Wildguzzi.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Birch71 on June 17, 2014, 07:57:21 AM
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(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/17/u9u9a6e7.jpg)
Finished a shoot downtown and had the 30 mile trip home.
One word... WOW!
The only thing is when it's hot, my high beam indicator goes on even if I'm still on low beams.
Best $60 I've spent for the G11 yet.
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Nice! Which headlight did you get? Why does the high beam indicator go on? That seems strange.
Ken
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I have just added a LED H4 bulb to my V7. I also noted that the high beam indicator lamp would remain on for up to 20 seconds after switching to the low beam, the amount of time depended on how long the high beam had been on, the longer the high beam on the longer it took for the indicator lamp to go off. I put pictures of my findings with the old bulb vs the new LED in this thread which also lists where I bought the LED.
http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=66974.0
http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/3600-Lumen-H4-H6M-LED-Headlight-bulb-_p_83.html
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That's the one I got.
For me, it's not even switching from high to low. It just turns on even though I left the lows on.
Any chance the bike measures current draw and it's from the light's fan turning on? Only seems to happen when it's hot out or when I'm stuck in traffic.
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What's the draw?
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(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/17/u9u9a6e7.jpg)
Finished a shoot downtown and had the 30 mile trip home.
One word... WOW!
The only thing is when it's hot, my high beam indicator goes on even if I'm still on low beams.
Best $60 I've spent for the G11 yet.
Brand name and source please.
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Is there a manual we could look at, that may clue us into why the idiot light stays on.
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Brand name and source please.
It's the link a couple of posts back for Cyclops Adventure Sports.
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I like this product and your review of it, Birch71, and would have ordered one if they weren't out of stock. I rarely ride at night, and need a headlight mainly so oncoming traffic notices me, and to satisfy the NC and VA headlight laws. If the specs are correct, the headlight draws less than 2 amps on low beam, compared to about four for my H4 incandescent. This gives me two more amps for battery charging, and undoubtedly lowers the "break even" RPM significantly. It's also about 1/8 the price of the high-output alternator from Euro Motoelectrics.
Edit: I ordered one anyway. Maybe I'll be one of the first to get one when they start shipping again.
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In case anyone is interested, cyclopsadventurespo rts.com shipped my 3600 Lumen H4 LED bulb today, so it appears they're back in stock.
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Just so you know, on their site it says the light isn't DOT approved and is for off-road use only.
"This Bulb is not DOT approved and is for off road use only"
Maybe no big deal unless you get into a collision or something and it comes up (claims of they didn't see you). You'd be surprised what gets looked at when it comes time for an insurance company to pay up.
DOT approved lights cost about twice but maybe you get what you pay for?
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I noticed that, but thanks for the heads-up anyway. I plan to do a comparison in daylight, looking at it from an approaching driver's point of view, and also at night, from my point of view. As long as it's at least as visible to other drivers in the daytime I'll be happy. I'll try to post some photos.
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The reason the H4 LED is not (and probably never will be) DOT approved is that it's an LED bulb intended to retrofit in an E-type reflector. They're incompatible optically. IIRC, I've seen DOT-approved LED headlights, but it's the full montie -- bulb, lens, and reflector.
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What's the draw?
The light has 3 20W LED's, 2 run all the time the 3rd kicks in when you switch to high beam,so 40W on low 60W on high. I like mine a lot.
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Not saying you're wrong, Clubman, but the ad says "Power draw 20 watts on Low 30 watts on high". Is the ad wrong, or does it actually have three 10 watt LEDs?
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Not saying you're wrong, Clubman, but the ad says "Power draw 20 watts on Low 30 watts on high". Is the ad wrong, or does it actually have three 10 watt LEDs?
Pretty sure it is three ten watt dies .
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I noticed that, but thanks for the heads-up anyway. I plan to do a comparison in daylight, looking at it from an approaching driver's point of view, and also at night, from my point of view. As long as it's at least as visible to other drivers in the daytime I'll be happy. I'll try to post some photos.
I noticed that LEDs do show up much better in daylight (your goal). The pure white seems to catch attention.
I wonder if they'd work with a modulator, that should really grab looks.
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I noticed that LEDs do show up much better in daylight (your goal). The pure white seems to catch attention.
