| Author | Message | ||
     Ericz |
So I got tired of my XB looking so much like a stock Lightning so I decided to change things up a bit. I thought a long time about it and came up with this: It's a minimal front end with only a tachometer and boost gauge, a small cowl to house the headlight, and minimal exposed wiring. This temporary mock up is close to the final design but will be more finished than this. I am waiting to finish the headlight assembly and mounted a small cheap fog light in the mean time so I can ride during the day. The headlight assembly is a 3.5" diameter motorized gatlin gun with six 7/8" dia. barrels that each house a small high powered LED and optic. The assembly will fit inside at the top of the cowl, which will also serve as a scoop below the light for additional cooling to the "gun." I have designed the headlight with a temperature sensing ability and will monitor the temp of the LED's as they generate a lot when driven at full power, and the gatlin gun will spin up if the temp rises to a programmed level. I will also have an aux. feature that will spin the gatlin gun and flash each light when it approaches the top of the rotation to simulate firing of the gun. The total lumen output of the six LED's when driven at full power will be somewhere close to 2800-3000 lumens. The optics for the LED's have a narrow beam pattern and focus the light for great throw and an appropriate amount of flood. Long story short, the final assembly will conceal all of the wiring and the Motogadget m-lock that is now mounted to the top of the mock up cowl. What do you think???         | ||
| Firebolt020283 |
looks neat so far. | ||
| Hogs |
Lots going on there..Cool... So 6 led lights Hmmm what are the wattage of them leds, Only having 6 ??? | ||
| Firebolt32 |
Can we get a shot of the headlight straight on? Awesome work but I personally only like from the front forks back. The headlight looks a bit weird to me. You did a great job on the work though! | ||
| Shadyplace20 |
The work you've done is beautiful, but I'm iffy on the light. | ||
| Ericz |
Thanks! Hogs, The led's are Cree XP-G's and I am using TaskLED's hyperboost driver to drive them in series at a maximum of 1400mA. That current will be high beam and probably somewhere around 500-750mA will be low beam. The optics I chose work really well with the XP-G leds and I have a pwm controller that I can use to control the driver with more programming options should I need it. Firebolt, the piece I have mounted now only has a fog lamp mounted inside for now until I finish the led headlight. The fog lamp is recessed pretty far but the "barrels" of the led assembly will stick out around 0.5-1.0 inches beyond the cowl. | ||
| Hogs |
EricZ... Thanks for that info..Been following your Ride for a few years...That Turbo just is SICK....Nice... Really Interested more on them LEDS... Lot of data there for me to understand....But are they like 3 watt Leds and you are over powering them or??? Thanks | ||
| Glitch |
Extra clean! That's really original, extra points! | ||
| Greg_e |
http://www.cree.com/products/xlamp_xpg.asp | ||
| Blasterd |
Looking good Eric! Can't wait to see the end result.... BTW, I havn't seen you in a while man. Your not working with Paul anymore? Ken | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Very nice job. Clean and original, as Glitch says. If I could take the liberty of making a suggestion it would be that the form of the head light is not composed of compound curves like the rest of the body work, especially the air intakes. I wonder if you could make a head light enclosure out of two intake scoops or something like that? Well done. | ||
| B00stzx3 |
That's wild looking!!! I'd like tro see how the LED looks at night. Very cool dude! | ||
| Ericz |
These shots are from Troutie, a member of candlepowerforums.com, and show two of the XP-G led's with the Ledil Regina reflectors that I am using driven only at 960mA. The second shot is during a foggy night.   | ||
| B00stzx3 |
Holy crap!!! Thats like HID bright!!! | ||
| Gunut75 |
I like that. The bike, and the light. | ||
| Jaylightnn08 |
nice bike, that thing looks like a vaccum attachment though. other than that, SWEET RIDE | ||
| Andymnelson |
It doesn't matter what we think, you bike is turbo'd!  It looks cool, and is unique, I like that. Nice work so far. I am anxiously awaiting pics of the finished product. What did all of the LED stuff cost you? | ||
| No_rice |
the only constructive advice i would have is to make it flow a bit better i would probably trim the front of that headlight housing a bit more on the front top edge to make it match the angle of the forks a bit closer. i cant believe i never made it over to look at that thing while i was down there. i suck  | ||
| Ericz |
The led stuff has run me about $160 for the electronics and I have to machine the light housing. Here's a pic of my leds, driver and controller:  And ya, Tim, you are such a slacker for not coming over to see my turd! Even though I'm the slacker that could have put the front-end back on the bike to ride it to the shop! | ||
| Boney95 |
Nice lookin bike man! Very clean, and that is key. | ||
| Hogs |
Ericz, Are those leds rated as so many watts per led? and what ever the wattage is per led...Do you under power them or to the Max? Thanks | ||
| Ericz |
Lets see here, driven at full power the XP-G led uses 3.55V and 1500mA so that would equal 5.325 watts. The driver is what allows me to control the current flow to the leds and I will drive them at around half of their maximum for a "low beam" and close to their max for "high beam" | ||
| Ericz |
Hogs, just to try and explain a bit more, there are lots of different kinds of leds and these are much different than the leds used for accent lighting or what you would find at radio shack. Those leds are great but they can not be driven at such high current without melting down. These XP-G leds are designed to run high current and generate lots of light. That is one reason they are soldered to a aluminum core printed circuit board. The board has a + and - and in the center has a thermal conductive surface that transfers heat from the led to the aluminum back. The led housing design must be able to carry the heat away from the aluminum of the led board. Wikipedia has a simple writeup on the thermal management of high powered leds here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_management_of _high-power_LEDs | ||
| Christopher12 |
Man those LEDs! Thanks Ericz I thought of brighter LEDs and was at Cree'S website before but I guess I don't know how bright a rating is so I didn't understand it. From those pictures there... oh yeah! Christopher | ||
| Bikertrash05 |
Me seeing the pics of how bright those LEDs are:  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Very cool all around. Stylistically, I would show off the technology of the LED's, which means making a "super thin flat as a pancake" version of the traditional M2 type big round headlight. Kind of a futuristic retro look. Maybe with hints of "melting back into the triple tree due to re-entry heat" sub theme... | ||
| Ericz |
The possibilities of building custom shaped headlights using the latest led technology are endless, but the problem is in finding or making optics that are DOT approved. My headlight will not be DOT legal even though my design is considerate of oncoming drivers. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Ericz, Once again you have my jaw dropping. I've always thought yours was the best turbo setup I've seen, and your bike is just immaculate. Nice job all around. | ||
| Ridesinnm |
Eric, that's pretty cool. I didn't realize leds had that kind of power. Would you be interested in parting with a stock headlight lens, or housing and lenses if you don't have any plans for the old stock light? I used the wrong kind of tape on a trackday, and melted my low beam lens. | ||
| Badrap |
Cant wait to see it done! | ||
| Christopher12 |
This is pretty cool http://www.national.com/analog/led#software Type in voltage and lumens and click "Start Design" and it will pop up another window and start the application. You'll get everything with this, schematic, driver used, LEDs used, how many, heatsink needed, prices and so on. Christopher |
