What Brightness LED's for Guages?

[pete]

Cheers Andre, I'm happy with the result so far, but it will be nice to confirm it's still good in daylight.

I've yet to figure out how I'm going to do the bigger bulb replacements for the idiot lights and gauge backlights yet.

The reason I figured I'd end up using two was due to the width of the idiot lights as one just didn't seem right.

Also, the gauge backlight seems to rely on the bulb's spread of light, which even these flat top ones don't have, so I suspect I'll end up with two in there too, one pointing left and one right to distribute the light.

[Matchless]

Cheers Andre, I'm happy with the result so far, but it will be nice to confirm it's still good in daylight.

I've yet to figure out how I'm going to do the bigger bulb replacements for the idiot lights and gauge backlights yet.

The reason I figured I'd end up using two was due to the width of the idiot lights as one just didn't seem right.

Also, the gauge backlight seems to rely on the bulb's spread of light, which even these flat top ones don't have, so I suspect I'll end up with two in there too, one pointing left and one right to distribute the light.

I actually have some of them doubled up in the old bulb holders, bent slightly sideways. Just do not ask me which, it was quite a while ago.

[pete]

I actually have some of them doubled up in the old bulb holders, bent slightly sideways. Just do not ask me which, it was quite a while ago.

Yeah that makes sense. Going by what's in your guide it won't be difficult, just a tad fiddly to get right.

I'll have to trial and error fit, but I'm up for that

[cal_look_zero]

I wish I had stumbled in here sooner. I haven't gotten in the gauges of my GS yet, but on my CBR, the ideal LEDs to use are the little 4 prong flat ones that look like a little microchip...



They're spendy, but the light goes right where it's supposed to, and there's no issues with fitment since you can get them as small as 3mm.

Just for future reference. If there's room, then the flat tops work just fine, but on the CBR there is NO room for anything other than these "piranha" LEDs.

[pete]

I wish I had stumbled in here sooner. I haven't gotten in the gauges of my GS yet, but on my CBR, the ideal LEDs to use are the little 4 prong flat ones that look like a little microchip...



They're spendy, but the light goes right where it's supposed to, and there's no issues with fitment since you can get them as small as 3mm.

Just for future reference. If there's room, then the flat tops work just fine, but on the CBR there is NO room for anything other than these "piranha" LEDs.

I stumbled on quite a few of those in my eBay crawling when looking for the flat tops. I think they're referred to as surface mount or SMD's from memory.

For the GS gauges, I think the flat tops are better due to the depth of the bulbs, and I think it would be quite awkward to mount the SMD type.

However, I have another cunning plan that may or may not be attempted that those SMD type LED's would suit perfectly, but I won't reveal that one just yet...

In the meantime I got some more progress done tonight and I'm just waiting for pic's to upload so will post the update shortly.

[pete]

So, next up I'm moving onto the idiot lights and gauge backlights:



Sorry for the blurry pic's, but you can still make out that it's a completely different fitting to what Matchless has in his GS1000:



It's a push-in interference fit, so how to make that work? Soldering is no good as I would melt the rubber housing and I don't think the soldering iron tip would get down far enough anyway.

So... cable tie to the rescue!

Once again, sorry for the blurry pic but I just can't seem to get the camera to focus right up close, I'm really quite camera challenged:



I've trimmed and soldered the 470 ohm resistor to the cathode leg of the LED.

I got a cut off from a cable tie I used to tie the harness to the frame with and chopped a small length off as it appeared to be about the same width as the bulb where it has the interference fit to the socket.

I then wrapped the LED's anode lead and the resistor's lead around the bit of cable tie and there we have it, an interference fit LED.

I'm not 100% convinced it'll be sturdy enough yet, and I think I'll make a slight modification by putting two grooves on the bottom of the cable tie piece for the leads to sit in to prevent them vibrating together and shorting out.

I have also yet to put some heat shrink over the LED/resistor joint too.

So on to testing time.

