The auxiliary light question.....
 

Which are best?
Anyone?
PIAA. / Hella. / Warn???

Do you want them for additional light on the road, or as a 'bigging up' to other road users?

LED are good for low power consumption, Zen Overland Lighting

These are very good indeed.

Rigid Industries LED Aux lights 'Dually' - Pair

1600LM Cree LED kit
 

I got this 1600LM Cree kit from a guy in Hong Kong. He was very helpful, supplied wiring diags and responded to all enquiries very quickly.

The kit was £99.50 inc. tracked post and was delivered within a week. He also sells 800LM and 3200LM lights. I would think the 3200LM lights would be excellent for off-road - a wide spread of bright light for about 100yds out.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...LEDs%20kit.jpg

They're solidly built in alloy housings and, though the accessories supplied are not top quality, it all works fine and the wires are plenty long enough to route from low on the bike to up under the seat. I didn't use the waterproof connectors - they were too fiddly to wire up. If I decided to do it again, and sourced accessories separately, I'd get the smaller micro relay.

In use: Their white light is much brighter than the OEM BMW lights with a bigger spread than the dipped beam. Excellent DRLs and a quantum leap in nightime lighting up to about 50yds out. They're too bright to use with dipped at night so I'm thinking of adding a second relay to make them come on automatically with main beam. I haven't had them long enough to comment on durability.

I bought a couple of similar Chinese lights three years ago and have been very pleased with them (great value for money and huge light output) ... but - both of them packed up within a couple of weeks (when I was using them on the Elephant Rally).

I took them apart when I got back and found the same circuit board fault on both - vibration had snapped off an unsupported capacitor. They were easy enough to solder back on and a liberal application of hot melt glue on the circuit boards has stopped it happening again. A couple of years on they're still working fine.

Hopefully their current production will be better - or your bike's vibration characteristics may be different, but it's something I'll have a quick look at on the next ones I buy.

Sloid state lighting module
 

Anyone reading this may be interested in a small product I'm about to launch, a solid state switching module capable of switching 10amps per channel, designed specifically for current trend LED spot lights ( a set of fogs and a set of main spots for example...). A two gang switch will sit adjacent to the left cluster for gloved left hand operation. It will be a simple plug and play unit with some basic electrics involved.


Like Backofbeyond says, Chinese LEDs should these days be pretty much ok to use if you get the right supplier, Chinese market is 50/50 for getting either reasonably decent or a pile of........!!!!! There are a few things that can be done to a cheap n nasty PCB to make it more robust including the 'hot glue gun'.....!!!!!

Ive been trying lots of different brand 'cheap' LED aux lights. I have come to the conclusion that they're all crap. They might work reliably but the light they emit is dire. I bought a single rigid industries light from Zen Overland (£120) and in a dark campsite test against others it was brighter than SIX pairs of Chinese lights all combined.

You get what you pay for.

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[QUOTE=*Touring Ted*;539536]Ive been trying lots of different brand 'cheap' LED aux lights. I have come to the conclusion that they're all crap. They might work reliably but the light they emit is dire. I bought a single rigid industries light from Zen Overland (£120) and in a dark campsite test against others it was brighter than SIX pairs of Chinese lights all combined.



I tend to agree, I have a whole host of R/I led's again from Gabe at Zen but haven't put them through there paces yet so your probably bang on there Ted....!!!

Another happy Rigid Industries/Zen Overland customer . Mine were fantastic on my 6month Southern Africa trip , lit up the very dark Namibian desert . I also used them every day, I drilled small holes in covers and they made great daytime running lights see photos on Pan Without a Plan on Facebook . Highly recommended.