Source for LEDs

I am (slowly) working on secret project X. That is, I am making a 70's VFR, sorta. See one of my "other bikes" is a GS 850. These bikes were loved by the sport touring set in the 70s and 80s for much of the same reasons we love our VFRs. So anyway, one of the things I am doing is hanging a set of Bates saddlebags on it. You can see here that there are two reflector thingies on the back. They are like empty marker lights and the lenses screw off to reveal a shallow area behind with a flat piece of metal in there.
[image: Posted Image]
I plan on using the top ones as additional brake lights, and the botom two as turn signals. I want to use LEDs in there because space is limited. Now, because I am not familiar with LEDs, I was wondering if anyone knows of a good source for LED componants. The wiring will be very straight forward but I dont know where to find a cool round, flat fella and/or if there are varying brightnesses for each application. I know I can use Ebay, but that brings a flood of crap for a Honda Civic and useless turn signal bulbs.

Any help?

That's a pretty wide question.

A little background:

LEDs have a characteristic forward voltage drop of 2.5-3.0V (the high efficiency white type) and have a power limit of 1 watt, which translates to about 300mA of current. To be used in a 12V system you need to limit the current/power with a resistor. If you use 1 LED and resistor (you'll need about 50 ohm/5W and a modest heatsink/cooler for the LED), this will result in a lot of wasted power and a really hot resistor. Better to put 3 LED in series and use a 50 ohm/1W resistor. The lightbulb replacement LEDs have already put the right amount of devices in series/parallel along with the limiting resistor, that is one reason they are 'kinda bulky'.

As far as buying individual LEDs and resistors, try DIGIKEY.com. They aren't the lowest price in the world, but you can buy onesy twosey's and they deliver.

Of course if you have no technical background (as in electronics) I may have just wasted a couple of minutes of your time.

Brian

www.superbrightleds.com

Dealt with them numerous times, always a good experience and they have a metric tonne of LEDs.

What is the diameter of the base that you'd like the LEDs to fit in?

These beehive marker lights might be a direct replacement?

http://www.superbrig...bhpc.htm#photos

Maybe disassemble these?

http://www.superbrig.../msm.htm#photos

Of course if you have no technical background (as in electronics) I may have just wasted a couple of minutes of your time.

Brian

I did mention this was for a GS850, right? You sent me information in regard to the Space Shuttle. :rolleyes:

What I need is a 2 inch wafer with as many LEDs as will fit and a pigtail.

Find what you were looking for yet?

getting close..........

How bright do you want them to be? I built a 650 lumen flashligh that uses 1W LEDs that are on a star heatsink. I have used the crappy 5mm LEDs for things as well...the difference is night and day. It doesn't sound like there is a socket in there, you just want a 2" round circuit board with LEDs?

I would go with Superbright LEDs in that case. You have to figure out how many LEDs you can fit, then use this link to determin the needed resistors and how to wire them: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz. You need to know the forward voltage (3.5V is common) and milliamps (20ma is common).

[image: Posted Image]
[image: Posted Image]
[image: Posted Image]

funky, no?
It now wears aluminum 17" hoops at both ends and beefy 41mm forks