As is unfortunately so often the case we classic riders are limited by shoddy products on the market. There is quite clearly nothing inherently ?wrong? with LED?s as light sources. Crikey, there are plenty of incandescent LED replacements out there, and it is a rapidly growing (even this year) market sector. I too have tried a couple of LED tail / stop bulb replacements from the usual sources and these were rubbish. But my rear light solution uses LEDs successfully. It is custom made though and not intended to put it on the market alongside the regulators, before anyone asks.
My rear light uses just two wide angle red LED?s. White LED?s have much lower efficiency due to the ?phosphors? needed to convert some of the blue light to other colours. They are Luxeon Lumiled LXHL-PD01. Running at just 0.1 Amp, in stop mode, brightness is good and side beam spread is very acceptable. They cost under £2 each, rated 1 Watt and can be driven much harder. Then for detail I added 3 small white LED?s pointing down for number plate illumination. Whole thing is mounted on a small aluminium plate wired into a standard bulb (or lamp as old Mr Morley would insist, bulbs go in the ground to flower in the spring, globes are another thing again).
Point is to save a few Watts, especially the stop light, and to see how easily good performance can be achieved. Shouldn't be any need to spend £20 odd. With my 60W halogen light and Boyer ignition I though it worth saving the other 2 Amps. Limiting dynamo output to about 6 Amps, 85 W, this is still one machine that works for its living. No sign of flagging on longer night runs, but then Lucas rate the E3L armature & brushes at 8.5 amps at modest speed anyway. Prince of Darkness be gone.
I would like to measure relative light outputs between sources and at different angles to eliminate the subjectivity, got some photodiodes somewhere.
