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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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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The spec's on the white LED 1157 board
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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
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The view of the white light board from dead on.
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The CA LED-59-L board installed. Note the rubber
o-rings holding the board firmly in the housing.
This puppy does not move...
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The board in place with the white light led installed
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The tail light housing powered up on running lights
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The entire set-up with the brakes applied without the
tail light lenses
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Running lights applied
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Brake Lights - HOLY CRAP!!!
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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
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| 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.
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Here is the object of our desire. A full LED tail light for the
Kawasaki Vulcan VN750.
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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.
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Installed and ready for the cover
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This board sits right at the back of the lenses housing and is very
secure in it's home
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Lit up without the lenses. It might not look like much yet, but
this puppy is BRIGHT!!!
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The LED tail light on Chad's bike with the running light only activated
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Running lights only with the 1157 incandescent bulbs in the housing.
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Brake light with the LED board in place. Holy crap, that's bright!!!
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Brake light with the 1157 incandescent bulbs in the housing.
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