Auxiliary brake lights

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bramfrank

BramFrank
Joined
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I'm not done with the install yet, but the recent spate of posts about the Whelen TIR3 got me to thinking that I'd like to shock drivers on my tail out of their reverie.

But what's better than a TIR3?

Why obviously TWO TIR3s! And here is how I came to install THAT solution:

I had a very bright and interesting LED trail light retrofit on my '03 Concours C10 that used a variable flash rate (started fast and slowed over 10 seconds to solid on) that was amazing - but the company that made them went out of business. I then tried to go into business with a bunch of Germans who were doing LED tail light retrofits of a similar sort, but their prices were out of sight.

$50 for the TIR3 was a great price. But money is a bit tight here, so I've waited . . . .

At the start of the month I had a significant number of 'Ebay Bucks' to get rid of and on the very last day became somewhat concerned about wasting the money (as in letting $300 in credits expire), so I bought a bunch of supplies that I needed, but even then, there was too much that I wanted and not enough money to buy it all.

What do do? What to do?

I had an epiphany. If I couldn't bring myself to buy something I needed, I would buy something I DIDN'T need and decided to locate a TIR3 and a flasher module on Ebay - but there were no red ones (it seems that Ebay bans the sale of red police lights) and even then none with reasonable 'Buy It Now' settings and I HAD to spend the money or lose it.

My searches brought me to a Whelen product called a 'Dominator D2'. The D2 is an assembly comprising not one, but TWO TIR3 light heads (that's what they call the flasher modules) in a black aluminum extrusion that measures about 1" high by about 7" across - almost as wide as a typical moto license plate.

There was even a vendor with a BIN who said you could specify the color you wanted and he was including a mounting bracket (not sure I needed it - and even now don't know because he forgot to put it in the box and is just now shipping the missing part to me). But the price was $115 (his latest auctions are $125) and I had about $140 left, so I bought that, plus an adjustable flasher designed for 'back-off' duty from another vendor in Cali.

Nothing I do is ever simple.

When the package arrived at the border, my buddy brought it (and a bunch of other stuff I ordered) back and handed me the bits on Friday evening.

The Dominator is a VERY nice product (photos posted). It is available with 2, 4, 6 or 8 TIR3 modules and can cycle through a number of flash patterns . . . . . . . . but . . . . . . . it turns out that there is no 'steady burn' among the available choices. And I need the 'steady burn' to work with the brake modulator, otherwise the rear of my bike would simply be flashing away looking like the lights on any police bike and that wasn't going to make any LEOs behind me at red lights happy. I suppose I could have simply installed a cut-off timer to let them run for 4 seconds, then shut off, but I fear that the incandescent bulbs wouldn't be seen after my light show came to an end.

No. I needed a proper solution. What could it be?

The TIR3 has a 'steady burn' function. The Dominator uses two TIR3, so it should offer the 'steady burn' as a selectable option. Seems reasonable, at least to me. But no. I tried. It doesn't.

It was very 'police like' over the week-end in my home (with the lights off at night). These things are bright enough to burn your eyeballs, especially when used in pitch blackness!!!

Whelen tech support was closed until Monday (today) and the dealer who sold me the asssembly didn't respond over the week-end, so first thing Monday morning I called Whelen to find out what the story was . . . their phone system is just awful; First of all they don't have a toll-free number (not a hardship for me, I have unlmited North American calling on my phone line), then their automated attendant doesn't have any form of call center software. The phone jjust rang for 5 minutes before 'Brian' (his real name) came on the line and promptly informed me I was SOL and if I didn't like it I could just return the lights to my dealer or I could buy a pair of TIR3 modules from my dealer and mount them inside the Dominator extrusion.

But isn't that what I already bought?

Apparently not.

While they may call it a TIR3, it seems that (according to Brian) they took a lot of poetic license and provided a 'special' TIR3 that has a limited subset of flash patterns and does not offer 'steady burn'.

So how about selling me a pair of TIR3 at a special price?

