I and figure out the right upgrade for them, but have you seen the pitiful lights next to the head light? ugggg. Those need something.... even an amber. the "dash" indicators I figured would just save on more power to. like you said, be able to add more LED's in areas that need it. License bulb plate could go too.
Peering into the front where the headlight bulbs are, I can see the adjustment screws and could maybe attempt that, or go up to at 45w bulb like the stock with my new saved amperage .... So new to this scoot. I am learning on the fly. But yes, the rears are going without question. and would really like to do something with the little ones next to the headlight. I know state laws vary as well. can't have amber on in the back unless flashing, but front can be on constant then go to flash. I've had friends pulled over because of having blue up in their body or engine. and if that one is flashing, your in deep $%&. That was on motorcycles. I had a Kawi. Vulcan 1600 and it died. what repairs would have cost paid for this scoot completely. But it's going to take a few more bucks to get her right.
So if you can recommend anything for the front little ones.... I will roll the dice with the front signals and see how I come out. I've read the flasher fix. So would have to spend even more time to get this right. The few bucks is much less of an impact than the time. And having to disassemble again to get to the front bulbs. So would love to try something now while she is naked for PDI.

[WarrenS]

Every time you disassemble it, it gets easier and faster.

[jwalz1]

When changing the blinkers to led, you generally need to change the flasher to one that is compatible with the leds, and remove the standard one. Most of the places like super bright leds sell the flashers as well.

It will be a part similar to this:

www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/car-install-supplies/cf13gl-02-led-bulb-electronic-flasher/782/836/

[50cc]

Dec 7, 2012 7:51:33 GMT -5 whid said:

the "dash" indicators I figured would just save on more power to

If you have a single indicator for both blinkers and replace it with LED, it will flash only on left or only on right blinker (been there)

[prodigit]

They sell led lights in all colors, red, orange, yellow (incadescent white), (bright)white...

Side leds can be orange.

Under the dash (to illuminate the speedo) can be white. They even sell fuse-shaped bulbs, but in leds, white.
I would think that on the dash, directional lights, and fuel gauge lights, and possibly engine lights or oil lights are all LEDS already. It costs a company more to install incandescent lights, than leds for the instrument cluster.

Since you have a big scooter, it might help to upgrade the battery, perhaps to a Li battery.
It'll keep the head light brighter, even when idling.

So far there is zero solution for headlight replacement.
Sure there are LED headlights for sale, they usually are above 3W, but have several issues:

1: The headlight housing with reflecting background is made for light to come from a single source, namely from about 1/2 inch from the center, where normally the glow wire would be on an incandescent lightbulb.
If you look closer to the lightbulb, often it has 2 bulbs in one (2 glow wires). One for the low beams, and one for the high beams. Both glow wires are about 1/4 inch or smaller apart from one another; which means if your replacement bulb is only 1/4 in deeper in the socket, or sticking out more, your replacement bulb will shine low beams as high, or reverse.
Then there are the following issues:

2- They radiate less lumen than an incandescent bulb per square inch, meaning LED bulbs need a larger surface to emanate the same amount of light.
In other words, instead of a small glow wire, LED bulbs need the space of tens of LEDS (usually an inch, by 1/2 inch, by 1/2 inch, to shine the same amount of light.
Thus, the light is more spreaded, making high beam/low beam impossible from an incandescent lightbulb housing.
Instead you'd have to use a new housing, and focus the housing, not the bulb, to get high or low beam; or revert to lenses.

3- LEDS run HOT to get 5W of light out of them; quite often with insufficient cooling. Unlike an incandescent, LEDS can not get hot, or they will break!
So unless your LED holder (reflective area behind the leds) is made out of metal, instead of shiny coated plastic, the LEDS will overheat, and their lifetime is shortened. They need something like real metal, preferably aluminum housing, that can extract the heat from them.
Leds are MUCH more sensitive to heat than incandescent.

4- Usually, even the best leds are only capable of matching the light intensity of a 25W bulb, only with more negatives!
They have multiple sources of light, that are extremely bright, possibly blinding people looking into the LED, while at the same time they radiate less light unto the road than an incandescent bulb; and things become harder to see at night. This may have to do with that the beam is more omnidirectional than focused though!
So even the best 5W leds, AT BEST can barely keep up with a 25W incandescent bulb to light the road ahead of you.