That's encouraging. As far as your connection between double cost and DOT approval, the cost of the approval process may be partly to blame. I do understand the need to approve a lamp and reflector combination as a unit though.
I'm looking forward to taking comparison photos between my 50/55 watt quartz-halogen H4 bulb and the LED bulb. I'll get my daughter to use her SLR and keep the aperture and shutter speed the same, so hopefully the only variable will be the bulbs themselves.
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Just in case you didn't catch the other thread I'll repost the photos I took off my gopro here,
Took some video of the old vs new during my nighttime commute into work and maybe I'll post them up at some point but for now I did get some screen grabs of the same section of road while using the high beams and another section when I had the low beams on.
First up is the low beam using the stock H4 bulb
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/RickFi/V7/dipold_zpsf5103b0b.png) (http://s11.photobucket.com/user/RickFi/media/V7/dipold_zpsf5103b0b.png.html)
Now the same section of road with the low beam LED light
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/RickFi/V7/dippednew_zpsa0b0e24f.png) (http://s11.photobucket.com/user/RickFi/media/V7/dippednew_zpsa0b0e24f.png.html)
High beam stock H4
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/RickFi/V7/brightold_zpsb8973c5b.png) (http://s11.photobucket.com/user/RickFi/media/V7/brightold_zpsb8973c5b.png.html)
High beam LED H4
(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a189/RickFi/V7/brightnew_zps84ff6b35.png) (http://s11.photobucket.com/user/RickFi/media/V7/brightnew_zps84ff6b35.png.html)
A few observations, The light is much whiter as can be seen in the pics above. The LED high beam does not seem to project much farther than the dipped/low beam, it just fills in the space in front of the bike better. The LED light seems to throw more light out to the side than the stock H4 bulb, I didn't run into any head on traffic on the ride in so I can't tell if it will be bothersome to oncoming drivers but I'm a bit worried about that. Also noted that the blue high beam lamp stayed on once the LED was set to the dim position for 5-10 seconds and then the blue lamp would go out. Also the small daytime running lamp underneath the main bulb was not lit, not sure if it only comes on during the day? I never noticed it before so I'm not sure how it works.
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Here are some photos of the light from the quartz-halogen and LED bulbs. the LED bulb is the same as Zinfan's. The first four were taken in my garage with the light shining on the garage door. I was careful to not change the vertical adjustment of the reflector between photos. The little piece of blue tape is there to show the top of the light pattern that would shine toward an oncoming driver's eyes. The camera was set to the same shutter speed, aperture, and white balance for each group of photos, so they can be compared in a fair way.
The 1st pair is the H4 Quartz-Halogen on low beam and the LED bulb on low beam. The quartz-halogen bulb really cuts off the light that would be in an oncoming driver's eyes, whereas the LED does not. This is the biggest concern I have about the LED bulb. I rarely ride at night, so it may not be a big problem, but when I do ride at night I may have to tilt the headlight down some.
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo000_zps27df0965.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo001_zpsd5d14e47.jpg)
The next pair is QH High and LED High. There's nowhere as much difference in pattern on high beam:
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo003_zps681421a0.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo002_zpscdfc1d87.jpg)
Same pairs, looking from an approaching driver's point of view. It's interesting that the quartz-halogen bulb is not very impressive on low beam in the daytime. Daytime headlight laws are intended to help other drivers see us, but the light isn't much brighter than my sunlit gravel driveway. Here the LED bulb would do much better at getting attention. I don't know if it would go so far as to be annoying or not.
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo005_zpsb505c727.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo007_zpsae4e0e9a.jpg)
On high beam, the quartz-halogen bulb stands out much better than it did on low. The LED bulb on high mainly lights up the whole headlight, rather than leaving the dark spot at the bottom that it has on low:
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo006_zps4a08991f.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo008_zps36063627.jpg)
Current draw at 12.5 volts:
LED bulb on low: 1.6 amps
LED bulb on high: 2.3 amps
QH bulb on low: 4.2 amps (nominally 55 watts)
QH bulb on high: 4.5 amps (nominally 60 watts)
This means more than 2 amps are available for battery charging than there were before.
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(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo000_zps27df0965.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c327/triplejim/motorcycles/guzzi/H4%20LED%20Headlight%20Bulb/photo001_zpsd5d14e47.jpg)
Wow, there is no low beam cutoff. :o Wouldn't work for my nightly ride home.
