LED Replacements

[Ponch]

2 and half years ago I replaced my bulbs with LEDs I got off Amazon.  

CAR ROVER H7 LED Headlight Bulbs Conversion Kit with 80W 6000K 9600Lm(40W 4800LM Each Bulb) Super Bright CREE Chips for HID Halogen Light Replacement Cool White

 

One of them just went out. What the heck is going on that this bike eats lights? It's worse than with Halogen. I bought a new set I have yet to put in, the difference being brand, fan versus heat sink, and a little more powerful. Just wondering if it's the bike or just inferior parts. I can say I've bought LED bulbs at home for lights and they haven't lasted as they should. 

[Hati]

Not all LEDs are made equal. Home use globes will have a much easier life, no comparison. Vehicles, including motorcycles are particularly harsh environments. Add to that low quality products and you set yourself up for disappointment.

 

That page you linked to no longer exist, so out of curiosity, what did you pay for one of those? I coughed up close to AU$260 for the 3 globes (plus a spare) with the copper mesh heat sink https://www.stedi.com.au/copper-head-h7-led-head-light-conversion-kit.html. Works well for the past 20000 km on my RT and fits into the headlight assy without modifications. Best of all the layout of the LED bulb is identical to that of an incandescent one, so the pattern is correct, something that is a BIG issue with many LED replacement bulbs. People don't realise that the headlight optics are designed with a particular bulb shape and light emission in mind, a different geometry globe will cast a different pattern, often blinding oncoming traffic.

[Ponch]

6 hours ago, Hati said:

Not all LEDs are made equal. Home use globes will have a much easier life, no comparison. Vehicles, including motorcycles are particularly harsh environments. Add to that low quality products and you set yourself up for disappointment.

 

That page you linked to no longer exist, so out of curiosity, what did you pay for one of those? I coughed up close to AU$260 for the 3 globes (plus a spare) with the copper mesh heat sink https://www.stedi.com.au/copper-head-h7-led-head-light-conversion-kit.html. Works well for the past 20000 km on my RT and fits into the headlight assy without modifications. Best of all the layout of the LED bulb is identical to that of an incandescent one, so the pattern is correct, something that is a BIG issue with many LED replacement bulbs. People don't realise that the headlight optics are designed with a particular bulb shape and light emission in mind, a different geometry globe will cast a different pattern, often blinding oncoming traffic.

My point with my home use ones is that they didn't last either. $260 sounds very high. They are more than that now...I am sure these are better than most based on the specs. The thing that may be killing them is the heat. I live in AZ and we've had a brutal summer. 52 days this year 110 or higher. I haven't ridden a lot this summer, but I have ridden in over 100 a lot. The bulbs I just got I saw someone use on the ADV site. We'll see if they are any better.

[szurszewski]

I bought a used GS early this year that came with, what I consider, high end LED headlight bulbs. They are from Cyclops, seem to be a popular upgrade with the folks over at ADV, and cost around $70 per bulb. They are crazy bright, fit the housing with no mods (they do recommend a small hole in the cover to allow heat to dissipate), have an incorporated fan, and DO require an additional brick to be wired in to work error-free with the canbus (they come packaged with these parts, and you just add them into the wiring along with the bulbs, so no mods or extra expense). 
 

One of them died, and while I don’t know how many hours it had been run on the bike, the bulb housing had a sticker on it saying “2016” so I called cyclops to see what they expected the life to be. Took a few rounds of “well there are so many variable it’s hard to say,” but eventually they said anything over a couple/few years is good in a moto headlight. As above they said it’s a very harsh environment - vibration, heat, etc. 

 

So if you can get a couple of years out of what now appear to be $15 per piece bulbs, and you were happy with the light output, you’re probably doing pretty good with those Car Rover bulbs. Did they cause any dash warnings from the canbus?

 

As for comparing to halogen, I think that’s actually to be expected with LEDs on a bike especially. There has been this myth thrown at us that LEDs will last forever. Definitely not true in high output automotive applications, and not true in home applications. The diode itself may be long lived, but there is also the circuitry that goes with it...and of course we all want it really cheap, so...

 

Halogen, and incandescent, bulbs are so simple - very few parts - but also use up a bunch more energy... at least we have options!

[Ponch]

11 minutes ago, szurszewski said:

I bought a used GS early this year that came with, what I consider, high end LED headlight bulbs. They are from Cyclops, seem to be a popular upgrade with the folks over at ADV, and cost around $70 per bulb. They are crazy bright, fit the housing with no mods (they do recommend a small hole in the cover to allow heat to dissipate), have an incorporated fan, and DO require an additional brick to be wired in to work error-free with the canbus (they come packaged with these parts, and you just add them into the wiring along with the bulbs, so no mods or extra expense). 
 

One of them died, and while I don’t know how many hours it had been run on the bike, the bulb housing had a sticker on it saying “2016” so I called cyclops to see what they expected the life to be. Took a few rounds of “well there are so many variable it’s hard to say,” but eventually they said anything over a couple/few years is good in a moto headlight. As above they said it’s a very harsh environment - vibration, heat, etc. 

 

So if you can get a couple of years out of what now appear to be $15 per piece bulbs, and you were happy with the light output, you’re probably doing pretty good with those Car Rover bulbs. Did they cause any dash warnings from the canbus?

 

As for comparing to halogen, I think that’s actually to be expected with LEDs on a bike especially. There has been this myth thrown at us that LEDs will last forever. Definitely not true in high output automotive applications, and not true in home applications. The diode itself may be long lived, but there is also the circuitry that goes with it...and of course we all want it really cheap, so...

 

Halogen, and incandescent, bulbs are so simple - very few parts - but also use up a bunch more energy... at least we have options!

