Motorbike LED simple conversion by professor sparky
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0HI all!
Now i am sure that most of you know you can buy decent LED replacement bulbs on eBay, that will replace a 21w bulb. However that is not as much fun as building your own units.
Now this is a very simple method using cheap materials. as always i try not to over complicate things,
you need;
-4 8mm 0.5w strawhat LED's per light
-a piece of semi-rigid plastic to cut 35mm discs out of (i.e. ABS)
-soldering iron and solder
-drill and drill bits
-small nut and bolt (M4-M6)
-wood chisel
-heat shrink sleaving 4mm
 
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Step 1: Remove the light unit and dissasemble

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Take the unit of the bike (or car!) and strip it down so you can freely acsess the lamp mounting. it is important to note the inside diameter of the collar (not the hole) for later. have a look ahead if your not sure what i mean, as it will become clear.
mika.ch04 says: Sep 14, 2012. 12:23 AM
can i use 5mm led without resistance ?
pyrobanana says: Mar 28, 2012. 2:24 PM
what motorcycle is this?
professor sparky (author) says: Mar 29, 2012. 1:38 PM
hi, its a honda VFR 750. it has a V4 engine and goes like lightning!!!
dcastor says: Nov 17, 2011. 7:17 AM
So, you've wired the LEDs in series...any thought given to wiring in parallel. Certainly LEDs last almost forever, but if you wired in parallel if one fails the other LEDs would still be functional...

Just a thought.
professor sparky (author) says: Nov 18, 2011. 2:32 AM
hi!, i did think about but for a few reason i decided to go series;
- to make it as simple as possible for novice builders
- using resisters wastes energy if they are not needed, i know its not alot of energy but its the Principle.
- if one did fail you would want replace it whether in parallel or series

i hope that explaines my thinking, it is good practice to use resissters where the project requires it and i do use them in other projects.
builders should always check carefully the voltages of there LEDs and use them wisely using and series LED calculator to double check there sum's!!
thanks for the comment
Sparky
monkeywork says: Nov 9, 2011. 7:18 PM
I don't see a current limiting resistor in your circuit, without it, the LED's won't last long. LED's technically don't have resistance, they're a diode, so you need to add resistance to protect them.
professor sparky (author) says: Nov 11, 2011. 11:16 AM
the LED's i am using have a forward voltage of 3.0-3.6v. With 4 in series that gives us an forward voltage of 12-14.4v. the supply has a maximum voltage of 13.8v. So we can use them without resistors as we are within the operating range.
zazenergy says: Nov 8, 2011. 9:38 AM
very nice, thanks for posting!
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