Here's the neutral light with the standard bulb:



Indicator light with the LED is on the left, bulb on the right:



Ignoring the poor camera work that's resulted in a different colour tinge, the sinlge LED is actually a little brighter than the bulb, which is excellent.

The only catch with the indicator is that I'm going to need two LED's in there, one in reverse polarity.

The reason for that is the 450 has a two connector indicator relay, so it seems that to make the indicator light flash, it reverses the polarity of the bulb, which of course won't work real well with a LED setup.

And onto testing for the backlights.

Left is the standard bulb, center is off, and right is one LED:



It's a bit hard to tell, but due to the backlight relying on the spread of light from the bulb, it's not going to go real well with just one LED.

The LED that's in there is canted slightly to the right, and you can definitely see the right side of the gauge is illuminated whereas the left seems not to be.

So, the answer should be as simple as two LED's, one canted left and the other canted right.

I've cut the rest of the cable tie bits for the other bulb replacements, so I just need to solder up the LED's and resistors and bend them around the cable tie bits.

I also still need to get a two LED reverse polarity one organised for the indicator one and two dual LED ones for the backlights.

All in all I'm definitely happy with the progress so far.

[Matchless]

Excellent job Pete! Thanks for the tip for using a bit of cable tie! I have soldered those in the past and never thought of doing it that way.
You could even add more LED's to the gauges by drilling some strategic 5mm holes and just pushing an led into it or even gang up 3 LED's on the present one.

[Mekanix]

2 things i hope you don't run into like I did


1. With LED's in the gauges means they fog up and do not unfog because there is no heat in there anymore.

2 The gear position indicator will intermittently stop working on certain gears because of oil on the position selector and the fact that the LED's don't take enough current to break through it and make a good connection.

Great job on the mod



Oh, one more thing, Instead of one resistor per LED you could use 1 resistor on the input of the gear position indicator and solder the LED's flush.

[cal_look_zero]

Nice to see someone jumping feet first into a project like this. I'm inspired to dive into my gauges tomorrow and see if I can help anyone out/get some nifty ideas for what I'll soon be doing.

Would anyone be interested in a write up on how to do it once I get in there and figure it out?

(I'm a total LED nerd and have done the gauges in everything from my 06 600RR to my 73 F100 along with about a bazillion other lighting projects)

[pete]

Excellent job Pete! Thanks for the tip for using a bit of cable tie! I have soldered those in the past and never thought of doing it that way.
You could even add more LED's to the gauges by drilling some strategic 5mm holes and just pushing an led into it or even gang up 3 LED's on the present one.

Thanks Andre! This is the third non-tie use I've found for cable ties.

First was the common one everyone knows which is for valve adjustments, then I found it the perfect size spacer to lock the GSXR left control to my 'bars without swivelling around, and now as a base for the LED bulb replacement.

Very true on the extra holes comment, but I think left and right will be enough, at least I hope so.

2 things i hope you don't run into like I did

1. With LED's in the gauges means they fog up and do not unfog because there is no heat in there anymore.

2 The gear position indicator will intermittently stop working on certain gears because of oil on the position selector and the fact that the LED's don't take enough current to break through it and make a good connection.

Great job on the mod

Oh, one more thing, Instead of one resistor per LED you could use 1 resistor on the input of the gear position indicator and solder the LED's flush.

I haven't ever had fogging in the gauges before, but that could be a climate thing too, you guys in Canada get far colder in summer than we ever do in winter I would imagine, so hopefully that'll be no issue.

I've just rebuit the engine, so hopefully the fresh new O rings and seals around the place will prevent that from happening

Thanks for the compliment and bringing those up too, could definitely help if my gear position indicator does weird things...

As to the single resistor tip, yep, did that, and my single resistor is inline with the power feed to the LED's.

Nice to see someone jumping feet first into a project like this. I'm inspired to dive into my gauges tomorrow and see if I can help anyone out/get some nifty ideas for what I'll soon be doing.

Would anyone be interested in a write up on how to do it once I get in there and figure it out?

