DakotaJoe
You can call me Scott
I love this mod. Not only is it safety oriented, it looks spectacular! One of my biggest concerns has always been that I can be seen. Especially at night. And I have had my share of being cut off because someone didn't see my signal. So that is why I figured I would put the 3 LEDs in each mirror at the farthest edge so I get noticed.
Take off the mirrors and clean them well. Tape off the edge where you will be drilling, you don't want to slip or have the drill jump out of the hole and damage the glass.
I placed the LEDs in by their leads just to check the look and found the holes that I wanted filled with LED light.
I used my dremel and a small carbide bit to ream out the ovals into nice circles. I drilled these out from behind because the front hole is smaller than the rear. I finished the rough work and then cleaned things up with a round file.
The file leaves some gray fuzzy residue around the holes. No biggy, a quick flash of a lighter from behind smoothes that right out.
The holes should be big enough where the LED is snug but not not work itself back out. This will actually happen if the hole is too small.
Before gluing anything, check the polarity of the LEDs to make sure they are going to work and attach to each other without crossing wires all over the place. Not all LEDs are polarity minded. I wasn't aware of that until I hooked these up. Must be a Chinese Diode thing because these worked no matter how I hooked them up.
I wiped the holes and LED with a wet rag because I used superglue around the rim of the LEDs to secure them and water activates superglue. If you use too much glue, it will ooze out the sides and make a white residue. You don't want that so don't do it.
I let it sit for a few hours because I hate gluing my fingers together. I then used some small pliers to bend the leads where I wanted them and soldered everything together. You have to use a 120 ohm resistor on the positive side because 3 LEDs tied in serial will not last with 12V pooring through them.
I glued the wires to the back of the mirrors with hot glue. I attached solderless connectors to the wires and they were done. The negative wire would go to the bolt for ground and the other would attach to the orange or light blue wire in the mirror housing.
On to the mirror housing. I shaved off a small bit of the insulation on the signal wire (orange or light blue) and soldered a small piece of wire to it. Then connected the corresponding solderless connector to the wire. A little electrical tape and we were ready to test. Once you check them out, put your mirrors back on your bike and you'll look as cool as me going down the street.....okay, maybe not as cool, but you will be on your way.
I have posted more pictures with more descriptions and a bit of a numbering system in the event someone wants to try this out. See my albums for this and other modifications.
Related Links:
LED series/parallel array wizard-http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
Take off the mirrors and clean them well. Tape off the edge where you will be drilling, you don't want to slip or have the drill jump out of the hole and damage the glass.
I placed the LEDs in by their leads just to check the look and found the holes that I wanted filled with LED light.
I used my dremel and a small carbide bit to ream out the ovals into nice circles. I drilled these out from behind because the front hole is smaller than the rear. I finished the rough work and then cleaned things up with a round file.
The file leaves some gray fuzzy residue around the holes. No biggy, a quick flash of a lighter from behind smoothes that right out.
The holes should be big enough where the LED is snug but not not work itself back out. This will actually happen if the hole is too small.
Before gluing anything, check the polarity of the LEDs to make sure they are going to work and attach to each other without crossing wires all over the place. Not all LEDs are polarity minded. I wasn't aware of that until I hooked these up. Must be a Chinese Diode thing because these worked no matter how I hooked them up.
I wiped the holes and LED with a wet rag because I used superglue around the rim of the LEDs to secure them and water activates superglue. If you use too much glue, it will ooze out the sides and make a white residue. You don't want that so don't do it.
I let it sit for a few hours because I hate gluing my fingers together. I then used some small pliers to bend the leads where I wanted them and soldered everything together. You have to use a 120 ohm resistor on the positive side because 3 LEDs tied in serial will not last with 12V pooring through them.
I glued the wires to the back of the mirrors with hot glue. I attached solderless connectors to the wires and they were done. The negative wire would go to the bolt for ground and the other would attach to the orange or light blue wire in the mirror housing.
On to the mirror housing. I shaved off a small bit of the insulation on the signal wire (orange or light blue) and soldered a small piece of wire to it. Then connected the corresponding solderless connector to the wire. A little electrical tape and we were ready to test. Once you check them out, put your mirrors back on your bike and you'll look as cool as me going down the street.....okay, maybe not as cool, but you will be on your way.
I have posted more pictures with more descriptions and a bit of a numbering system in the event someone wants to try this out. See my albums for this and other modifications.
Related Links:
LED series/parallel array wizard-http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz
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