They had a balast or whatever it is and they were can bus compatible. I get the same error as when a halogen is out on the dash. No problems with errors otherwise. The bulbs I just got are can bus compatible too. They have a 360 degree led. We'll see. It's just a pain to change them. 

[szurszewski]

Definitely a pain to change the ones on the GS too - I ended up taking out the headlight assembly, which makes the actual bulb swap easy but does require fiddling with hard to reach clips to reinstall the assembly. 
 

I’d consider a bulb showing a warning on the dash not to be canbus compatible. The cyclops ones don’t show any warning with the box attached (what you call a ballast that I think is not a ballast but rather some electronic wizardry to make the computer see the power flow as “normal”), and will still work without the box - they just will then show the bulb out warning on the dash. (Did you try yours without the box wired in? If you’re ok with the warning, you may not need the box at all.)

[Hati]

I forgot about the Cyclops I got in the Honda. Been in the bike for probably 5 years and 40000 km at a guess. Still going strong, but it's not fully enclosed as the RT bulbs are. The reason I went with the passive heat shield ones was the fitting issues I had with the Cyclops.

 

I have to admit that our climate here in Western Australia's lower half is probably not as hot as Arizona, although we do get many 100+ days in the summer too.

 

The price... My experience in many things, including motorcycle related gear, is that you usually get what you pay for. Spend more and more often than not, you will get a better product. Of course this is not true 100% of the time, but my positive experiences outweigh the negatives by a fair margin. The Cyclops bulbs are more expensive compared to the Stedi LEDs, as I paid $260 for 4 bulbs. In Australian dollars. The Cyclops are $80 US coins... I think we are at 70 odd US cents per Australian Dollars at present, so you do the maths .  I also put in a reasonable amount of time to research more expensive items before a purchase.

 

The other thing is that my RT is my baby. I do a lot of miles on it, two up mostly, so it's not hard to justify spending money on better quality gear on machinery I use a lot. Besides, don't be stingy with your baby

[Ponch]

2 minutes ago, Hati said:

I forgot about the Cyclops I got in the Honda. Been in the bike for probably 5 years and 40000 km at a guess. Still going strong, but it's not fully enclosed as the RT bulbs are. The reason I went with the passive heat shield ones was the fitting issues I had with the Cyclops.

 

I have to admit that our climate here in Western Australia's lower half is probably not as hot as Arizona, although we do get many 100+ days in the summer too.

 

The price... My experience in many things, including motorcycle related gear, is that you usually get what you pay for. Spend more and more often than not, you will get a better product. Of course this is not true 100% of the time, but my positive experiences outweigh the negatives by a fair margin. The Cyclops bulbs are more expensive compared to the Stedi LEDs, as I paid $260 for 4 bulbs. In Australian dollars. The Cyclops are $80 US coins... I think we are at 70 odd US cents per Australian Dollars at present, so you do the maths .  I also put in a reasonable amount of time to research more expensive items before a purchase.

 

The other thing is that my RT is my baby. I do a lot of miles on it, two up mostly, so it's not hard to justify spending money on better quality gear on machinery I use a lot. Besides, don't be stingy with your baby

 

Some things are just foreign made crap that suffers from quality fade and some things are consistent quality and then there are sources for standardized OEM parts where  it can be more or less expensive if you shop around. Unless the cyclops comes with some sort of guarantee/warranty, it might not justify the cost. I could be at the same place down the road and out more money. On the other hand, Mobil 1 and NGK or Bosch plugs and Mahle oil filters are a known quality. 

[dirtrider]

1 minute ago, Ponch said:

 

Some things are just foreign made crap that suffers from quality fade and some things are consistent quality and then there are sources for standardized OEM parts where  it can be more or less expensive if you shop around. Unless the cyclops comes with some sort of guarantee/warranty, it might not justify the cost. I could be at the same place down the road and out more money. On the other hand, Mobil 1 and NGK or Bosch plugs and Mahle oil filters are a known quality. 

Afternoon  Ponch

 

You are probably OK on the Mahle oil filter & Mobil 1 but NGK or Bosch spark plugs are not always as they seem as there are a number of counterfeit (knock off) spark plugs on the market.    

[Ponch]

1 minute ago, dirtrider said:

Afternoon  Ponch

 

You are probably OK on the Mahle oil filter & Mobil 1 but NGK or Bosch spark plugs are not always as they seem as there are a number of counterfeit (knock off) spark plugs on the market.    

Ok. How does one know? I have bought local and at Beemer Bone Yard. Last time I bought on Amazon. I'll have to check and see where it came from. 

[dirtrider]

1 hour ago, Ponch said:

Ok. How does one know? I have bought local and at Beemer Bone Yard. Last time I bought on Amazon. I'll have to check and see where it came from. 

Evening Ponch

 

With difficulty, some of the spark plug companies web sites have info on how to tell if their brand spark plug is a counterfeit.

 

Or just ride until the spark plug porcelain blows out of the lower plug body (I know a rider that this happened to a long ways from home).

 

E-Bay seems to be the big knock-off plug selling arena.   

 

We are hijacking here so if more discussion then we need to start a new thread/ 

[Ponch]

1 hour ago, dirtrider said:

Evening Ponch

 

With difficulty, some of the spark plug companies web sites have info on how to tell if their brand spark plug is a counterfeit.

 

Or just ride until the spark plug porcelain blows out of the lower plug body (I know a rider that this happened to a long ways from home).

 

E-Bay seems to be the big knock-off plug selling arena.   

 

We are hijacking here so if more discussion then we need to start a new thread/ 

This is what I got in plugs:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002W8KU6W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

[szurszewski]

2 hours ago, Ponch said:

Unless the cyclops comes with some sort of guarantee/warranty, it might not justify the cost.

They do come with a warranty, and a real office in this county where your phone calls go if you have a problem.