Nope - too bad. Go away and buy a pair where you got what you have now . . . . not nice Brian.

But I am nothing, if not tenacious - I decided to disassemble the Dominator to see what makes it tick - there is a drawing they provide and it sure looks like a lot of bits and pieces go into this thing - and if I must say, Whelen does a very classy job of building their products - Everything is plugged together using waterproof connectors and their boards are all fully potted.

But the most interesting discovery was that the external wiring went, not to the TIR3s, but rather to a module into which the 2 TIR3s were connected - and I could see what appeared to be the top of a transister poking up near the surface of the potting compound. . . . . could it be?

Well, the TIR3 modules in this thing each has 2 wires (one Black and one Red) poking out - the standard TIR3 has 4 wires . . . I wondered.

OK, I unplugged the connector from one of the TIR3 modules and applied a 12 VDC source.

LO AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS A BRIGHT UNWAVERING RED LIGHT SHINING FROM THE MODULE.

So all I needed to do was to cut the mating cables from the separate flasher module that the Dominators use and connect those to the output of my newly purchased back-off flasher module and I'd have what I wanted (and a spare cannibalised Whelen controller to boot).

Brian CLEARLY has no clue about his products

So I wrote an e-mail to the VP Sales who thanked me for taking the trouble to write - we're going to chat later this week and I gather that he is taking my complaint seriously (then again I did record the call). Brian. Can you say discipline action and maybe some product training'?

I did some trial fitting and without the backet, the light bar will fit perfectly between the bottom of the license plate bulb and the top of the plate itself. Unfortunately that means that it will block the bulb from lighting up the plate - maybe a white LED mounted below the Dominator can do the job?

I then thought about lowering the license plate bulb assembly - it is simply held in place with two screws - and it can be dropped, - however the special mounting hardware the Dominator ships with isn't long wnough to mount through the plastic and spacers - and finding a captive dome-headed screw with a square collar like the one they use was not going to be a simple task.

But it WILL fit below and it WILL poke through the plastic itself just fine - even so, I will wait for the bracket.

More, as the plot unfolds.

What I DO know is that the brake modulator can be adjusted to flash the Dominator VERY quickly - People to my rear will not be happy - If I set it right it might trigger epileptic fits!! These are the same light heads that police cars use - they are BRIGHT. Though, if you want EVEN BRIGHTER in a package that's the same size, Whelen does offer the Dominator 2+ - that model uses the LINZ6 light head which has six of the high power leds in each where the TIR3 has 3.

Between my headlight modulator and my HID driving lights that face front and the new LED Aux brake lights facing rear I HOPE I won't get hit due to inattention.

Note; the flasher module I bought is a REALLY nice device. There are two adjustmnents, one for the flash rate and another for the duration of the flashing, which ranges from almost no time to perhaps 20 seconds and a flash rate that varies from about 15 Hz to almost full on. For $15 shipped, it is a steal.

This is a link to one of the vendor's back-off flasher auctions.



The Dominator 2 looks like this:

Dual-Dominator_5_photo.jpg


More as I get this thing installed.

 
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Well, lots of typing lost compliments of a computer crash . . . maybe the rewrite will be more compact?

Developments;

Had a chat with Mr. V.P. Sales at Whelen and he thanked me for taking the trouble to report on my experience. It seems that 'they knew' about the phone system issues, but no one took it to management to resolve, so now it is being fixed. Plus the CSRs will be getting lessons on being supportive.

For my trouble I was offered a grab bag of some 'toys to play with', which is better than nothing, but money might have been more useful. I wonder what they're going to send me?

Being Thursday and knowing that my weekend will be booked solid with celebrations honoring my Dad's 90th birthday, I decided to move forward and complete the installation.

I did not wait for the bracket to arrive.

I decided to relocate the license plate fixture - I was going to wedge it between the plate and the Dominator light bar, securing it with double-sided tape. I would then install the Dominator where the license plate light is now, using the same holes - one of the benefits of having a sliding captive-nut mounting system.

