LED Taillight Installed with Video Night view loaded!

[Scootergptx]

Got the taillight installed today.

First thing, the trim ring looks better than the picture in the ebay add, but it's still got a bit of an edge, for better terms, to it. Not terrible, but the stock one looked a little better. So I took the light out an put it in the original trim.

It took longer than I expected. It's not easy to get to, so I put the bike on my lift, took off the bags and fender trim, and took the shocks off the bottom mounts. Lifted the bike and kept the rear tire on the ground. Much better to get to the screws holding the taillight in.

I don't have a garage, or a shop. My work is done in my driveway. Someday, I'll actually have room in my 10x20 barn, but that's a whole nother story. It was in the upper 50's, cloudy and very windy. In other words, it sucked. But I wanted to get this done so everyone could see it.

Anyway, once you can get to the screws, it's pretty easy. Tail and brake light plugs right into plug harness. Turn signals, you'll need to cut the plug off the old ones. The signals are grounded through the taillight plug, so I just tied the two off the plug together. For the positive wires, I used a crimper, covered it with shrink wrap and coated it with liquid electrical tape. Did that to the negative wires as well. There's a lot of extra wire. I haven't gotten that all tied up yet.

Start to finish, I would guess to be about an hour to hour and a half. I can't say for sure, because I had to stop and do stuff (married stuff ) while I was working on it. That's taking stuff off an putting it back on, and putting tools up.

So the video. Got a daytime video. I tried nighttime. My cell phone won't record video in low light. So much for being smart. My tablet does, but I could use crayons for a clearer image. Dug out the digital camera, tried but couldn't get it to work. Honestly, it's been 4 years since I've used it. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get that. I'm cold and need a beer right now.

[Scootergptx]

So, with all that being said, here's the daytime shot. Turn the volume down, all you hear is wind.

And yes, I know it needs the ballast resistor. There's not really any place to put it up under the fender. I'll get that taken care of later.




Night view. Still wind as... well really windy. Got this shot and the batteries died on the camera. So this will have to do.

[Lumberjack]

scooter they are ceramic resistors but a better option is installing a trailer light wiring isolator to get the signals back to normal. I do not recommend the load equalizers. Or you can buy the generic LED turn signal flasher from Custom Dynamic for MUCH more.

Originally Posted by Scootergptx

So, with all that being said, here's the daytime shot. Turn the volume down, all you hear is wind.

And yes, I know it needs the ballast resistor. There's not really any place to put it up under the fender. I'll get that taken care of later.




Night view. Still wind as... well really windy. Got this shot and the batteries died on the camera. So this will have to do.

[Scootergptx]

Originally Posted by Lumberjack

scooter they are ceramic resistors but a better option is installing a trailer light wiring isolator to get the signals back to normal. I do not recommend the load equalizers. Or you can buy the generic LED turn signal flasher from Custom Dynamic for MUCH more.

Ceramic is what came with it. I'll have to check into the isolator.

[Scootergptx]

I'll probably keep remembering things that are funny. Now.

Like I had said, it was windy. Probably a good 20mph with higher gusts. So when it came to the heat shrink, a lighter wasn't working. Went in and got the propane torch. Not sure what that may have looked like to people driving by, but let me tell you, that stuff shrunk fast. :)

[Scootergptx]

And the license plate frame I bought won't mount up without mods. More fun stuff.

[smokier]

Looking good ScooterGPTx!
Looking forward to the night time version as well.
Thanks for the detail.

Ride safe,
Smokier

[alwhite00]

It looks cool and everything but I hope its a lot brighter in person than in the video. I'm a firm believer in bright tail lights with all the the brain dead people following you you need all you can get.

[Scootergptx]

Daytime, I really coudn't tell the difference in the taillight only mode than the stock. Nighttime, the brake and turn signals really are brighter.

[Cartman_tp]

Scooter' I was able to get my led resistor/heat sink installed under the rear fender. Superbrightleds had small ones for abou $5 think mine was .5x.5x2 inches. It required soldering but only one wire splice. Then I just zip tied it to the bag frame.

[Scootergptx]

Originally Posted by Cartman_tp

Scooter' I was able to get my led resistor/heat sink installed under the rear fender. Superbrightleds had small ones for abou $5 think mine was .5x.5x2 inches. It required soldering but only one wire splice. Then I just zip tied it to the bag frame.

Thanks!

Going to need the rear tire changed soon. Will be a lot easier to do all this with it out of the way.

[Cartman_tp]

Looks nice btw. I personally thought the rear and front turnsignal bars severely took away from the flowing lines of the bike