Clearwater Lights Group Buy: March 1st - March 30th 2013 (details inside)

[BLS]

Erica's and an Andie thrown in for good measure.

Lorett is very sweet, and also reiterated what Niehart said above. She'd prefer the orders BEFORE the 1st of March so she's not flooded with orders in one day.

Erica's won't ship until later March, but I'm OK with that, as being here in MN, I highly doubt I'd even sniff getting on the road before mid April.

Thanks Abe (Linc) for setting this up. Now you owe me a grand!!

I'm off to Biolife to donate plasma.

 

[Barabus]

And you can call your orders in now. In fact Lorett would like that.
The orders called in now will ship on the first.

Even the Pie Man is stumping for ClearWater. I better "git me some" of them.

 

[BLS]

I can't wait to upset the entire neighborhood with my UFO-rated front high beams.

 

[reaction57]

I was curious to pricing on the Glendas. The prices here don't match that of what's on Clearwater site. It would be a savings of $79 not $175 as posted. Or am I missing something?

 

[TomInPA]

Good catch. I think the price for Glendas has been dropped differentiate it from the new Darla and keep them competitive. At $379 retail, they are a good buy compared to the imports being sold near that price range. At $300 ($150 each including controller and mounting bracket) they are a killer deal.

I'm very tempted to go for the Darlas to back up the Krista lights, but the truth is, I don't really need more light than the Kristas provide.

 

[Linc]

Ditto what Tom said, the MSRP prices just dropped on the Glendas since they publicly released the Darla model. Still a good deal at our price, but Darlas are a better deal...

 

[reaction57]

Thanks. Does anyone know if special mounts will be needed for Darlas? Plan on mounting down low on forks. Also anyone flush mount the dimmer?

 

[Linc]

Thanks. Does anyone know if special mounts will be needed for Darlas? Plan on mounting down low on forks. Also anyone flush mount the dimmer?

No special brackets needed for Darlas on an FJR, same housing and mounting system as the Glenda... Designed for fender/fork mounting, see forum post below for explanation:

https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/150816-clearwater-lights-group-buy-march-1st-march-30th-2013-details-inside/?p=1044419

 

[ToyQuest]

Just got off the phone ordering a set of both Darlas and Ericas. Can't wait to get them. One cool piece of info, they are shipping both wiring harnesses and the brackets with the Darlas. That way I can go ahead and get everything wired up and just plug the Ericas in when they ship. Great customer service. Thanks for putting together the GB.

 

[PhilJet09]

...need to figure out how to sneak a couple of Darlas past my wife. I've been waiting for something like this to come out, perfect size and power.

 

[bluesdog]

...need to figure out how to sneak a couple of Darlas past my wife...

^ LOL!

Ericas ordered.

... and the snow should be gone by the time they ship

 

[Greg 03]

Whoo hoo!!!!! Darla's on the way! VERY nice people to deal with as well!!!! You da man Linc!!!

 

[FjrSwed]

It's an easy fitting installing the lights at the fork bracket, but just remember that the lights are more exposed to dirt. I had a pair of extra lights installed about the same hight from ground on a bmw r 1150 gs adv and the

lens was very volnerable. And a question, how many years warranty gives Clearwater on the product? I know the led "bulbs" last long, but the electronic tends to not last as long.

 

[Linc]

It's an easy fitting installing the lights at the fork bracket, but just remember that the lights are more exposed to dirt. I had a pair of extra lights installed about the same hight from ground on a bmw r 1150 gs adv and thelens was very volnerable. And a question, how many years warranty gives Clearwater on the product? I know the led "bulbs" last long, but the electronic tends to not last as long.

Swede, Quoting from Clearwater's FAQ:

Return Policy: 1 year replacement warranty. Our goal is to make you happy, not fight. With over 18,000 satisfied customers around the world, we only have 3 unhappy customers (Some how we pissed them off!).

As far as your concerns, there are a lot of happy customers (both here and dualsport riders on the ADVRider forum) using Glenda's, and collectively have ridden tens of thousands of accumulated miles with no electrical gremlins in the lights or circuitry. If by chance there is an issue outside of that year, I would bet that Clearwater would stand behind their product if it was a defect instead of damage. Large rock smashes your light off while on a dirt road... you're probably gonna buy a new light. ...just my 0.02.