The good is that blinkers and brake light, that NEED to be omnidirectional, can be changed quite easily, even with a 2 or 3watt led!
But why change the blinkers, when you will use them less than 1% of your travel time?
Unless you're living in the city, and need to use the blinkers all the time, changing to LEDS is not worth all the money and effort! In the end they'll save you what? 1 or 2 seconds of charging the battery via the stator per trip?
Blinkers, usually have 5-10W bulbs, and when in use go on and off, thus already using 50% of their stated energy.
So in the end they'll use 2,5-5W of energy when in use, and you're going to replace them with a LED using 1W of energy?
Not much energy savings I'd say; though a lot of cost, and installation problems.

Headlights and tail lights are on a lot longer. If you do decide to change the headlights, make sure they are equipped with special lenses that direct the light beam, just like you may find on cheaper chinese scooters equipped with halogen headlights.

[whid]

Great post prodigit... Never really hit me that being it's blinking you can figure half the draw and the of course the brakes lights are not as easy of a calculation... I do live in Phoenix and am in the city traffic a lot so I would say I use my brake light more than average.... and make sure I blink with every movement with the crazy drivers around here. On my motor cycle, the front blinkers stayed on, I was hoping to accomplish that some how.
I totally agree on the LED headlight. Just not a viable option. That's why I was thinking about bumping up to the 45 watts as I've seen the HID conversion. No gonna happen for me. The little running light next to the head light could be much improved tho. Based on this math, I find it hard to believe a few more min. would bridge the difference. Especially while adding 2X 24" strips and 4 pod clusters.

There are (four) 2W instrument lights = 8W
The license plate light = 5W
The (two) 3W running lights = 6W
The (two) 5W tail lights = 10W
Total for all lights = 29W

So 29W= 2.41 amps on all the time

Now LED's are figured in milliamp and not watts and you can get a wedge LED from 10 to 29ma but the ones I'm looking at are 18ma. So using all (seven) wedge bulbs for the running lights, license plate light and instrument lights.

18ma X 7 = 126ma = 1.51 watts

Now the taillights;

The LED's are rated at 100ma so here's the math;

100ma X 2= 200ma = 2.4 watts

Now the total for all the LED's is now is 3.91W

The old bulbs were pulling 29 watts so here's the savings;

29W - 3.91W = 25.09 W = 2.09 amps

That's the constant draw... and I'm learning what kind of delicate balance there is
with the charging system. 2.09 amps is a 1/4 of my 8 amp battery should the charging ever take a turn
for the worse.

Now figure the stop lights 10W X 2 = 20W = 1.67 amp
The LED for the stop lights were rated at 200ma X 2 = 400ma

400ma = 4.8W = 0.40 amps ; 20W- 4.8W = 15.2W = 1.27amps savings. Not a constant so can't quantify like the blinkers, but you get the idea.

Now the blinkers (four) X 10W = 40W = 3.3 amps
I used LED's for these rated at 90ma X 4 = 360ma

360ma = 4.32W = 0.36amp 40W - 4.32W = 35.68W = 2.97 amps saved And figure half that with 50% run time in its present condition. Until I can figure how to make them work like on the Vulcan. And just as you stated, it is a fraction of my drive time. I would guesstimate closer to 20-25%. I've sat through 3 cycles of a left turn light multiple times on my commute 1 way. I am continence to turn it off after another vehicle has pulled up behind me at the stop. Then keep it off till entering the intersection.

One extra side note: Not if but when my China scoot fails me, depending on the variables, I would utilize my hazard light feature. All 4 blinkers with no engine, for what could be hours... would hate to add new battery to the list of repair parts needed.

Now we are up over 4 amps +/- of savings, half the batteries capacity an hr.

Being new, im hold a pretty solid 14.2 volts when running 30mph... bounces between 13.2 and 13.8 when Idling.
We can discuss the 4 amp fan next summer when it's 115+. I don't know that the fan will ever be off... lol

But agreed... costly in material and time to do this.

You can see the light bulb over my head I'm sure, when I hold my 2 AA LED flash light next to my buddies 6 D cell Maglite with an incandescent bulb, maybe even a Xeon. My light quality, omnidirection, lack of distortion and even range blows his out of the water. I asked him how much run time he gets on it.... you could count the hours on one hand even if you had a sawing accident in your younger years....lol Mine... 43 hours on 2 AA. It's a sore spot with us I can't let go.... so he comes back with.. well I wanna see you defend yourself against a rabid German Shepard with your double A batteries.... hehe

[turtle8]

A short comment about HID lights. I know scooterist that have installed them love them, but in front of a reflector designed for a halogen bulb, they create glare and dazzle oncoming drivers. I believe in the UK, these retrofit kits are illegal for that reason. Used behind a projector lens that they were designed for, they work great.