Aux lights
 

Evening all. Just a quick question about aux lights, it's getting to that time of the year when I want to be seen. I have a set of rigid industries duallys on my xtz750 and am thinking about transferring to the 660, but where to mount, it doesn't have crash bars, and I think with the mount from adventure spec they won't fit as the rigid industry's are bigger than the lights that the mount was designed for. Would be grateful for any input or pics of other installs you guys have done.

Cheers

These brackets might work for you.

http://shop.sw-motech.com/en/4052572011171.htm


Time spent without rod in hand is time forever wasted.

http://i317.photobucket.com/albums/m...psa2s1lm3i.jpg

Think you will struggle with duallies due to the size....maybe relocate the indicators into the park light holders and mount the duallies where the indicators were.
I managed to squeeze an Aurora 6 led under the headlight...awesome.
Matt.

I bit the bullet and paid �30 for this bracket from Adventure Spec.

Whilst it doesn't look like �30's worth of materials it certainly saved a load of hassle and time. Nicely made, very easy to fit and has survived a 6000 mile trip round Turkey, Georgia, Russia and back.

This is it on the bike - with my eBay LED lights (not that bad).

http://www.sweller.dynalias.org/imag...xLightsCln.jpg

Great thanks for all your help, I like the look of those motech mounts, all I need then is to pop an additional harness on, and can transfer lights as and when!:hello2:

Hello,

Like Simon (Sweller) I went with the Adventure Spec bracket and bought a set of lights of eBay which look identical to his. I just updated the thread I made on this with my latest lighting mod- http://www.xt660.com/showthread.php?t=21956

Question is do you want to see or be seen? I think you need different solutions for each:
- Additional running lights to be seen, but not dazzle.
- Spots to see what's happening, but these are in conjunction with main beam in my opinion.

I'm not a big fan of the SW Motech solutions, simply because the lights look too exposed if you're doing any off roading. Having said that, prior to finding the AS rackets I nearly bought them. They also give you more options in terms of what you can fit.

Let us know what you come up with!

Cheers,
Penfold

I don't buy into the 'being more visible' argument. If oncoming traffic hasn't noticed your main lamp, they won't notice any auxiliary lighting. I agree that additional lighting to increase what the rider can see at night particularly on unlit roads is a good thing. The Motech brackets look very flimsy and only have two mounting fixtures, small ones (M6 cap screw into a brass plug in the fuel tank) so you're not going to be able to mount decent lamps there.
As noted that mounting is also going to interfere with crashing and filtering.
A loop from either side around in front would be a great idea though..

Whilst I do run a pair of Vision X Solstice LED spots, by far the best bang-for-buck modification to the headlights on the Z is to wire them up so dip beam stays on when main is selected. A mod well worth doing.

It can be done for the price of a Scotchlok. Simply locate the rubber boot on the right hand side that protects the headlamp loom connectors, just above the radiator, and bridge the blue/black wire and the green wire. It is possible to do with the tank in situ if you've got small hands and patience, but is far easier with it removed.

http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps0bd27c81.jpg

These two wires can also be soldered together in the switch as an alternative.

One cautionary note though: This mod is only recommended for a maximum of 55W bulbs in both main and dip. It is inadvisable to use 100W bulbs as the all the current is carried in the green wire for both lamps. The cross-sectional area of the the headlamp wiring is gives a rating of 16A (even though the fuse is 20A!), so the theoretical safe maximum is 192W combined (although it will be slightly more if the engine is running and at peak alternator output). However, bear in mind 192W is using up ALL the spare capacity of the alternator

OK this is great, lots of useful input, in response to tripletom I understand your comment about oncoming traffic, but not for filtering, regularly i filter on motorway and bypasses through 3-4 miles of crawling traffic, lots of people will not see you in their mirrors whilst they doze off on their way home, so lights like duallys angled down can give you a lot of road presence before someone decides to switch lanes. Well I think it helps anyway.

Sent from my SGP511 using Tapatalk

Same as you bigone, I filter for at least 4 miles each way on my 50 mile round commute. Sometimes more if M4 is being ****.
Have never felt the need to run on main beam at any point. The theory says that if high beam is on then it becomes harder for other vehicles to judge your proximity. Irrespective of that I think it just marks the rider out as inconsiderate.
I've had one incident on that commute when a car changed lanes from the middle lane to the outside lane into me as I was alongside at 50mph. Not much you can do when they don't look.

Make one like mine?

