HOW TO: Rigid LED Install with Wiring

I got a few PM’s regarding my LED setup, so I thought I would create an instructional on how I installed it. Start to finish, here’s what I did:

Background info: I already installed a Mountain Fit headlight delete on my sled previously. I wanted the additional venting for the planned turbocharged big-bore I’m going to be running. However, I do ride a ton at night, so I needed good lighting. I could have gone with a helmet light, but I like not having to worry about a cord connecting me to the sled. Therefore, LED’s it is.


I went with two Rigid Industries LED Dually D2 spotlights. Rigid has an excellent reputation for bulletproof lights, so in my opinion they were worth the cash. I also decided to mount the lights to the over-structure, rather than mount them in the hood. I didn’t want anything extra in the hood since I take it off so often, plus aluminum makes a much better mount than a plastic hood.


I chose power these lights using the factory AC lighting circuit. Couple reasons for this; I wanted to put a load on the circuit so I didn't have to worry about smoking a VR, and this also made for the cleanest wiring since I could use the factory hi-low beam switch. Since LED's are so bright, I wanted the ability to turn them off if necessary. The biggest issue here is that the LED's require DC voltage; this means converting the circuit to DC with a bridge rectifier. I picked one up from mouser.com for next to nothing.


I wired the lights so that on hi-beam, the LED’s would light, and low beam they would shut off. To maintain the correct load on the circuit (same as the factory halogens), I used two resistors. One the low beam, I used a 100W 2 ohm resistor which simulated the factory load from two headlights. On the high beam side, I used the rectifier to convert the voltage to DC, then wired in a 75W 3 ohm resistor. According to my math (which is poor at best), this resistor along with the LED’s should create approximately the same load as factory. The resistors came from Mouser as well.


Below is the basic wiring diagram for how I hooked everything up. You can see I used a Deutsch connector to attach the new harness to the sled.


I chose to tie into the factory head light wiring below the hood harness plug. Like I said, I take my hood off all the time, so I didn’t want to fumble with an extra plug going into one of the existing headlight plugs. If you didn’t want to cut into the factory wiring, this would by FAR be the easiest way to install this. Pics below on how I cut the wires and attached a new connector.




Once I figured out the wiring, I made a simple bracket to mount the lights to the over-structure. I had to do a ton of measuring and test fitting before I could figure out exactly where to mount them so they would shine through the mesh delete correctly. I used 1” square steel tubing, since that’s what I had lying around the garage. If I did it again, I would definitely use aluminum since the steel is pretty beefy.

Bottom of the bracket is 2 ¾” below the center of the lower bolt.


Test fitting and a bit of paint.



It actually worked out so the LED’s would mount directly over the over structure, so I decided to drill holes right through and bolt everything together with 3” carriage head bolts. Super strong, should never vibrate loose.




Once I had the bracket finished. I attached my new wiring harness to the bracket. The resistors are mounted directly to the steel pipe which should help dissipate heat. In the pics they’re just held on with zip ties; I will replace with some small bolts later. All connections were soldered and heat shrunk for moisture protection. The plug on the pigtail sticking down is what hooks into the new Deutsch connector below the factory hood plug.



Once everything was complete, I bolted it up and fire up the sled. Worked exactly how I hoped, with the high beams triggering the LED’s, and the low beams powering the 2 ohm resistor. These things are awesomely bright!



Sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to be thorough enough that anyone could duplicate what I did. Couple lessons learned:

- I should have used Dually flood beams, instead of spot. The spots throw light an insanely long distance, but the focal beam is too narrow. I think one spot and one flood would probably be the ticket.
- Use aluminum rather than steel for the bracket
- Measure wire length carefully. Some wound up being too short or too long, and were hard to deal with when I attached the harness to the square tube.

Parts used:

Rectron 10A 400V Bridge Rectifier
http://ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Rectron/BR104/?qs=%2fha2pyFadujkRyixXUCg88PV52YTm6VLE40ZBYq%252blH4%3d

Arcol 100W 2 Ohm Resistor
http://ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Arcol/HS100-2R0-1/?qs=%2fha2pyFadujijxGS6LgfEoka4divYsjA5qhDQVP9R2uWHhL34%2f9MuQ%3d%3d

Arcol 75W 3 Ohm Resistor
http://ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Arcol/HS75-3R0-F/?qs=%2fha2pyFadugiFpn9EoXanWVQC2WYIqmtWREwlMe3SXnfWv65RltN8A%3d%3d

Deutsch DT 3 pin connector, male and female
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Deutsch-DT-3-Pin-Connector-Kit-14-16-GA-Nickel-Contacts-/321151671195?pt=Race_Car_Parts&hash=item4ac6219b9b&vxp=mtr#ht_933wt_1124

Rigid Dually D2 Spotlights
I picked them up from a local store, but you can find them all over the net.

