Frankenstein running lights

I have had this little idea playing in my head for some time now. Instead of replacing my OEM signals from 2 wire to three wire, I have been playing with the idea of adding an led into the housing with the blink bulb that would be wired into the tail light or aux light connection that would illuminate the signals as running lights....

This way I can have running lights at night that I can turn off if I wish without replacing the whole damn things and not run into blinking issues and such.




comments?

 

Do it. I did like you describe a couple of months ago. It was easy, cheap, and I really like the results. I replaced my stock turns with some $3.69 lights from my hardware store cuz I wanted something a little lower profile and easy to mount. They use the same bulb socket, although they came with a 23 watt bulb which I switched out for stock 1156's. I used a hole saw to make discs out of countertop laminate. Bored holes in the discs for the 1156 socket to poke through. Drilled many tiny holes in the lam. for LEDs to poke through. 4 LEDs per turn with a resistor soldered in line and another wire running out the back of the fixture. They each ground to the socket. Caked the whole back with hot-melt glue and it's good to go. I used red LEDs for the rears and amber for the fronts. The rear running light mode looks only a little less red than normal for using the amber lens, but quite amber as when the 1156 blinks. The whole thing cost less than $20 including the 4 turn signals. I can't see any reason this shouldn't work just the same with stock turns. Let me know if you'd like more specifics on the LEDs. They came from SuperBrightLEDS.com. And my self-cancel is, of course, uncompromised.

 

nice work, but those are not 1157 sockets. they are 1156 sockets.

CN

 

shhh.

CN is right, though.

1156=single filament. 1156A=amber.
1157=dual filament. 1157A=amber.

The socket in the pic only has one contact in the bottom of it. 1156.

Had you used 1157 sockets, you could have accomplished essentially the same thing without the LEDs. Some simple rewiring (running light side of the 1157 off the tail light) is all that you'd need.

But the LED thing looks cool and seems uncharacteristically bright.

 

i have a few leds, finding the right current and voltage is the trick

 

Yeah, about an hour later, doing something unrelated, I knew I had mis-typed. They are 1156's. I once considered going to 1157's for running lights, but they draw a lot more juice and they would be amber all the time while the red LEDs in the rear create red running lights in the same amber fixture. I am not sure but I do believe that amber is illegal for rear running lights in at least some states, however unlikely to be enforced.

 

Also, for Polock, this website calculator helped me a lot with the LEDs. I don't know beans about this stuff and I like my results.
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

 

i've seen red lasers that make a line instead of a dot. how about a red laser line on the road three feet behind your bike when the brake light comes on

 

How about one that projects "STOP HERE" along with that line?

Dave

 

Ok so I obviously don't know what I am doing hehe I thought I could just hook up neg and pos to the aux light wires or right to the tail light wires.
could someone put some numbers in that calc hehe

I've never dealt with resistors or diodes and such, I just twist wire together until stuff either piffs or works

wow hehe right?

 

"We have the Technology. . . "

http://www.commutebybike.com/2012/02/06 ... -you-ride/

I'd want the STOP sign at least 8 feet back

 

Yikes 400$ and it only works at night, i'am thinking more like 12 maybe 15 bucks, Yep I'am that cheap.

 

doesn't look like their idea took off at 400 or 100$...........February 7, 2012 ?
maybe in Argentina

 

This is what I was thinking of using
http://www.amazon.com/Lights--wired-vol ... =amber+led

 

those will work but Hamster brought up amber running lights in the back and i think he's right. those come in red too.
i'am kind of doubting 5 of those will be visible in the daylight, the Piranha leds that Hamster used are a lot brighter than the 5mm ones. the Piranha leds are in the brake/tail lights on big trucks