 

[Barabus]

Called ClearWater today. Unfortunately, the Ericas are color temp spec'd at 6300K. Personally, that is too blue for me. I will wait until the next generation where I hope to see 3500-4000K color range. Clearwater is too small to get the more desirable "binned" bulbs. If you are not a "tint snob" then this will probably be fine. By no means am I saying anything negative about this product or the group buy. These look like incredible lights at a great price. I really like the PWM control circuit too. I look forward to the next version with maybe a more white/white-yellow tint.

Barry

 

[Greg 03]

I tend to like the lights more toward the blue spectrum they tend to give a better contrast at night from what I've seen... guess it's just personal opinion.

 

[PhilJet09]

FWIW, I've had the Glenda's mounted low on my forks for the last 40,000 miles with no electrical problems. The only (minor) issue I have is the front aluminum bezel that was once black has faded to a gold color, which I'm sure clearwater would fix for me, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I love my Clearwater LEDs!

 

[garyahouse]

I was perusing another forum and came across this info on the Kristas;

(copied) "With Kristas, Clearwater says that at their low setting they consume 4 watts of power and fully on consume 36 watts of power. You can't dim them to black or lower than 4 watts." [Web Bike World's top of the line amp meter claimed the minimum was 5 watts, for WIW.]

Another quote: "What was explained to me by one of the techs up at Clearwater that the high performance LEDs are being switched on and off (at some fantastic number - at any given time interval) every nanosecond (I say nanosecond because it sounds more impressive than second)...nonetheless they are being switched on and off very fast. When you increase brightness, what you are doing is decreasing the amount of time they are turned off. When you dim them you are increasing the amount of time they are turned off...thus the affect of dimming, which typically can't be done with an LED. Those guys are geniuses. Due to the refector in the back of each Krista, they throw 85% of their light @ 15 degrees off axis and 15% of the light at a 45 degree angle. Since I do a lot of flash photography work I could go into a couple of paragraphs of logrithmic light fall off but if you give me that, I can say that the 15% of the light at 45 degrees is going to fall off very quickly which in practice means that you're going to illuminate the side of the road seen at the 45 degrees a very short distance. Being that the other 85% is focused more narrowly, it will fall of much later, meaning it will penetrate the darkness farther. Common sense stuff."

Another post went on to say: "I think the "Dimming Feature" on the Clearwater Lights is its greatest strength and I use it daily. I run the Krista's at about 50% during the day and turn them down to about 20% at night when driving where there's oncoming traffic, which is just about everywhere here in San Diego County."

I also enjoyed reading Web Bike World's write up on the Kristas found here: CLICKY

Wanna learn all about these lights? Check out the following info from the Clearwater website CLICKY

I'm still working on my decision to pull the trigger here.

Gary

darksider #44

 

[BigOgre]

FWIW, I've had the Glenda's mounted low on my forks for the last 40,000 miles with no electrical problems. The only (minor) issue I have is the front aluminum bezel that was once black has faded to a gold color, which I'm sure clearwater would fix for me, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I love my Clearwater LEDs!

I had the same issue and spoke to Glenn at the NYC show. (Actually much earlier via e-mail but also was too lazy.) He was aware of this and explained that they had a batch of 50 come through some time back with bad anodizing. Not only that, but he had accounted for maybe 42 (IIRC?) sets of them and mine added one more. He showed me there at the show how to change them out, e-mailed him pics of my bad ones, and had a new set shortly thereafter. Like has been said many times before, great customer service!

 

[PhilJet09]

FWIW, I've had the Glenda's mounted low on my forks for the last 40,000 miles with no electrical problems. The only (minor) issue I have is the front aluminum bezel that was once black has faded to a gold color, which I'm sure clearwater would fix for me, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I love my Clearwater LEDs!

I had the same issue and spoke to Glenn at the NYC show. (Actually much earlier via e-mail but also was too lazy.) He was aware of this and explained that they had a batch of 50 come through some time back with bad anodizing. Not only that, but he had accounted for maybe 42 (IIRC?) sets of them and mine added one more. He showed me there at the show how to change them out, e-mailed him pics of my bad ones, and had a new set shortly thereafter. Like has been said many times before, great customer service!

Thanks, maybe I'll send him a pic and get some new rings for mine.
Edit - update

I sent a quick email last night requesting to buy a replacement set of bezels. I got a response first thing this morning requesting a confirmation that the shipping info they had on file was still correct so they could send me a set of bezels free of charge. That's what I'd call outstanding customer service!