With my HID addons, the low beam cut off is as good or maybe better then the stock H4. I wonder why the LED is like that? I know the LED die is pretty large, which must be related.
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Yes, the emitters themselves are much larger than the QH filaments. Also, the low beam QH filament has a small reflector to make essentially all of the light go toward the top half of the reflector, and undoubtedly creates the cutoff. The QH high filament is in the open like the LED emitters, which explains the high beam patterns being so similar.
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Well, I rode around 50 miles today and passed two sheriff's deputies in their cruisers going the other way. Neither one seemed to be concerned about the new LED headlight, so that's a good sign.
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Has anyone outfitted a headlamp with a faceted lens with an LED, or are all of you folks who are doing the legwork using smooth lenses and faceted reflectors?
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Mine's a BMW type Bosch headlamp with a smooth reflector and a patterned lens.
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If these pics in this thread were taken with the camera on automatic exposure....the comparison is not very valid visually....from one poster to another the camera also has to be the same. Different digital camera models render and expose differently, color temp affects exposure and even with the same model by the same same maker the rendition is not very consistant....just mentioning I noticed some big differences in the exposure that make the comparison pics not very good.
what is good with leds is the uv output that lights the retro reflective stuff like signs and markers, the color temp makes visability in rain and fog much worse with leds unless they are warmed.....
and yes the current is monitored by the ecu on the 8V griso
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As I said above, the photos I posted were not taken in auto mode. Shutter speed and aperture were fixed for the garage door shots as a group, and for the driveway shots as a group.
How would UV output help retroreflective objects? They are not fluorescent. They just reflect light, and if it's UV, the human eye won't see it.
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I can report that I've had three nighttime drives into work and no oncoming drivers flashed me while my LED lamp was set to low so ok so far I think.
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Zinfan, the problem I see is that the low beam and the high beam aren't very different as far as where the top of the pattern is, so if I set the lamp to not bother other drivers on low beam, going to high beam won't light up more distant road much better. I don't expect it will be a problem for me, because of the not riding at night thing. And in city night riding, it wouldn't be a problem either, since in the city you never get to use high anyway.
I meant to measure the alternator "break even" RPM after my ride yesterday, but I forgot. I'll try to do that soon. I'm hoping it's down in the low 2,000 range now. It was originally not much under 3,000.
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and yes the current is monitored by the ecu on the 8V griso
What? ???
No....... ::)
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Zinfan, the problem I see is that the low beam and the high beam aren't very different as far as where the top of the pattern is, so if I set the lamp to not bother other drivers on low beam, going to high beam won't light up more distant road much better. I don't expect it will be a problem for me, because of the not riding at night thing. And in city night riding, it wouldn't be a problem either, since in the city you never get to use high anyway.
I meant to measure the alternator "break even" RPM after my ride yesterday, but I forgot. I'll try to do that soon. I'm hoping it's down in the low 2,000 range now. It was originally not much under 3,000.
I copied my photos over to ADVRider's Vendor's thread and the guy who sells these things says the low/hi beam behavior is normal. I don't think any amount of adjustment is going to the the hi beam to throw farther, it just sorta fills in the center of the light pattern and a bit of the sides. That being said I have no issues when driving pitch black roads at night on low or high so I'm ok with it now and have no plans to adjust the beam pattern from the stock settings.
Here is his reply to my post
Thanks for posting and the big effort to get the beam shots.
As Ive said in this thread many times, do not expect to get a bunch more distance out of this or any other bulb you can put in your stock housing.
I would say the photos show a dramatic upgrade from the stock bulb.
What you should expect is a brighter better working headlight that will allow you to see better and let other vehicles see you better.
On some bikes you do get more projection due to the design of that particular reflector, If you want distance LED Aux lights are the way to go.
Thank you again and Great Job
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Thanks for posting his reply. I understand your point and agree. I was just trying to include what I learned for guys who might be thinking of getting one, as you did before I got mine. I'm very happy with it. Like I said, if I need to do a substantial amount of night riding and the lack of low beam cutoff is a problem, I can temporarily install the QH bulb. I don't expect to have to do that.