(I'm a total LED nerd and have done the gauges in everything from my 06 600RR to my 73 F100 along with about a bazillion other lighting projects)

Glad to see my work inspiring someone Not every day you see that happen...

I think you'll find everyone, or at least most on here, will be interested in any writeups like that.

If nothing else, it'll give you a sense of achievement

Not sure if I'd class myself as a complete LED nerd, but I definitely have tendencies in that direction...

[pete]

Spent a couple of hours tonight finishing up the idiot light replacements, so all I have left is the gauge backlights, and I'm a little unsure of how to sort those out as the LED's aren't playing nice for them.

Anyways, back to the beginning... got all the LED's prepared with resistors and heatshrink:



Then I went to fit my first one into the oil light socket, but found once I crimped the leads properly around the cable tie, it was too loose a fit and just wobbled around with no connection.

So, dug around and found a thicker cable tie and that's it on the right:



That one made it a very firm fit so it ain't goin' nowhere and has good connections.

I did up the dual polarity one for the indicator light, but I couldn't get a pic that wasn't blurry or crappy, so nothing to show how that was done so I'll attempt to describe it.

I took the two prepared LED's for it and soldered the resistor lead from one onto the anode LED lead of the other and did that for both, but I ensured that the majority of the length of the anode lead of each LED was untouched so I could still wind it around the piece of cable tie.

I then folded them up so that they're side by side and wound the anode LED leads around the cable tie piece.

Sorry if that's a crap description, but the best I can do considering I couldn't get a good enough pic to show it.

Anyway, here's how they look.

Oil light:



Neutral:



High beam:



Indicators:



So, for the gauge backlights I did the same as above for the dual polarity indicator light, except I just soldered the anode leads together seeing as they're the same polarity.

I only did the speedo light, the tacho light is still a bulb for comparison.

Backlights off:



Backlights on, both LED's just canted left/right to distribute the light:



The bottom of the speedo is basically still dark and not illuminated at all.

So I angled them down a bit as well as canted left/right:



Actually made it a bit worse as there's now a blind spot at about the 100kph mark and it still really didn't illuminate any further down the gauge.

So I'll need to think some more on the gauge backlights, although I'm tempted to just go back to the bulbs and be done with it as I'm not real keen on the idea of drilling extra holes etc.

Anyone else have any bright ideas? (Pun fully intended... haha)

[cal_look_zero]

So I'll need to think some more on the gauge backlights, although I'm tempted to just go back to the bulbs and be done with it as I'm not real keen on the idea of drilling extra holes etc.

Anyone else have any bright ideas? (Pun fully intended... haha)

Extra holes is about the only way. I noticed it last night when I wired my test rig up. I'm going to use push in holders for the LEDs and run 5 LEDs per round gauge at 72* spacing (Probably 6@60* for the tach so I can have the fuel gauge well lit). Assuming that's not too bright of course. I may run less lights or a larger resistor to dumb it down. I have a cool idear for the idiot lights too, gotta go buy a little chunk of circuit board to test it though. The idea is to preserve the rubber boots and maintain a good seal on the gauge cluster.

For me, preserving the natural look and parts on the bike is of minimal concern, so if I have to cut/drill/fab anything, I get a little excited. I know, I'm sick.

[pete]

That's what I was afraid of...

I'm generally trying to keep things in a state where they can be returned to original if possible.

If yours are like mine, there's a metal tab above where the bulb holder slots in, which I believe is there to avoid a bright spot with the bulb and make the illumination come from reflected light only.

There should be something more I can do, I'll just have to mull it over some more, or drill holes...

[mforbes]

I did all LED's. They are bright. May go back to a standard bulb on the High Beam. That blue light is pretty bright. Looks good at night. Plus a little bit of power is saved.

[cal_look_zero]

I just picked up 10 push in LED holders for about $3 at radio shack. I'm about 1/2way through about 17 different things at once, so I may be a little slow on doing the gauges/write up. Maybe not. We'll see how I feel after ganking my calipers apart, my forks apart, taping up my wire harness, and cleaning my shop... Yay weekends.