LED Tail Lights

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Nomad LED's VN750 LED's

 

VN750 LED Tail Light

I've got a lot of light on the rear of the Nomad.  There are the two 1157 bulbs in the OEM tail light housing.  I've added two lights on the Harley Davidson Touring Light Bar on the rear and the LED strip by Signal Dynamics above the license plate. 

The four 1157 bulbs were drawing more power then I liked when I had the spots on and I wanted to reduce the amperage draw.  LED's are always a great method to reduce draw, so I went on my quest. 

I wanted to put in a LED board in the tail light assembly and replace the 1157 bulbs in the Harley frame with LED's. 

Here are the results...


I found the LED board at a company called Clear Alternatives.  It was reasonably priced at $49.99, so I ordered it. 
When it arrived, I was so impressed by it, I worked with them and provided the housing assembly so they could design and build a LED tail light board for the Vulcan 750.  The VN750 board has been so popular that Clear Alternatives has already sold out of it once.

I found that while the LED board worked great in the brake fixture, in Illinois we are required to also iluminate our plate and the CA board didn't have any white LED's pointing upward like the competition did.  To rectify this, I found this white 1157 LED board on eBay for around $14 including S&H.  A nice tab of silicone in the housing and it was attached.  This board is a dual ilumination board, so I cut the brake wire so to only allow the running light to be on.  This maintains a constant white light on the plate and will not light up if I'm using the emergency flashers on the bike.  Check out their eBay online store...

KuryAkyn LED Turn Signal 1157 Replacement lenses.  I found these at the KuryAkyn clearance store on eBay for a reasonable $39.99.  These fit the bill exactly for what I needed to get rid of the 1157 bulbs in the Harley frame.

The spec's on the white LED 1157 board

The LED support was made with silicone RTV.  I ended up cutting the red wire (brake wire) to avoid the license plate flashing when I hit the brakes.  The yellow wire is the running light and the plate lights up just right

The view of the white light board from dead on.

The CA LED-59-L board installed.  Note the rubber o-rings holding the board firmly in the housing.  This puppy does not move...

The board in place with the white light led installed

The tail light housing powered up on running lights

The entire set-up with the brakes applied without the tail light lenses

Running lights applied

Brake Lights - HOLY CRAP!!!

 

 

VN750 LED Tail Light

The Vulcan 750 is a great bike.  But it's biggest drawback is it's cheesy electrical system.  Look at the bugger the wrong way and it drops a bunch of voltage.  One way to boost the available amperage is to reduce the load on the system.  LED's are a great way to do that.  The Vulcan 750 has two 1157 bulbs living in it's tail light assembly just eating up power.  For years we have been trying to find a suitable replacement for the 1157 bulbs but have never found a socket 1157 LED bulb that was worth it's salt.

Recently, I installed a LED board in my Nomad from a company called Clear Alternatives.  This board was super bright, relatively inexpensive and was well made.  But more importantly, with the addition of a set of KuryAkyn LED inserts for my Harley frame, my amperage draw on the Nomad dropped greatly.  So this got me to thinking, what about the VN750.  I called Clear Alternatives and was told that they didn't carry anything for the VN750 except for a clear lenses and two twist in LED bulbs.  Well, we know that these are about worthless so I started in a conversation with Clear Alternatives.  I asked my man there what it would take for them to look at the Vulcan 750 and was told that there had to be interest in the product and that they needed a housing to work with.  Not a problem!!!  I had an extra housing in my garage and between the VN750 YahooGroup and the www.vn750.com website, I knew we would drum up enough support to make this dream a reality.  The crew at Clear Alternatives took me at my word and asked me to provide them a VN750 tail light housing and they would let me know what they could do.  Being the beginning of the motorcycle season with a whole bunch of 2007 models to prototype, they got back to me in record time and sent me a prototype to test. 

update 7/3/07: The VN750 LED tail light is now available from Clear Alternatives.  It is listed as LED-46-L

Click here to order it!!!

Evan's observations:

I have the Clear Alternatives LED-59-L board in my Nomad and I absolutely love it.  It was one of the best upgrades I did to this bike.  I looked at all the LED options available and went with the Clear Alternatives product based on the quality of the product and the price.  The competition is priced at around 60% more then the CA product.  The quality is high and I continually receive comments and complements about how the product looks on my Nomad. 

I had the opportunity to ride behind Chad with the VN750 board prototype installed and can say that this board is single handedly the brightest VN750 tail light I have ever seen.  We have tested it with the Signal Dynamics BackOFF and BackOFF XP module and can say that it works with them as well.  The reduction in amperage draw alone is worth getting this board but I know from personal experience that this LED board is more visible then any 1157 bulb or 1157 LED replacement on the market.  This board is the real deal and I cannot recommend it enough for any VN750 owner out there.  Seeing how it is 100% plug-n-play, there is no reason for not getting one...

Chad's observations:

I did some test on the prototype of the new LED board for the VN750.

The volts running were 12.6 stock with running lights on, with the brakes it dropped to 12.4.  When I switched to the LED it stayed at 12.8 with the running and Brake. 

I then did a draw test bike off key on. 
Stock was 4 amps running lights and 7 amps brake on. 
Led lights were 3.4 amps and 3.6 amps brake on.
That is a big savings on power.

The intensity of the board is great and there are a lot of LED.s on the board and this board fits the housing like a glove. 

This is one of the best things I can think of to improve the low power output of the VN750.  This will greatly help reduce the VN750 Stator and Regulator failure.

As a ASE and Toyota Master Mechanic this is a HUGE savings and ease on the Electrical system in my Professional opinion.


Here is the object of our desire.  A full LED tail light for the Kawasaki Vulcan VN750.


The back of the board.  Keep in mind, this is a prototype and the feedback that Chad and I provide will be used in the production model.  The white tape acts as a bumper to prevent rubbing with the VN750 housing.


Installed and ready for the cover


This board sits right at the back of the lenses housing and is very secure in it's home


Lit up without the lenses.  It might not look like much yet, but this puppy is BRIGHT!!!


The LED tail light on Chad's bike with the running light only activated


Running lights only with the 1157 incandescent bulbs in the housing.


Brake light with the LED board in place.  Holy crap, that's bright!!!


Brake light with the 1157 incandescent bulbs in the housing.

Click here to order it!!!

http://clearalternatives.com/Images/LOGO.jpg

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Page created and maintained by Evan "The Bulldog" Breyn
Last update: 10/07/2012

email the Bulldog at bulldog485@yahoo.com 

Evan Breyn