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Thanks for posting his reply. I understand your point and agree. I was just trying to include what I learned for guys who might be thinking of getting one, as you did before I got mine. I'm very happy with it. Like I said, if I need to do a substantial amount of night riding and the lack of low beam cutoff is a problem, I can temporarily install the QH bulb. I don't expect to have to do that.
You must have had a better time of getting the protective rubber boot and metal clip back onto the new LED than I did, I have no desire to wrestle that again just to change bulbs. I understand your concerns and I'll report back if I start getting flashed due to the LED low beam. I work at night so half my commute is in the darkness so I have lots of opportunities to blind oncoming drivers, nothing yet after passing over 30 cars over the past few days.
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Hmmm, the clip is a bit of a pain, but I don't remember a rubber boot. Is it part of your existing headlight assembly, or part of the LED kit?
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I measured the "break even" charging RPM with the LED headlight on low beam, and it's much lower than it was with the Quartz-Halogen bulb. Break even seems to be about 1,500 RPM, and at 1,800 RPM I measured 14 volts at the battery. The ignition coils have 5Ω primaries. With the QH bulb and the 3Ω coils I had before, break even was something around 2,500 RPM.
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What? ???
No....... ::)
My 2012 Threw a big warning across the dash when the low filiment blew, I got a similar warning when I had a left turn signal bulb die.
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Update: One the two low beam LED emitters in my Cyclops 3600 lumen H4 bulb quit. I checked for obvious problems, but it looks like a failure of the driver circuit in the little plastic housing that's in the bulb's wires. I contacted Cyclops Adventure Sports, and got a prompt reply. I was told that since it's a little past one year, the warranty doesn't cover it, but they're willing to sell me a new one at 1/2 price.
I haven't decided what to do, but may ask if they'll let me put that amount toward one of their newer bulbs. Because of Rodekyll's recent post about the Truck Lite sealed beam headlamp, I'm also considering going that route. Another option is to wire up a generic 10W LED driver board for that LED emitter.
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In case there was any confusion -- my photos were also taken with the aperture and shutter speed manually set -- no auto-anything.
And as a point of information -- the truck lite unit I bought has a 3-year warranty.
The truck lite does throw the high beam farther down the road, compared both to its own low beam and to the high beam of the halogen it replaced. I think what the tech support email a few replies up was addressing is the incompatibility of the LED module to the incandescent reflector. My beam patterns look nothing like the Cyclops pics. Mine are well formed, sharp cutoff, and a clear shift of light between low and high.
Yes, I'm sure the difference in cost is at least partly due to the DOT compliance. But I don't think it's fair to say DOT is 2x more expensive. If we use DOT cost as the baseline, the inferior knockoffs are 2x 'cheaper' in every way.
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After an email exchange with Darryl VanNieuwenhuise at Cyclops Adventure Sports, I was told that:
* Quartz-halogen bulbs normally fail in 6 months and have no warranty, so I should be OK with the LED bulb failing in a little over a year
* Their failure rate for the 3,600 lumen LED bulb I bought is less than .5%, but they won't replace mine since I bought it a little over a year ago.
* Rather than buy a Truck-Lite sealed beam bulb, I should get their $415 one: http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/7-Vortex-LED-Headlight-DOT-approved_p_98.html (http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/7-Vortex-LED-Headlight-DOT-approved_p_98.html)
* Even though their description says "Life span 30,000 hrs", that means only the emitter life, not the life of the whole bulb.
Darryl said that the design is limited by available space, so I said that the failure was in the driver module inline with the wiring, and there is plenty of room in the bucket for a better module if it has to be larger, but he said "Your bike may have plenty of room other do not. We did not design this
product for only your bike."
I explained that I'll find another place to spend money when I want LED lighting.
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When I was researching lighting I chatted with Cyclops. I questioned the 30,000 hour life. They said "it lasts 30,000 CALENDAR hours assuming a 15% DUTY CYCLE." That meant to me a total life of 30,000 hours from the production date of the element, including shelf life at the store, with a bulb ON life ~4500 hours. I observed that it wasn't a fair way to rate a bulb. They didn't disagree -- just dismissed it saying "all the LED mfgrs rate them that way." Sure enough, if I read the packaging on household LED I see the large print might say "LASTS 5 YEARS" while the small print says "when used 2% of the time." Now I find out they don't even mean the element lasts that long. I also learned that the wattage listed is for total draw -- emitter included. Actual power at the element is significantly less.
sleazy. It's this sort of deceptive marketing that will hold back what ought to be a pretty good technology.
