• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

Cyclops Install for a '05 R1200RT

rtnhueys

New member
Just wondering if anyone has installed the cyclops headlight l.e.d.'s in their RT. There is not much room to route the plug/adapter wire harness and i was curious as to the routing solution if someone else has done this install. (I have all the plastic removed and the headlight assy out & on the workbench)
Thanks in advance.

John
 
Just wondering if anyone has installed the cyclops headlight l.e.d.'s in their RT. There is not much room to route the plug/adapter wire harness and i was curious as to the routing solution if someone else has done this install. (I have all the plastic removed and the headlight assy out & on the workbench)
Thanks in advance.

John

I just put ADVMonster LEDs in my 13 RT. There is a HUGE amount of room in there for the drivers. So much so in fact that I had to pack them in there so they would flop around inside the housing over bumps and such. I know yours are a different brand so I'm just trying to say that there is a lot more room in there than you might think.

Also, removing the fairing isn't near as hard as some folks report. I didn't have any guidance other than what was online (Youtube, etc.) but needed the repair manual for the correct sequence, which is:

  1. Remove the mirrors (as in the reflective "glass" part).
  2. Remove the mirror housings.
  3. Remove the turn signal housings and unplug the lamps.
  4. Remove the instrument bezel.
  5. Remove both upper side fairings (where the R1200RT sticker is).
  6. Remove the oil cooler fairing (there are two T25 screws on either side and two pop-rivets coming up from the bottom.
  7. Remove the shield and plastic fairing below it (it just comes off).
  8. Remove the two lower windshield actuator pins that are retained with c-clips.
  9. Remove the headlight adjuster knob (phillips screw) and the underlying plastic hex nut.
  10. There are six T25 screws that hold the rear fairing (where the speaker grills are, or would be), three on each side. Remove them.
  11. If you have a radio, there is a ground strap on the left side behinds where the turn signal housing was) with a T27 or T30 screw, remove the screw to free the strap.
  12. The fairing assembly with the headlight housing is held on with 4 large screws, two in the upper corners on the aft side (kind of behind where the speaker grills were and two on either side of where the oil cooler fairing was, remove these.
  13. There will be two electrical connectors behind where the antenna is, on mine one was pink and was zip tied to the frame, clip the zip tie and pull the connector apart (remember to put the a new zip tie here when reassembling).
  14. Finally, push the shield actuator arms out of the way (up and back) and the whole front fairing should pop off, (remember to unplug the headlight electrical connector).

You can reverse this procedure to reassemble. You can work to install the LEDs with the housing installed or you can remove it (I believe there are 7 - T27's that hold it in place.

The first time I did this it took 20 minutes. I've done it again since and got it all disassembled in less than 15 minutes and reassembled in 20. I found that it didn't make any difference removing the headlight housing so I didn't do that the second time.

Have fun!
 
There is quite a bit of information in the “similar threads” section at the bottom of the page. May help.
OM
 
Thanks

Thanks Gents,

Its all apart and ready to fix the wires (overheated and burned) then new lights!

OM, i knew i saw threads ref LED lights just couldn't find them again, thanks for the links.

John
 
Some double sided tape will hold the small LED driver box inside the headlight, preventing it from bouncing around.
 
Good idea. I had to replace the connectors so it added a little bulk to the wiring. Feed the wires in carefully and tie-wrapped them. Smoke test was good so re-assembled everything.

Rode the bike for a Saturday ride but not in the dark yet (to verify the aim). I like the lights.

John
 
I gave up on the one's I installed due to a very poor beam pattern. I chatted with the folks at Cyclops and ordered a pair to try to see if they work any better. How dod you find the beam pattern with your installation?
 
I haven’t had a night ride yet to check the pattern.
John

PS. I did a quick check against the garage door after initial installation and adjusted the pattern a bit to the left, height looked good so I left it alone pending a night ride.
 
This was the resulting beam pattern with a set of ADVMonster H7's. Note the almost total lack of illumination to the right (the bike is pointed right where the central hot spot is.

2.jpg

I got the exact same results with the Cyclops H7's so it's not a brand-specific issue. Both brands of LEDs work great in the high beam position this is probably something to do with the reflector design (Darryl at Cyclop is being extremely helpful with this issue so I would highly encourage anyone reading this to buy LEDs from them).

