I really wanted these lights and ordered a set. They came out of some place in India. Bottom line is one light did not work. I contacted the place I ordered from. They said to take pictures of the light that did not work and send it back to India with the pictures and an explanation. I did that on 2 Jul 2012 and have not heard a word from them since. I have tried to contact them to no avail. Oh well guess I just have to eat the expense.
I really wanted these lights and ordered a set. They came out of some place in India. Bottom line is one light did not work. I contacted the place I ordered from. They said to take pictures of the light that did not work and send it back to India with the pictures and an explanation. I did that on 2 Jul 2012 and have not heard a word from them since. I have tried to contact them to no avail. Oh well guess I just have to eat the expense.
I really wanted these lights and ordered a set. They came out of some place in India. Bottom line is one light did not work. I contacted the place I ordered from. They said to take pictures of the light that did not work and send it back to India with the pictures and an explanation. I did that on 2 Jul 2012 and have not heard a word from them since. I have tried to contact them to no avail. Oh well guess I just have to eat the expense.
Interesting info on the dimmer Marty, I looked at that one, but had already bought one from eBay. I'm now making my own, so I'll keep an eye on the operational temps of the FET leads.
I finally installed a second set of these on my C14 yesterday, just to see if 2 sets were better than 1 (also have a third set, but didn't go there, yet).
I mounted the second set to the front fender bolts, using spacers and longer bolts. The mounting seems pretty solid, and I think I'll keep them there. You really get to see every uneven surface, and every piece of gravel on the road with these down low like that.
I went out for a little night ride around the country side last night, and quickly discovered I'll have to retrain myself when riding at night. I found I was riding as fast as I do in the daylight, going a little too hot into corners, etc. With both sets of these on, it really is like riding in daylight. Maybe 12,400 lumens, plus the stock lights, will be enough.
Just food for thought.... Dramatically increasing the light on the ground just in front of the bike can be counterproductive. We perceive it as 'better lighting' but it is usually the other way- it throws a lot more reflected light into our eyes making it true that it is brighter in front of us but the light is coming from our surroundings much too close to be of any use. Of course forward lighting should illuminate <more or less> everything in front of the vehicle but it is actually an advantage to mute the light that hits the road, say, in the first 100 feet of the vehicle. What we really want to see is further down the road and foreground lighting hurts that in two ways; the first thing is that we are using a great quantity of our light too close to the vehicle and that light is no longer available for downrange lighting. The second problem is that because outside brightness does go up it makes our pupils close so we are even less sensitive to what is much less well lit in the distance. For example, a deer really does not show up very well at night at, say, 1,000 feet even if standing in the road. Over illuminating the paint on the road, road signs, various reflectors on the sides of the road and finally the surrounding plant life immediately in front of us makes seeing that same deer even harder, or outright impossible.
These new and very powerful LED are quite impressive and I am a big fan but so far I have not seen any decent patterns coming from them. A properly controlled beam of HID or even tungsten light still appears (no pun intended) to provide superior lighting even if they are not perceived as being better.
All of this is in reference to high speed highway riding by the way. If traveling at 30 MPH in rural areas than generally ‘blasted’ light is superior to a narrow beam, especially if a lot of turns and the bike leaning is involved.
I got a set during this sale for my DR650 (I'm happy with the Denalis on my C14, so far), they arrived quickly
from China (not India) via express mail. I tested them and they are bright and work well but they are pole sensitive
(some LED lights have an internal bridge rectifier so you can hook them up backwards and they still work, these do not).
I also ordered the dimmer which has yet to arrive, I emailed them and they said it shipped separately.
I've got doubts, but I'll post here if it shows up and works.
edit 9-1-12: The dimmer showed up 8-31-12, shipped from India. It works*, comes with a remote fob which is good because there are no controls on the unit itself. The unit has memory that seems to survive during the power shut off. When the power is restored there is a full bright flash followed by the condition that was present when power was removed, be it dimmed, off, or full bright. The fob was tested at 10 feet and worked well. Most of the testing was done with only one light and the dimmer worked well. When the second unit was added in parallel it worked for a short while then quit*. I measured each LED unit at 2.7 amps so it should have been a total of 5.4 Amps that this 8 amp rated dimmer couldn't handle.(Note: this testing was done with 12v battery power only, the bike was not started) I opened it up and found that a wire near the output transistor had un-soldered itself. I re-soldered the wire and hooked it back up and the LED lights came on at full bright and the unit wouldn't respond to the fob. In short order I could see that the output transistor was getting hot and the solder near it was molten again so I shut it down. The lights are fricking bright and I hope they'll hold up under rough road/trail conditions , but I can't recommend the $14.50 dimmer. (since ordering, I've seen the same dimmer priced from $6.43 to $49.00)
I ordered a set of these and when they arrived one light did not work. After multiple e-mails with Lisa Jackson I sent pictures to her and she said to send the light with pictures and and an explanation to India. Did that o 2 Jul 2012. Waited and waited, got nothing. Contacted her again. Gave her my USPS tracking number. All I got back from her was that my light must be lost in India somewhere and that she could not help me. Guess my major mistake on this was trusting that their customer service would be better. Expensive lesson to learn. The one light that I received that does work is great. Just don't want my bike to look like a cyclops. Ordered a set of lights from Whitehorse. No problems with their system.
use this dimmer http://www.skenedesign.com/lights/IQ_170.shtml
IQ-170 Intelligent Lighting Controller: Operation
http://www.skenedesign.com/lights/IQ_170_Wiring.html
So jalthar, looking at all your posts here, it appears that you are http://www.24x7diy.com/
RAHUL?
If so, why would you sell a dimmer on your website, and then recommend another one at another web site?
I'm just curious.
Just food for thought.... Dramatically increasing the light on the ground just in front of the bike can be counterproductive. We perceive it as 'better lighting' but it is usually the other way- it throws a lot more reflected light into our eyes making it true that it is brighter in front of us but the light is coming from our surroundings much too close to be of any use. Of course forward lighting should illuminate <more or less> everything in front of the vehicle but it is actually an advantage to mute the light that hits the road, say, in the first 100 feet of the vehicle. What we really want to see is further down the road and foreground lighting hurts that in two ways; the first thing is that we are using a great quantity of our light too close to the vehicle and that light is no longer available for downrange lighting. The second problem is that because outside brightness does go up it makes our pupils close so we are even less sensitive to what is much less well lit in the distance. For example, a deer really does not show up very well at night at, say, 1,000 feet even if standing in the road. Over illuminating the paint on the road, road signs, various reflectors on the sides of the road and finally the surrounding plant life immediately in front of us makes seeing that same deer even harder, or outright impossible.
These new and very powerful LED are quite impressive and I am a big fan but so far I have not seen any decent patterns coming from them. A properly controlled beam of HID or even tungsten light still appears (no pun intended) to provide superior lighting even if they are not perceived as being better.
All of this is in reference to high speed highway riding by the way. If traveling at 30 MPH in rural areas than generally ‘blasted’ light is superior to a narrow beam, especially if a lot of turns and the bike leaning is involved.
Brian
So jalthar, looking at all your posts here, it appears that you are http://www.24x7diy.com/
RAHUL?
If so, why would you sell a dimmer on your website, and then recommend another one at another web site?
I'm just curious.
So jalthar, looking at all your posts here, it appears that you are http://www.24x7diy.com/
RAHUL?
If so, why would you sell a dimmer on your website, and then recommend another one at another web site?
I'm just curious.