A recent thread brought to my attention that my brake/tail bulbs (not stock) might not be bright enough in the daylight. I figured I had better sort it out asap because I (as well as pretty much all other bikers) want to be seen.
EDIT: I am very aware of the information out there saying to put a red LED behind a red lens. In no way should this thread be interpreted as, "These are the best upgrade for the GS brake/tail light." I went for these bulbs to test them out and see if they could meet my goals:
1) Wanted to cut down on pull from the battery.
2) I didn't want to wire in another light for the license plate or have it be lit up in red.
3) Bulb had to be just as bright as stock (if it was brighter then hey that's a perk!).
I bought these last week in cool white:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/tail-brake-turn/1157-can-bus-led-bulb-dual-function-26-smd-led-tower-bay15d-retrofit-car/1166/2985/
Got 'em yesterday in the mail and took these pics when I got home from work last night.
The LED on the left and a stock bulb on the right:
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16174379_10155014368658278_4307018922680450829_n.jpg?oh=3fa338f03950d7790152acbfba71a598&oe=592168B7)
Tail lights on. LED on left, stock on the right:
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16142717_10155014368613278_4699674247515144375_n.jpg?oh=a838b4bf26372016a4d2108edda00615&oe=59200866)
Brake lights on. Same thing, LED on left, stock on the right. Looks pretty similar in the pic but you can see the additional reflection at the top and bottom of the license plate:
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16195212_10155014368653278_7229124195000424199_n.jpg?oh=5424cf6c8285764905a95493f63e643f&oe=5917C385)
Kinda neat pic I took of the lens from the top down:
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16142514_10155014368833278_4037352021755763164_n.jpg?oh=2a48141e56e0596c832761e61d263095&oe=59222744)
Fancy fancy!
(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16105893_10155014432428278_2860446158935281154_n.jpg?oh=81d73a1086844647a8e7a085c669c859&oe=59238BF9)
When we finally get a sunny day here in PA I will take some pics out in the sun.
Nice. Does the white light from the LED not wash out the red of the lens?
Chris
O0
Sun? In PA? Surely you jest.....
I've tried some other led 1157 bulbs, and they all had their flaws..... but those ones look nice. Just remember to keep an eye on them - all the other ones I've tried seemed to die an early death because of vibration.
@ Rich: smh I know right... the sun... what's that? :icon_sad: And ok, I will be sure to keep an eye on 'em. Also will re-read sbl.com's warranty/exchange policies on these.
@ the_63: It really doesn't. It was impossible to get my old camera to take a picture that would show how it looks to the human eye. But honest to goodness, it doesn't wash out the red. Even in the pic of the brake lights on, you can see how my camera made it look like the stock bulb washed out the red. Daylight pictures should be better!
I found the Philips extreme vision red led tail light bulbs in running mode to also be brighter than the OEM bulb but they were not really any better as a brake light. I found this to be a dangerous option because there are two bulbs in the GS500 and so at night the brake light is as bright as you'll ever need it. BUT by having a brighter running light with no appreciable difference in the brake light, that means that when the brake light comes on in the day, the difference is far less noticeable.
I am mainly concerned that people notice that I have hit my brakes in the daytime, so I do not want my daytime running light to be brighter, only the brake light.
So I sold them and purchased a pair of incandescent bulbs that were the same strength as the running lights but brighter as a brake light. There's only one brand that makes these and that is the Stanley brand made as an OEM bulb for Honda. It's a 43/3 CP as opposed to the 32/3 CP standard bulb.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BFDIN0K/?tag=2402507-20
user, that is an excellent point. I thought about that too when I was looking at the specs of all the 1157 bulbs on sbl.com... a significant difference from "just on" to "hey I'm hittin' the brakes so that means you should be too!" is most certainly important.
If what I was reading on the site was being processed by my brain the correct way (lol) I chose the 2nd best bulb in the area of biggest brightness difference from "on" to "brake"... if that makes sense. There was one even brighter that I saw... but I chose the one I did because it has 6 of those chips on the front of the bulb rather than just 4. Also I wasn't sure if it would fit in the lens housing because the brightest bulb was even longer than the ones I bought.
I would also suggest that you measure the distance from the ground to the average height of a driver's head and view both the incandescent and LED bulbs from that position and bob your head up and down another foot or so either way, because the lenses are designed for a point light source, the Philips bulbs I used were a point light source but they were too bright as running lights. The original bulbs being 3/32 are 10.6/1 ratio of brake light to running light, but the 43/3 are 14.3/1 ratio that means the running light is the same but the brake light is 35% brighter.