But the supplied screws were too short and the local hardware stores would not have something with the same head AND square shoulders - so I bought brass screws, nuts, lockwashers and wing nuts (to use as a jam nut) and it turned out that a 1" #10 screw would do the job.

The only real problem was that with no square shoulders, the screws would spin when I went to tighten the nuts - not having a gear wrench it was pretty slow going, because there's no straight access to the holes under the fender, so I had to use an open ended 3/8" wrench and a pair of plyers holding the threaded portion extending past the nut to keep it from spinning - it took about 20 minutes, but it is solidly mounted. The threads were not damaged during the install, so it can be returned to stock with no aftereffects if I should decide to do so in the future.

I routed the wiring through a gap between the turn signal reflector and the body plastic and from there to a point near the ECU connector. I have a BlueSeas fuse block there and that's where the brake relay I have for the cruise control is installed.

Because the LED assemblies each draw about 5 watts, a 20 gauge 2 conductor cable sufficed. The brake alert flasher I bought was located underseat, right next to the aforementioned fuseblock, my Autocom and the Speedo Healer.

All in all, from the time I started to the time I had my daughter press the brake pedal for the photos about an hour elapsed, including the trip to the hardware store.

Below are some shots of the bike with the light bar installed. I have it set to flash for about 2 seconds, at perhaps 5 flashes per second before coming on solid - that can be adjusted. Unfortunately I was unable to convince my daughter to stick around long enough to film the action - there was 'an important show' on TV. Maybe tomorrow.

The problem is that I think this may just be way overkill - this installation is bright. What I wanted was BRIGHT, What I got, was [SIZE=24pt]BRIGHT[/SIZE]and then some.

Here are a few photos of the end result (yes, I know I need a new tire):



 
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Nice job. A nice thing about the TIR3 light head is that it is designed to be fairly directional - what you need in a brake light, IMO, because the people who need to notice you are the ones more or less directly behind you. The LIN3/LIN4/LINZ6 light heads are designed with a wider angle of visibility. Amber warning lights, should you want to/need to add them, are probably made more effective by using the LIN wide angle series light heads, especially if you are parked a bit off-axis to traffic.

The LINZ6 light head is the same width as the TIR3/LIN3 head, but comes with a more bulbous housing. The LINZ6 head will fit into a TIR3/LIN3 housing (available as a replacement part in black or chromed) if you want a sleeker look or have less room for mounting. I have a couple of extra LINZ6 housings now, and will have a couple of more before too long as I make further upgrades to the airhead BMW I use for bicycle-event support. Can't have too much visibility when stopped on the edge of a two-lane road while fixing somebody's flat tire . . . .

Time to go drill the holes to mount a red TIR3 on the back of the FJR.

Mark C.

 
That looks great. I dont see a problem with the brightness. Maybe you could angle it down a little bit. At least now people cannot say they didnt see your brake lights. Good Job.

 
bramfrank, nice job. But i sure as heck would not want to be behind you on a dark and twisty road (or even during the day), since these things would drive most riders within a 1/2 miles behind you nuts...i'm just saying. Maybe it might sense to put an On/Off switch on the Brake Lights from Hell just in case?

 
Bram,

Even with just one TIR3 I was concerned about it being too bright at night, especially for any fellow cyclists that might be riding with me, so I wired mine up with an On/OFF switch under the seat that allows it to be completely disabled should that be my desire. So far, other than to test the switches function, it has remained on all the time and I have never received a complaint.

Sometimes when I pass a police car on the side of the road with their strobes on at night I am temporarily blinded. I think the fact that these brake lights are red in color means it doesn't shock their night vision like the piercing blue police lights we have around here.

 
That looks great. I dont see a problem with the brightness...
I agree that it looks great and like the concept. But any cop who likes to write mechanical violations will recognize what you have and it'll be an easy citation to write. These are the folks who write people up for headlights being out of adjustment or inop, cracked windshields, etc.