It would help immensely if you could you try to acquire a similar image. If the pattern turns out to be symmetrical for you, could you also report whether your low beam positions have a small baffle installed like the one below? In my housing that baffle is on the same side of each low beam bulb which seems contra-intuitive to me.

6-1.jpg
 
Hi Pappy,
To say it’s been a busy spring would be an understatement!! (The passing of my good friend’s wife and my brother-in-law!)

Had an early morning ride so I could now see what you were talking about with the bulb pattern. One more diffused and one more “spot light”. This was the 2 bulbs in the low beam positions. The light housing have the stock reflector/deflector like your picture.

Just curious if you got different lamps from cyclops?

John
 
Sorry to hear about your losses. Two so close together is terrible.

As for the Cyclops lights, no, I ended up returning them. They (Daryl at Cyclops) were (are) wonderful to deal with though so I really wanted them to work.

I went out and bought and installed a new set of Denali S4 auxiliary lights that I hope will help fill in the dark spots. I am about to go out and install a pair of LEDs I bought off EBay based on a recommendation from someone on a Facebook group (I'm going to replace the connectors with ceramic one's while I'm in there). They were only $30 so I rolled the dice.

I'll post on here how (or if) they worked.
 
Based on a recommendation from a friend on FaceBook, I installed these EBay LED Bulbs and I'm happy to report that they worked with no Canbus errors. There were no control boxes to install either which is nice.

One nice thing is that they aren't anywhere near as blinding as other LEDs I've tried. I don't like the "Lumin Wars" manufacturers seem to be engaged in. I wanted LED headlight but not t the expense of blinding other drivers at night.
 
Based on a recommendation from a friend on FaceBook, I installed these EBay LED Bulbs and I'm happy to report that they worked with no Canbus errors. There were no control boxes to install either which is nice.

One nice thing is that they aren't anywhere near as blinding as other LEDs I've tried. I don't like the "Lumin Wars" manufacturers seem to be engaged in. I wanted LED headlight but not t the expense of blinding other drivers at night.

I believe the reason some LED headlight bulbs are more blinding than others is not the lumens but rather the beam pattern they produce when installed in a reflector housing. The reflector is designed to spread the light produced by what is essentially a single point of light (the incandescent filament) into a defined beam with a pretty sharp cutoff across the top. The bulbs you link to should be pretty good in this regard since the LED chips are very close together, and thus more accurately mimic the coiled filament of an incandescent bulb. An LED bulb with the chips mounted on opposite sides of a relatively thick divider will send light everywhere, and mostly where you don't want it.
 
I believe the reason some LED headlight bulbs are more blinding than others is not the lumens but rather the beam pattern they produce when installed in a reflector housing. The reflector is designed to spread the light produced by what is essentially a single point of light (the incandescent filament) into a defined beam with a pretty sharp cutoff across the top. The bulbs you link to should be pretty good in this regard since the LED chips are very close together, and thus more accurately mimic the coiled filament of an incandescent bulb. An LED bulb with the chips mounted on opposite sides of a relatively thick divider will send light everywhere, and mostly where you don't want it.

Since AVDMonster would not take the three units, I hesitate to call them "bulbs, I bought from him (unlike Cyclops who happily did - spend your money with them, class act!) I have one of the three mounted in the high beam position and thus can directly compare them.

The ADV unit has a MUCH brighter apparent output. I mean the "point source" of the chips themselves, not the overall reflector projection, which are extremely dazzling. The difference being that I can stand to look directly into the LED chips of the Ebay units for a couple of seconds but get a long-lasting green spot in my eyes from even momentarily glancing into the ADV unit.

Lumin wars are a terrible way to market a halogen replacement product which just leads to higher and higher total output. This is not the answer as it'll just make it more and more common for the police to notice and pull you over.
 
The ADV unit has a MUCH brighter apparent output. I mean the "point source" of the chips themselves, not the overall reflector projection, which are extremely dazzling. The difference being that I can stand to look directly into the LED chips of the Ebay units for a couple of seconds but get a long-lasting green spot in my eyes from even momentarily glancing into the ADV unit.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification.
 
Back
Top