LED bulbs- white or amber?

[Thud300]

Hey all, been a while since checking in and dazzling you all with my forum blog of the resurrection of my 91, but be assured she's getting miles on. I think she's closing in on about 3000 miles now since acquisition, and doing really well as a daily rider.

So I have a question for those who have done it. I'm preparing to put in LED bulbs for the turn signals. Already have the required electronic flasher. But I'm wondering which would look best, white bulbs like the incandescents in there now, or amber?

I know the red LED's in the tail/stop lights are working to great effect with a programmable flasher module.

Discuss

[bikerking.biz]

You should use the yellow LED bulbs because if you use white, the light where the bulb is itself will show white instead of yellow. LED's are much more intensive than incandescent, therefore use the color that your lens is for best effect.

[Mr Jensee]

Thud300, I would work on replacing the lights that stay on all the time in lieu of doing the turn signals. Not that it matters so much but if you do the turn signals you will have to change out the flasher unit because the flasher works on resistance and LEDs have less than normal bulbs. The other always lit bulbs will draw more current. And whatever bulb you replace make sure it matches the color of the lens it is showing through.

[Thud300]

Finally got the turn signals converted to LEDs.

Done using an EP34 electronic flasher, which eliminates the need for load resistors; and I finally managed to find (on ebay) the type of LED bulbs in amber that I feel have the best performance in terms of brightness. They have 15 square LEDs about 1/8 inch in size; 6 on each side and 3 on the end. They do a good job of filling the reflector with light to avoid uneven light patterns. I use the same units in the brake lamps on all my bikes.

The end result is very very good, particularly on the front 1157 replacement, where the turn signal flash is very bright indeed. So much so, that I'm considering converting the rear signals from 1156 to 1157 by replacing the sockets, splicing the 1156 two wire connector to the 1157 socket and joining the two power circuits together to get an extra bright rear turn signal.

The amber bulbs look a tiny bit pale behind the lenses compared to the stock bulbs, but white units would have been much worse, so a good call there.

Total cost: about 30 bucks
Time: it takes maybe half an hour to switch the bulbs and change the flasher. Whole project is plug and play.

[Draxxis]

Definitely go with the Amber lights. Because you definitely want to have it look yellow and not white.

I did all of my lights in LED as well. So my turn signals and my brake lights as well as my license plate light are all LED. My next project is taking the dash out and replacing all of those lights with LED lights as well. That that is definitely quite the project because of all the disassembling that needs to be done to get it out.

[voyager55]

Why even waste your time putting in led bulbs? Our bike works fine without them.

[Thud300]

LED's require much less current to operate, which reserves generator capacity; can be brighter than filament bulbs to increase conspicuity (if you have the right bulbs) and in the case of turn signals, the 'instant-on-off' effect also adds to the conspicuity factor.

For those folks interested in customizing, for instance the gauge backlighting, they are available in colors that you can't get in filament bulbs. You just have to be careful which bulbs to switch, as I understand the cruise control doesn't like LED's, particularly the OD lamp.

All my bikes have LED converted brake/tail lights with a programmable flasher, the brightness and flash pattern might cause some folks seizures.... but I feel confident about getting the attention of traffic in my six when sitting at a stoplight.

[voyager55]

I've run heated gear, gps, running lights,trunk lights for years without any problems.

[cranky]

.. one'a the biggest current savings I found was replacing my 55W running lites with
some bright LED's, that calc'd out to a 6A savings!!! Well worth it, and boy howdy,
THEY are noticeable!!!!! Bright suck'a's....

[Tonyvdb]

So, for the front signal/running lamps I went a different route. I used a white/Amber switchback bulb like this one. It is white when on the running lamp and turns Amber when signalight mode. In my opinion it was the best of both worlds.

https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-60-LED-Sw ... hite+Amber

[Mr Jensee]

Thud I wouldn't worry about causing seizures in anyone. For more than 35 years my company's ambulances had a strobe on top of them that actuated the traffic lights on our city's streets. The strobe accelerated the timing and gave our trucks the green light. In all that time i never heard of any drivers having seizures over seeing our ambulances coming down the streets in full lights and sirens. Over the years most units have been changed out to LED strobes on all the activated red lights. I am sure your motorcycle isn't going to do more damage. I saw that Carl Leo has this strobe arrangement on his Voyager. Very bright and attention getting. If I figure out how he did it i want to do so on my bike. You cant have too much attention grabbing on the rear of a motorcycle.

[hank43]

Thud300, I would work on replacing the lights that stay on all the time in lieu of doing the turn signals. Not that it matters so much but if you do the turn signals you will have to change out the flasher unit because the flasher works on resistance and LEDs have less than normal bulbs. The other always lit bulbs will draw more current. And whatever bulb you replace make sure it matches the color of the lens it is showing through.

Just a little off subject here, but my Champion trike rear lights have standard red lenses, but when you turn on a turn signal, they flash amber. Never took them apart to see how this was done, but it does work pretty well as far as brightness is concerned. I think the running lights might be regular filament bulbs, but the turn signals are Amber LED's. Also, you might want to check your local vehicle code, California has some strange codes regarding colored bulbs, or any changes to factory lighting....

hank43

[Lance McCaw]

I love my LED headlight.