From that aspect, you have a violation of FMVSS 108 (or your State equivalent), which specifies both a minimum and MAXIMUM brake light candlepower value. Each of your TIR3 units should be slightly double that max, so you're probably at - ooohh - four time the legal limit.

At this point and since mechanical violations don't carry points, I'd leave it if it were on my bike.

While trying REAL hard not to sit at a stop light in front of any type of a police car.

 
Can't say +1 Hyperlites until I install them. I'm ordering them this week. Was gonna go with lights from Custom Dynamics but decided to go with Hyperlites due to ease in wiring and keeping a modulator out from under the seat where it's already packed full. However, no complaint against CD - the sales dept has been very helpful to answer questions.

Decided to get the CA-compliant module. For me it's not worth risking a ticket to prove to an officer they are legal, if I'm not riding in CA. And if I do ride in CA then I'll not worry about it anyway.

 
I've installed Hyperlites inside the tail light housings on both my FJR and BMW and am very pleased with the results. I plan to add additional, constantly on Hyperlites to the FJR as I had the opportunity to follow a fellow FJR rider on a rainy day and felt like greater lighting would be a good thing. I would prefer to run the risk of getting a ticket than be rear ended.

OBD

 
Can't say +1 Hyperlites until I install them. I'm ordering them this week. Was gonna go with lights from Custom Dynamics but decided to go with Hyperlites due to ease in wiring and keeping a modulator out from under the seat where it's already packed full. However, no complaint against CD - the sales dept has been very helpful to answer questions.
Decided to get the CA-compliant module. For me it's not worth risking a ticket to prove to an officer they are legal, if I'm not riding in CA. And if I do ride in CA then I'll not worry about it anyway.
shoot, I failed to mention (meant to, but brain fart), you only need ONE flasher for up to eight pairs of hyperlites

my 16 led clusters and my 8 led clusters are wired to the same flasher...ie, I purchased one pair with a flasher and the other just lights

cheaper that way and they all flash the same together when the brakes are engaged

 
I do like LOTS of light at the end to ward off the cagers. I use Hyperlights. But... I would not follow you in a group ride - since I think it would be too bright and be annoying after a bit. I guess you could be relegated to sweeper all the time (and then protect the whole group from said in-attentive cager).

Scoot

 
I do like LOTS of light at the end to ward off the cagers. I use Hyperlights. But... I would not follow you in a group ride - since I think it would be too bright and be annoying after a bit. I guess you could be relegated to sweeper all the time (and then protect the whole group from said in-attentive cager).
Scoot
the pic is everything on full bright at the top of a "flash"

they are far from being annoying...at least by normally, general tolerate folks :rolleyes:

 
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Great job on the lights. I would rather risk a ticket than be run over. Some might think they are "to bright" or they are "very annoying". But thats the idea..... See me, don't run over me....

Great set of lights....

Smitty

 
I put a set of Hyperlites on shortly after buying the bike last fall. My wife followed me yesterday to drop off the bike for new tires and she was very impressed by the brightness of the Hyperlites (using 4-second flash mode then steady on), and even commented that if it weren't for them she'd never have noticed my normal brake light. I also added a Kisan headlight modulator, and during that same ride to the dealer yesterday, I had a passing cager call out to me that my headlight was 'blinking'. Whatever gets me seen...and yes, I know that nothing will get the attention of the texting teen behind me. <_<

 
1274145692[/url]' post='739605']

Note; the flasher module I bought is a REALLY nice device. There are two adjustmnents, one for the flash rate and another for the duration of the flashing, which ranges from almost no time to perhaps 20 seconds and a flash rate that varies from about 15 Hz to almost full on. For $15 shipped, it is a steal.

This is a link to one of the vendor's back-off flasher auctions.

Just wondering if you remember the vendor? I tried the link and unsurprisingly because of the date of your post, it 404'd. Any help would be appriciated!

-worney

 

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