Light Bulb

[chrismoore]

I had a guy checking out my 200 while I was out riding one day and he asked me why I haven't upgraded my headlight to an LED. I told him I didn't know if it was possible to which he replied that he did on his 85. When I asked what light he used and where he got it he said autozone and he didn't remember what type of light it was. Any truth behind any of this or is this guy full of brown smelly stuff?

[3wheelrider]

You can -not sure how well the LED headlight would light up vs a standard bulb on a 185/200. I have installed a LED tailight once on a 185s (lit up very nicely at idle)- but a headlight is different & has to project & spread the beam) Anyway -you will have to wire in a voltage reg. or else it will fry the resistors inside on the circuits for the LED. I dont recall how I wired in the volt. reg. but it was very simple -only a couple wires. You can basically use a volt. reg. from most any motorcycle even chinese. The smaller the better. I had a Moose univ. one (not sure if you can still get it -but it was nice & small). Installed mine at the conn. at the headlight & hid the unit inside the housing out of site...

[Flyingw]

The problem with the 200 series trike electrical systems is they use the natural resistance in the wiring and bulb filiment to act as the voltage regulator. Replacing the stock bulb with an LED bulb will mess with that natural resistance. As resistance goes down, voltage goes up and in the case of the LED will smoke the bulb knowing that the voltage goes from about 12.5vac at idle to in some cases upwards of 50vac but the natural resistance in the wiring and bulb keep the voltage in check at about 14vac.

3wheelrider is right on with installing a voltage regulator. Its not a regulator as you would think though, its actually a shunt mening that any voltage over 13.6vac (typical) is shunted off so your voltage goes from around 12.5vac at idle to about 13.6vac at max RPMs keeping the voltage withing the specified range for a stock bulb.

Now, with all that said 3wheelrider also pointed out that an LED bulb will not put out the amount of light that a stock bulb will. The technology isnt there yet with some LED bulbs but its getting there quickly. For a single bulb headlight on a 200 series electrical system, stick to the stock bulb is my suggestion.

I hope this helps?

[kb0nly]

They aren't making many options in LED that put out the light that the stock headlight bulb does, a whole new light that puts out as much or more is possible however. And they are all right on the regulator, you would have to buy a universal rectifier/regulator and rewire at a bare minimum. The lighting system on those are AC voltage not DC. I had an old lawn tractor that was the same way. The AC output from the alternator ran the lights. I bought a cheap rectifier/regulator off ebay and wired that into the output of the alternator and then i had regulated 13.8v DC for the lights and charging a battery, then i added electric start. You won't have to change the bulbs if you kept them, the bulbs work at AC or DC they don't care, but once you have DC then you can go LED if you want.

I have LED bulbs in the marker lights on my trailers and on my one trailer i replaced the tail lights with a complete LED setup, they are BRIGHT, and even a bit brighter than the stock turn/tail bulbs in the old housings. On my 84 200ES i have a stock headlight bulb and tail light bulb, but i plan on changing the tail to a LED as soon as i get a chance, the added benefit is less draw on the electrical system. The alternator on the 200ES is just over 5 amps, 70w according to the service manual, the stock headlight is 45w and the tail light is 5w, so 50w of the available power is gone to the lights. The stock headlight draws about 4a on high and 2a on low, and the stock tail draws about half and amp. So with the headlight at high your drawing about 4.5 amps total. With the LED's you can cut your power consumption down to half or less. The LED tail light bulb i have found is a 1w led lamp that draws about a quarter of an amp. The LED headlight bulb i have found draws about 2a, but its only equal to maybe the low beam in light output.

I did something a little different on mine, i added two LED lights to the front and plugged them into the high beam wire in the headlight, so when i am on low beam its the stock bulb, when i am on high beam its the LED lights. The two LED lights draw about 4a total, so the same as the high beam filament in the bulb would so the electrical system can handle it fine. What i have been thinking of doing though is replacing the stock bulb with a single wattage LED since i only use it for low beam now.



Though they look the same those two LED lights are actually different. One is a pencil beam, one is a flood beam, this gives me a nice balance of close up light as well as reaching light. I thought of switching them for high/low without using the stock headlight but for now i like using the stock on low as a daylight running lamp. They are 27w LED lights, and the output from them is simply amazing. They are good from 10-30v DC input so they don't have any issues with voltage swings.

[Flyingw]

Its important to note for the purpose of clarity that the 200ES has a full wave rectifier because of the battery and the electrical system is designed to have variable loads and has available power on the alternator circuit for changing up lights. For chrismoore's 200, the electrical system is balanced with the stock bulbs so even changing the tail light bulb to LED will cause a larger AC voltage on the headlight. Long term effect will be shorter life on stock headlight bulbs. As light weight as these systems are, even changing one component and altering the electrial load will have an effect. There really isn't any room for variation on these systems unless you install a generic regulator (shunt) to stabilize the ac voltage. Any 2 wire regulator 350X, 250R, or generic will work. Raw power in, capped power out. very simple circuit.

[kb0nly]

Its important to note for the purpose of clarity that the 200ES has a full wave rectifier because of the battery and the electrical system is designed to have variable loads and has available power on the alternator circuit for changing up lights. For chrismoore's 200, the electrical system is balanced with the stock bulbs so even changing the tail light bulb to LED will cause a larger AC voltage on the headlight. Long term effect will be shorter life on stock headlight bulbs. As light weight as these systems are, even changing one component and altering the electrial load will have an effect. There really isn't any room for variation on these systems unless you install a generic regulator (shunt) to stabilize the ac voltage. Any 2 wire regulator 350X, 250R, or generic will work. Raw power in, capped power out. very simple circuit.

Exactly what i also said he had to do for his... I didn't say the 200ES was the same.

[Flyingw]

I know you didn't say it was the same KB, I just didnt want anyone to be confused. Its all good Brother.

[kb0nly]

Roger! :-)