HOW TO: Rigid LED Install with Wiring

[bootz1981]

good point cdk, never thought about the wires back farther in the harness. just thought that they would join into 1 larger wire like a 16 or 14. i stand corrected!!!

 

[Daltech]

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......

Did you ever get to remove the rectifier and test the lights without it?

 

[gdhillon]

OP would you be able to post the measurement from the top bolts as to where you drilled the holes for the steel bar?

Or did you use the existing holes?...sorry i cant tell from the pics?

 

[CDK]

Did you ever get to remove the rectifier and test the lights without it?

Nope, totally forgot to try it. I got the sled torn down for a turbo install right now, I'll mess around with it when it back together. I swear I won't forget this time.....lol.

 

[CDK]

OP would you be able to post the measurement from the top bolts as to where you drilled the holes for the steel bar?

Or did you use the existing holes?...sorry i cant tell from the pics?

If you just line up the steel bar according to that measurement I posted, then drill straight down through the over structure, you should be bang on.

 

[CDK]

Bottom of the bracket is 2 ¾” below the center of the lower bolt.
View attachment 221570

Test fitting and a bit of paint.
View attachment 221571
View attachment 221574

 

[AKFULLTHROTTLE]

Nice right up OP! This is mine done last season..

 

[CDK]

Looks good AK! Do you have a headlight delete in? I can't tell from the pics. Which light bar did you go with and did you use a rectifier?

 

[mountainhorse]

CDK...Great thread and write up.


Something to ponder... you may want to wire in a capacitor on the pos and neg of the output... helps to smooth out the DC from the full wave bridge rectifier.

Accel Motorcycle makes a nice little unit...You can get it on Amazon, Ebay or Summit Racing among others.

http://accel-motorcycle.com/motorcylce-and-atv/tune-up-components/battery-eliminator-kit.html

http://www.powersportsuperstore.com/Accel-Battery-Eliminator-Capacitor-151308-p/4095916.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Accel-151308-ACCEL-Battery-Eliminator/dp/B000GS0BU0/

 

[AKFULLTHROTTLE]

Looks good AK! Do you have a headlight delete in? I can't tell from the pics. Which light bar did you go with and did you use a rectifier?

Thanks! Yes, it is a Mountain Fit Hoods delete. It is a Totron 10" 30w Cree part# TLB1030 light bar. No rectifier, they are built in. I also have done nothing else as polaris did change to a single voltage regulator in 2013. We have not seen any issues yet with the 13 and up.

 

[mountainhorse]

AC... I think that that same light would be brighter if you Converted to DC. Worth a try.

Also... with one fourth (1/4) the draw (only 30W) of your LED's compared to the stock halogens (110/130w)... you are working the Voltage regulator very hard as it dumps excess current as heat... which is dumped into the common-case of the 2013+ VRR's (Voltage Regulator/Rectifier) ... This puts more stress on the other section in the VRR which supplies the CFI system.

The Polaris CFI Stator/VRR system is designed as a "Balanced System.

Although you have not seen any issues yet, that extra stress is still on the system.

What is a balanced charging system?

A balanced charging system is when the manufacturer designs lets say 25 amp charging system and the sled uses 20 to 22 amps of it to run the sled.

The R/R (regulator/rectifier) only needs to get rid of 3 or so amps, so it is happy. Now if you take that same sled and run led taillights and marker lights and maybe some led headlights now your making the R/R get rid of lets say 10 amps, now its working hard and getting hot. Although it seems like your doing your sled a favor, you're actually slowly killing your R/R. Not to mention if you unplug your headlights. Wow!!!!

.



.

 

[mountainhorse]

AK... Where did you buy that light?? and What did it cost?

Thx in advance.




.

 

[Qube90]

If i would replace the stock headlight with 60w led i wouldn't need a resistor ?

My plan was to use 30w+30w -
http://www.raiddesigns.com/en/products/products-and-services/night/led1.html

 

[mountainhorse]

Stock lights are 55w/65 watt each.

So you are still at less than half.

I would run a resistor and make sure you cannot turn the headlights off if you bump the hi/low beam switch.




.

 

[AKFULLTHROTTLE]

AK... Where did you buy that light?? and What did it cost?

Thx in advance. .

I am running it off of the battery so I am putting no resistance on it.

I get them from Totron, you just have to order enough of them to become a dealer. There is a guy selling them on Ebay and they are cheap....

Atleast they seam to be the same!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291073707431?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

[AKFULLTHROTTLE]

Here is a quick fix!

http://stores.mountainfithoods.net/pro-ride-headlight-delete-resistor-plug-n-play/

 

[snowpromod]

2015 Rmk - LED headlight powersource?

Looking to delete my headlights on my 15 and would like to run a set of Rigid LED's. . . I have read a number of posts about different years needing different wiring configurations to keep the VR happy and run the lights.

Any info on the 15's yet? Anyone have a plug and play harness or want to build me one??

Thanks

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[mountainhorse]

No plug/play harnesses available.

Like CDK shows... he runs a higher value, 3 ohm, resistor to protect the VR, to work at the same time as the LED's,
because the LED's draw less power than the stock lights

.... and another, lower value, 2 ohm, resistor to protect the VR when the LED's are turned off using the low-beam
position on the stock switch.

Also note: The resistors need to be mounted to a decent sized metal piece, like the bulkhead or some other part,
that will act as a "heatsink" since the resistors can get hot.

If you want to actually plug this into the factory harness without cutting anything... Substitute the deutsch 3 pin
connector on the LED side for one of these and simply plug it into one of the unused headlight connectors on the
factory hood harness (make sure your wires are long enough to allow you to plug it in when fitting hood)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/261287906810

OR

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111428542166

Quote: CDK
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!

 

[tbeaton]

so I'm going to be doing something similr to the delete that skinz puts out. should ijust follow the same basic principles as described in this tread? I would like to use the factory hi/low switch, but only using 1 led. what is my best course of action?

 

[Scott]

That is really cool.

Great photo essay and description.

Thank you for the parts list and links.