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Very interesting information that I hadn't yet discovered. It sounds like the 30,000 hours or similar ratings came from the LED manufacturers, and the companies that take the LEDs and make "bulbs" out of them by adding drivers, heat sinks, fans, etc., are trying to find a way to keep the big sounding number, but not stand behind it.
The problem I have with Cyclops and Darryl is the attitude that I should be happy with the approximately 100 hours I got from the bulb, that I'm wrong to think they could build a more robust driver module for it, and that after seeing how they don't stand behind their products very well, I should consider their $415 sealed beam bulb rather than the Truck-Lite that's well under $200 now.
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I have not been really satisfied with the posts the Cyclops guy makes on the adv forum either.
if mine ever gives out I'll look somewhere else, maybe even go back to halogen. So far I'vs had mine for about six months and it is doing fine.
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How interesting....ther e is no free lunch.
As for regular H4 having a shelf life of 6 months-not my experience at all. I have some going on 5 years with a fair amount of use.
Are they great lights? No. But they last longer than 6 months.
I've been in the aftermarket supply business for a while now and know lots of small operators like myself. The guys I know bend over backwards to deliver a product that does what it claims with no mumbo jumbo. I see guys like the one described here offer support and claims that I would be embarrassed to offer-and so would the other guys I know.
You're right to take your money elsewhere. As for LED (and the new florescent) bulbs-I'm a commercial building manager by trade and I can't ever count how many of the so-called "long life" bulbs we've installed in all kinds of fixtures that have failed within 6 months of install. At )sometimes) 10x's the price.
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I don't think this should be interpreted as an indictment of the led industry altogether. Some offer as much as a 3-year warranty, which seems audacious, but which should give us confidence that even if we do get shorter-than-expected life from a product we can avoid throwing good money after bad.
. . . of course that's a small comfort when the bulb craps out on a dark night in the apex of a hairpin. :shocked:
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If halogen bulbs normally fail after 6 months then I must have come across some real special ones for decades now.
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The whole email exchange is entertaining, but probably too long to be of interest here. But here's an email I just got from Darryl, and my reply:
"I feel sorry that your bulb failed prematurely, but out of warranty. I offered a fair solution that you did not care to take us up on. Instead you came back with negativity and insults. I do appreciate the feedback.
I wish you the best.
Regards
Darryl VanNieuwenhuise"
"Darryl,
You're still going on about this? I thought it was pretty negative for
you to tell me that I probably have more CDI failures than you have LED
failures. I thought it was negative when I mentioned that there was
room in my headlight bucket, which is a pretty typical one, for a larger
driver module, and you said:
"Your bike may have plenty of room other do not. We did not design this
product for only your bike."
I also think it is false advertising to say "Life span 30,000 hrs" and
then, after mine fails in 100 hours, to tell me "The 30,000 hr is the
emitters not the entire bulb."
When one of my customers has criticism to offer, I take it seriously and
use it to improve my products or services. I don't remember insulting
you in any way, although as my father used to say "A person gets angry
when he knows he's wrong."
Let's drop this. You lost at least one customer with your attitude.
Maybe you can learn from that.
-Jim"
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My two concerns are:
1) Twice this week I have been heading home at 1am, in a misty rain. I have a set of 4000k HID headlights, and 6000k driving lights, on my Stelvio. I had to turn off the 6000k driving lights, because they are too blue and create too much glare, in that foggy mist. The 4000k HID main bulbs are fine. If I had LEDs for the main headlight, I would have had trouble, since LEDs are nearly impossible to get much warmer than 6000k.
2) Tonight I am (was) doing FCC testing on an LED street light. The LED driver decided to commit suicide for no reason, after about 20 minutes. High powered LED drivers are still a work on progress IMHO.
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High powered LED drivers are still a work on progress IMHO.
I agree, especially the ones that are made to be very inexpensive. I have some LED lights in my garage that were made to be street lights and ended up on the surplus market. Each one has ten one-watt LEDs with a driver circuit on the board. They're very well made, and I mounted them on large heat sinks. They've been running 12-16 hours/day for several years now, with no problems. Sometimes making the product as inexpensive as possible goes too far, and as mentioned above, might end up giving the whole product group a bad name.