EDIT: The sort of photos that you want to post, would be not trying to capture how bright the bulb is as you have done which doesn't really tell you anything because as you can see it's not what it looks like in real life anyway, but rather you want to take a shot of the bike at a normal car distance from the drivers head height, in the daytime with the light off, then on then brake light on. That is the important metric, can the brake light be readily distinguished from the running light in the day. Being rear ended is something that I am acutely wary of.
Gotcha. Yeah that's kinda what I was planning to do when I said I would do some daylight pics when it gets sunny out again. Guess I just got a bit too excited and wanted to share what it looked like in my garage.
Haha maybe I'll put the bike out on my road (which is a dead end so not much traffic) and then park my van at a normal travelling distance behind it and then take the pics from inside it behind the wheel :icon_razz:
Yeah I bought these first https://www.amazon.com/Philips-1157-X-tremeVision-Exterior-light/dp/B00HWS7XGW, they are point source, having only two LEDs, I really wanted to talk myself into them because they were expensive. But in the end I sold them as I could not convince myself they were a good choice due to being too bright as a running light. Someone recommended the GE NightHawk, which I also bought just to test, and found they were identical to normal off the shelf 1157 incandescents. Had the Philips not been so bright as a running light, I'd have kept them just because I'd never have to worry about the tail lights again. But ultimately I settled on the Stanley 3/43 CP linked to in my first post. I figure if people need me to have a brighter running light in the daytime so they can notice me, then I'm already in big trouble.
EDIT: this is one of the problems caused by the new headlight always on rules, it means the tail light is also always on, I'd rather it be off in the daytime for even more contrast when I hit the brakes. On another note, headlights always on in the daytime are also not very noticeable at least here in super sunny Queensland, they aren't even as bright as most car headlights that are OFF but catch the sun and so appear to be lit up! Which is why I went for modulated front headlights, which I'm exceedingly pleased with. People do notice them.
When I had my GS450, I installed a license plate frame that had an led light board on it. I had the plate's led light on the bottom edge of the plate (away from the taillight) and only wired in the brake light wire. It served as a "third brake light", and I was actually complimented on it by a police officer (after he wrote me a ticket, haha....).
i have those exact LEDs in my truck, they are excellent compared to standard 1157's
Ahh Rich, that's a bummer! But most certainly a cool idea.
Thanks for the input Nighthawk :D
Ok soooooo yesterday was pretty sunny out in the afternoon so I got my butt outside and did some pics. In these pictures the sun is above (of course lol) and behind. My van is 20 feet behind the bike. Same as the previous pics, LED is in the left part of the lens and the stock 1157 is in the right part.
First pic shows really no difference... which is kinda good in relation to user's point about wanting there to be a big change in brightness from on to brake. (Again, I wish I had a better camera because this is not very accurate as to what my eyeballs were seeing but it was fun to do anyway!)
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/tail%20on.jpg)
Zoomed in, still from inside my van. Not much different except for I've got a circle pattern lol
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/tail%20on%20close%20up.jpg)
Then finally one just standing near the bike. I'm really amazed at how this whole thing has shown me how unnoticeable stock taillights are in general :icon_eek: No freaking wonder so many motorcyclists upgrade in order to be seen better smh...
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/tail%20on%20closest.jpg)
So then I applied the brake and here's what I got. Again, still not what it looks like in person but what can ya do. I'm really happy with the difference from on to brake.
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/brakes%20on.jpg)
Zoomed in like last time, still in my van:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/brakes%20on%20close%20up.jpg)
And then one up close standing there:
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/HeavyMetalMopars/brakes%20on%20closest.jpg)
Was very fun to do this and share what I found. I'm really happy and hope these bulbs will last me a long time. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures!
Looks nice :thumb: - maybe something I should do myself. I know most crashes come from the front, but I hate how narrow/invisible some motorcycles are from the rear. I added extra lights in the side lenses on my ninja when I owned it, but then again it only had one brake light, not two like the GS (which is very nice).
Are you also running LEDs up front (headlight), too? I've preferred my halogen because some LEDs aren't really bright if you're off-axis. It really surprised me how dramatic it could be. Thanks for all the photos and thorough testing!