That’s it folks. Like I said, I’m no electrician, just a dude that likes tinkering. If you have suggestions on how to improve, by all means chime in!

Does your mesh screen block out some of your lights?

D8rider said:

Does your mesh screen block out some of your lights?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does dim them slightly, but not much. I will take the sled out and snap a pic with the hood on, and off so people can see the difference. The mesh is pretty thin and allows light through quite well.

Hmmmmm now I'm getting excited once I see the pic of your headlight output shot. I gonna pull the trigger and set up mine fog lights
O

If you did indeed use D2 lights you would have been better off using the driving beam instead of flood or spot. It's a fantastic light in the driving beam.

Nice!! These kinds of threads are why I pay to be on snowest.

BigTree said:

If you did indeed use D2 lights you would have been better off using the driving beam instead of flood or spot. It's a fantastic light in the driving beam.

Click to expand...

I agree. I think I might pull the spots and put them on my truck, then grab a set of driving beams.

This is awesome CDK!
I've been looking at using a set of Rigid D2's on my sled also to go with my carbon fiber Fire n Ice headlight delete I got but wasn't sure how to go about it. You've encouraged me to do it now and I'm going to get some lights and the rest of the parts ordered up for my sled now. I really appreciate your write up on this. These are the types of posts/write ups that make Snowest a great place! Thanks!!!

I'm glad to be of assistance. I won't take all the credit, I basically just put together a bunch of good info from all the other electrical threads. Post up your results when you get it installed!

So I went out and bought 10" e-series light bar. It is a light combo with flood and spot light. I did not want to install a headlight delete. So what I did was took my head light out and put it by my shop heater. Once the headlight assy. Warmed up and soften the glue I peeled off the Len and the chrome reflector. Then I took the jigsaw and cut around the edge of the headlight housing so I'm able to clip the Len back to the housing and bolt it back to the hood. I attached the light bar to the pillar and that's as far as I gone since it's Christmas Eve. Hopefully tmr I can finish wiring it up and show you guys what it looks like.
Cheers merry Christmas

I dunno how to get all my pictures up......lol please help

D8rider said:

View attachment 222017
I dunno how to get all my pictures up......lol please help

Click to expand...

You're doing fine...keep em coming.

So I finished wired in the headlight with the bridge rectifier, fired up my sled the light was flickering and when I rev up the engine the light would cut out. I double checked the wiring and everything was fine. So I removed the bridge rectifier. The light stayed on with no flickering and revved up the engine and light stayed on nice and steady.....why? I do not know why. Maybe someone can chime in. All I did was took the high beam wiring out of the hood connector which is pin #1 and ground pin #8 and wired it straight to my headlight.

It's pretty bright lol

Strange. Your light bar must be internally rectified, since LEDS can't run on AC current. I did notice my lights flickered too at an idle, but turn nice and steady when you rev it up a little. Now you've got me curious, perhaps I will remove my bridge rectifier and see what happens. Everything I've read about Rigid LEDs says they need DC power to work......

I'm pretty curious about this as well. Keep us updated. Awesome thread, thanks for the write up.

CDK said:

Strange. Your light bar must be internally rectified, since LEDS can't run on AC current. I did notice my lights flickered too at an idle, but turn nice and steady when you rev it up a little. Now you've got me curious, perhaps I will remove my bridge rectifier and see what happens. Everything I've read about Rigid LEDs says they need DC power to work......

Click to expand...

Well I went for a 50 mile night ride last night. The lights work good, but spots were definitely the wrong choice. There isn't enough light spread right in front of you. I'm ordering driving beams today, see how those work. I'll post pics once they come in.

LED lights

A lot of LED lights come with an internal rectifier ! Check the package in comes in and it will tell you if it's rectified . I've put theses in sleds for about three years and never had to use a rectifier , hope this helps

cdk, when your on low beam the resistor takes up the load of both stock head lights correct. and when on high beam the resistor and the 2 new leds are the same load as the both stock headlights correct, then if im reading your wiring schematic correctly you now have power for 2 head lights running threw wires and a plug that was only meant to handle power for 1 head light. depending with book i look at the max for 18ga wires is 6 or 10 amps, stock load is 8.2 on high beam. those wires mite get a lil hot just my $.02

You are correct on how I wired it. However, the factory wiring is just one 18 gauge wire for the high beam, and one for the low beam. There's a splice in the hood harness for each separate bulb. Therefore, I'm actually not changing the amount of load on the wires. I just tied into the factory wiring before the splice. You can see in my pictures where I cut the wires below the hood plug. Thanks for reading!