Which wire for a brake light?

Brake Light

What I did and it works great is I used the stock bulb and socket, put a five ohm resistor in line to the tail light. I then wired in my mechanical brake light switch before the resistor. I t makes the tail light a little dimmer but when you hit the brake switch it gets full power without using any more wattage from your stock stator. They just dont put out enough juice to supply a two filament bulb.

Wally,

The resistor method is exactly what my buddy did to my bike for brake and hi/lo beam. What you end up with is a dim tailight and headlight with the brake and hi beam being the stock brightbness. Good luck.

I have a 220 that I use on the street all the time and the only real fix is to buy a Moose hi output coil (75 watts?) and better yet is to bring both sides of the coil (not grounded) to a full wave rectifier. That way you get a better DC output for the battery.

There are problems (errors) with some of this. Having written a complete explanation only to get an 'invalid thread' error dialog...I give up.

If you're contemplating following to the letter anything written above, please get independent verification of the process.

dang sorry dude i read my bulb wrong it's 25W not 20W i got it from my local kawasaki dealer and the number on the side of the bulb is A-3603 if that helps

Got my 1157 replacement LED from Summit Racing. Cost around $10, been working great since last August.

Tiny current draw, quite durable. Before that , I altered my Acerbis taillight by drilling a hole in the reflector and mounting an automotive side marker light #194 with it's little rubber socket. Used the stock tailbulb as the brake light, the 194 bulb as the running light.

With the stock lighting coil, this setup worked well; only prob was that vibration would quickly kill the incandescants' filaments.

LEDs are definitelty the way to go.

Dave

I'd written basically two points only to have it all disappear and wasn't about to redo the whole thing.

1. Using a single element light for a brake application you can indeed use the resistor idea but the resistor is on the ground side, NOT the hot (in?) side. The brake switch is wired before the resistor such that when activated the circuit becomes parallel so more current is passed. It still will be less (current) than a standard wired taillight but depending on the size of the resistor the change in brightness when the brake switch is activated may be suitable for use as a brake light.

Two filaments not required.

2. Full wave rectifiers and a reference to batteries.

You will need more than a full wave bridge to run a battery. The resultant (unfiltered) DC will have to be regulated/filtered. Batteries don't like indescriminate DC applied. Depending on the various type of battery (gel, sealed, maintenance free etc.) charging levels vary.

A lot of trouble that an Electrex (same part from Moose) coil will resolve.

Wallydog said:

Don't understand what you were trying to say but I am sure it was worthy as your input generally is. At this point I am having a heck of a time finding a 20 watt or less total output dual element bulb for the brake/tail light and a 25 watt or less headlight. I have driven my local auto parts store people nuts going through their sources with no luck. I found a 17/5 or 22 watt total tail light #1158 but I would have to buy a box of 10. Gotta go out of town for a few weeks so this whole project is on hold. If anyone has a source for the low watt tail light or head light I would appreciate a lead.

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