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l3...IMAG0042-1.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l3...IMAG0043-1.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l3...IMAG0049-1.jpg

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l3...IMAG0050-2.jpg

I agree with you tripletom, if they can't spot your dipped headlight what hope do you have? My wording was wrong, I really meant get noticed. A pair of 3W LEDS won't get you noticed by someone not looking, but hopefully those that look won't see 'just another headlight', but rather something which stands out as being different and therefore something to notice. My only real world comparisons are:

- Europeans in the UK with yellow lights (or numpties with filtered coloured lenses green, purple etc).
- people on main beam/poorly adjusted headlights (or adventure riders, typically GSs, with bright spots on all the time :P ).

In either case if you're not looking you won't spot it, but both draw your attention as they're different. One critism of bikes is the difficulty in estimating distance due to the solo lamp.

Adding additional lights goes some way to addressing both my points, you look different and you add features to try and help others judge your distance/speed. Not by any means perfect, but at less than �3, potential benefits far out weigh costs in my opinion. Benefits really depend on your daily commute/riding environment.

Not sure if we're going too far off topic, but always an interesting discussion for me and always stirs different opinions!

I have a similar setup using the Adventure-spec bracket and Vision-X spots.
Both are separately switched so that I don't have to have them on all the time.The left hand side as you are sat on the bike shows a dipped beam to go a bit further than the standard dipped beam. The right is a main beam and goes straight out to support the dismal standard main beam. Now here's the fun bit...............the dipped beam will come on with the standard dipped beam and when on main beam both will be on!. This means that the 'black' spot left by the dipped beam just in front of the bike is now illuminated.............great.
If I flash my main beam everything lights up, dip, main and spots. I have used simple diodes to create a circuit and it worked real well. Lets put it this way, last weekend I went to Northern Ireland by ferry and quite a bit of riding was in the dark (and wind) the lights worked very well and really illuminated the road ahead for a change.
I have had the setup for a while and this was my first time to ride any distance with them

Hope that makes sense:120:

Back in my younger days I used to instruct and had a yellow headlamp, still do on my Triumph, it makes a great difference in being spotted in a sea of white lights.

Nice brackets, John.

Steve, long time etc... Good to hear you've dealt with the black spot, it's a real pain isn't it!

+1 I hope to do something similar - very tidy looking job.

Yeh like that bracket john, you must be just up the road from me! nice little side line you could do there ; )
Interesting points here still, although I would be using them for night riding, back lanes through the country, as well as commute.

If you've not already done it, I can recommend fitting an H7 HID kit to improve the OE headlamp.
You aren't contravening any C&U regs as the lens is clear and it's the reflector that focuses the beam.
Very easy to fit, I used one like this- clicky and made sure it was 6000k as that's as close to white as you'll get.
There's several threads on here about how to fit but short version is you use the spade connectors from the OE loom for the kit, and cut a small hole in the rubber boot over the bulb. Bit of silicon around the grommet and it's all good.
I mounted the ballast with double sided sticky tape in the tank/fork alcove.

Like the look of that Tom, bloody cheap too!!

Do you know/can you remember where you bought your spots? I have the exact same on my Ten but one of them gave up the ghost so I want to replace it with the same. I like their look.

This is probably a tacky to most but I added LED strips to my Ten. Probably won't last very long but I like the way they look.

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...ps6udttp0s.jpg

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/l...psngcmiqn9.jpg

i got mine on ebay from HK. paid over �30 each for them but i see there are plenty of people doing doing similar units now. a quick seach on ebay and i found these:

these are uk based - or so it says in advert.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XM-L-XML-T...3D271982147340

these are the same but cheaper and you get two but are from china
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Univers...MAAOSwKfVXDfxU

or maybe these, single cree unit but is listed as 30w
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-30W-U3-...EAAOSwYlJW5op~

one of mine stopped working too but for the price i think they are still a top buy. my original ones are three led and i replaced it with a four led. the older second one is now filling with water so due for replacement too. they get used in all weathers and there is over 72K miles on my bike so they are a good buy. the ebay shop in the second two links were doing the exact one at �10 each but they have stopped listing it and are now showing those above.

Thanks. I was looking for the first one. Nice to see they now have 4 LED's.

Hello, I just want to share what I have done to my bike to greatly improve my lighting for long distance vision. I have fitted a pair of Baja Designs S2 Racer Edition LED lights http://www.bajadesigns.com/pc_produc...0FA3B5BFC85FF7 that have great distance & also give good in close lighting that is now better than most cars. I have also changed out the parking globes to T10 7W LED - BRIGHT XENON WHITE - Parker Wedge projector lens off E Bay that are much brighter than standard & seem to be lasting, I tried a couple other types but they did not perform or last. I have been thinking of doing the mod in the light switch to put both beams on in the high beam position but the couple times I have tried using the passing switch it did not make much difference as the driving lights are so bright already, I hope this helps.