@SBW, good on you for checking it out properly, it's really the only way. On a similar note when setting my headlight beam, every bit of advice all over the web unanimously pointed to a horizontal line at the height of the centre of my headlamp on a wall at a particular distance and the top of the beam should be 2" below that line. However by actually looking at my headlight from the pov of a car driver's height on the road, I easily ascertained against *all* advice that by having my headlight cut off 2" *above* the line that my lights did not shine into the eyes of oncoming drivers at all and made me much more visible. So throw out all your rulers and lines and measures and get out there and test it yourself in real life. After all, it's your life on the line.
Thanks user!! I do want to be as thorough as I can because to a lot of us, it's important stuff. Plus I've read countless threads where people promise more info or more pics etc and then they just don't follow up :icon_sad:
Sassy, I'm glad you like the thread! I do have a LED headlight bulb... this recent thread here should prove to be a good read for ya. Lots of information and again, more test pictures from yours truly :) Page 3 is where there are pics of the bulb I tried out (and really like).
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=70670.0
Thanks for the link. Oddly enough, I've seen that thread before... I guess the desire for LED headlights is quite common here :D
There's a lot of talk about "foreground" effect of a seemingly "brighter" LED bulb, but I didn't see a "holy crap it lights up 5 miles in front of me" statement regarding overall close and far improvement, though you did state that it was better than stock (and other vehicles).
Guess I considered it to be unresolved and moved on to mods/repairs that I actually needed to do! :icon_mrgreen:
Quote from: the_63 on January 20, 2017, 05:11:50 PM
Nice. Does the white light from the LED not wash out the red of the lens?
Chris
O0
Please use a RED LED behind a RED TINTED LENS.
The reason is THE RED LENS FILTERS OUT ALL COLORS EXCEPT RED. SO, the only color getting through the lens is a little bit of red. The illimuniation of that bulb (ability to throw light) is bad. He should sell the white bulb and get a red one. It matters and is VERY CRUCIAL to SAFETY.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/carbulb_notes.php
Quote from: Sassy on January 22, 2017, 07:28:35 PM
Thanks for the link. Oddly enough, I've seen that thread before... I guess the desire for LED headlights is quite common here :D
There's a lot of talk about "foreground" effect of a seemingly "brighter" LED bulb, but I didn't see a "holy crap it lights up 5 miles in front of me" statement regarding overall close and far improvement, though you did state that it was better than stock (and other vehicles).
Guess I considered it to be unresolved and moved on to mods/repairs that I actually needed to do! :icon_mrgreen:
The best UPGRADE you can do for your bike is a higher wattage RED LED TAIL LIGHT bulb. They use like 0.23 Amps with the brake light on at 50W brightness (but like 6W actual Watts used), so I just run that in the cars and bike.
I'm glad to see you read what I posted about the headlight bulbs. Just because it's whiter doesn't mean it's brighter! The light spectrum offers the most lumens for the kelvin color at 4300k. Most halogen are around 3800k or so, and stock HID is 4300k.
Best HEADLIGHT UPGRADE IS A GOOD BULB > https://www.hidplanet.com/forums/forum/general-discussion/halogens/1409801-ryan-s-guide-to-halogen-bulbs
Hey I'm just a chick trying to keep things simple. These were my goals... I guess I shoulda put them in at the beginning when I started this thread :oops: They are up there now.
1) Wanted to cut down on pull from the battery.
2) I didn't want to wire in another light for the license plate or have it be lit up in red.
3) Bulb had to be just as bright as stock (if it was brighter then hey that's a perk!).
I went by the lumens for this bulb. I did a test, posted my results and I'm happy with them. I have read at least a few things online (including on this forum) in the past that talk about what color to use behind a colored lens... but I went with the white bulbs anyway to test them out. Would I have if the GS's lens wasn't set up the way it is with the clear bottom? No, I'd have bought the reds. They have the same specs as the white when it comes to "brake on" brightness and an even larger than the whites difference between "on" and "brake" (which is good as user pointed out). I've found that I can read manuals and how-to's... google search... do research... examine articles until my eyeballs ache... but actual hands-on stuff is just as valuable... and sometimes I like to just test something out and see for myself.
BTW I had the same issue of not enough difference between brake and tail light with my LED bulb setup so I wound up putting a 150 ohm 5W resistor in series with the brake light line which dimmed it enough so now there's a very distinct difference. Both the tail light and brake light are much brighter than incandescent equivalents, but the brake light is much, much brighter. I have red LED bulbs with a white strip LED light on the bottom of the housing to light the license plate.
show, I had no idea you went with the white bulbs. I have the reds of the exact type in my truck. Ill get pics of the one in my truck of day and night and hopefully post tomorrow.
Awesome! :D