Having recently had a combination religious moment and "tighty whitey" check moment, thanks to a deer in the middle of the road, I want driving lights!
What uses LED's and floods the road without being flashed by oncoming traffic? Mounting location suggestions? Photos?

In a by-gone era, I had a Connie C10 with driving lights maybe 12-18" of the road. They helped with spotting unevenness in the road. And not much more.

The goal here is to see Bambi instead of shaking hands as I go by (BTW, that's no joke - the deer stood still in the road and I passed close enough to make out the wrinkles on its nose). The FJR's lights are, IMHO, well into the very bright range. Unfortunately the beam is too diffuse. I estimate the pattern is too short somewhere around 50 mph. After that, it just doesn't look far enough ahead.

Aside: more and more, I'm coming to the realization that, even if I was on fire, too many drivers wouldn't notice it. In some cases, notably drivers running/ignoring red lights, even a 360 degree laser show wouldn't matter. Lights for safety only... meh.

OTOH, riding murdered out strikes me as very unwise. I regret my '17 approaches that look. I suppose I should play the lottery so I can afford to repaint the bike in obnoxious yellow. Even my red and blue Roadcrafter doesn't do much at night, when red turns almost black in low light. Hmmm... maybe I should adapt a laser level to sit on my helmet.

LEDrider.com

Mount 'em up off the mirrors and use some good LED lamps.  My preferred option?  Had them on my ST1300 and they'll be going on the Trophy now.

https://www.amazon.com/Hella-H71020401-Optilux-Cube-Driving/dp/B01H0YL7EG

Weird, Hella doesn't list these or anything like them. Is this a pencil beam? How did you mount them on your mirror assembly?

Sure would be nice to see more samples of mounts. Clearwater has a nice mounting kit for use on the tupperware, but ~$600? Ouch!

I have had good results with both Baja Designs and VisionX lights.    They are not cheap, but not quite as expensive as the Clearwater option.    Both brands have bright, smaller lights made for motorcycles that come in a narrow, spot pattern.    A reasonably high mounting location will provide much better illumination down the road and smaller profile lights work better for that IMO.  (especially if you don't have all of the crash bars and protuberances of a large adventure bike)

.....  What uses LED's and floods the road without being flashed by oncoming traffic? Mounting location suggestions? Photos?

There is no such thing as a really bright, long distance light that will not blind oncoming traffic.   It would be theoretically possible to design optics with a hard cutoff to the left, however that would leave half the road dark which is not what you need.   It would also only work on a perfectly straight highway.    You just need to turn off the artificial sunlight for oncoming vehicles.   

I have had good results with both Baja Designs and VisionX lights.    They are not cheap, but not quite as expensive as the Clearwater option.    Both brands have bright, smaller lights made for motorcycles that come in a narrow, spot pattern.    A reasonably high mounting location will provide much better illumination down the road and smaller profile lights work better for that IMO.  (especially if you don't have all of the crash bars and protuberances of a large adventure bike)

Quote from: RBEmerson on October 26, 2019, 11:01:41 PM

.....  What uses LED's and floods the road without being flashed by oncoming traffic? Mounting location suggestions? Photos?

There is no such thing as a really bright, long distance light that will not blind oncoming traffic.   It would be theoretically possible to design optics with a hard cutoff to the left, however that would leave half the road dark which is not what you need.   It would also only work on a perfectly straight highway.    You just need to turn off the artificial sunlight for oncoming vehicles.

Gotit. TNX.

The other reason you may want to consider a very narrow beam for your wildlife avoidance application is all of the retro-reflective signs which are present on almost every highway these days.   If driving lights are really bright and more than about 20 degrees in beam width the light coming back at you from a sign can be blinding.  It makes it difficult to see past the nearest sign and it also ruins any pretense of night vision.   

Also, because of the way most LED driving lights are designed, they tend to scatter light worse than good halogen or HID lights.   Cheap LEDs tend to be really bad about light scatter, so this makes the problem even worse.

You're right, 690 lumens is good enough to be seen but not much else.
Look for dimmable LEDs. The kind that lets you adjust the brightness for oncomming traffic and switches to really bright when you switch your highbeams on.
Also, amber removable lenses increase your visibility during daytime.

Clearwater lights is good stuff but I agree, they're kind of expensive. I got Darlas from them because they integrate with my bikes Canbus system and the wonder wheel. They've been very reliable so far, 3 years and 75k km and counting. I've had PIAA LEDs in the past and they failed after about 2 years.

I've also done business with these guys in the past: http://stores.advmonster.com/light-kits/

   I don't know how them other manufacturers are measuring lumens, but these light are damn good, especially for under $100.  This photo is a set of LED headlights on normal and the Hellas for comparison. 

In a by-gone era, I had a Connie C10 with driving lights maybe 12-18" of the road. They helped with spotting unevenness in the road. And not much more.

The goal here is to see Bambi instead of shaking hands as I go by (BTW, that's no joke - the deer stood still in the road and I passed close enough to make out the wrinkles on its nose). The FJR's lights are, IMHO, well into the very bright range. Unfortunately the beam is too diffuse. I estimate the pattern is too short somewhere around 50 mph. After that, it just doesn't look far enough ahead.

High,. wide, pencil beams. You can also adjust the OEM headlights to better serve your needs.

http://www.fjr1300.info/howto/headlight.html

Once you have the mechanicals down, then how to set up your "site" for proper target heights is the same as for other vehicles.

Skip straight to the TARGET HEIGHT section on this page.

http://www.fjr-tips.org/sti/hla/hla.html

You don't want to go cheap on these kinds of lights. They short change you in lumens, color temp, and focus. LEDRider has a lot of various options as does Clearwater. Do some window shopping with the idea that a cooked-and-served-up deer that has been heat-blasted by your riding lights before you get close to it is your objective. Color temp is important because blueish tints to output can mask debris in the road. If the color is accomplished with a tint added to the glass of the bulb then lumens are lost to the coating before they ever get out of the bulb.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/blue/bad/bad.html

Quote from: Bounce on October 29, 2019, 09:46:54 AM

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High,. wide, pencil beams. You can also adjust the OEM headlights to better serve your needs.

http://www.fjr1300.info/howto/headlight.html

Gen III makes moving the lights up and down much easier. There are knobs in (more or less) plain sight.

I think that started with Gen 2's but the process is the same.

Quote

Once you have the mechanicals down, then how to set up your "site" for proper target heights is the same as for other vehicles.

Skip straight to the TARGET HEIGHT section on this page.

http://www.fjr-tips.org/sti/hla/hla.html

I'm lost on this step. Mark the garage door or whatever. Got that part. I missed why, for the article's sake, am I doing that? Seems to me the best place to twiddle those magic knobs is on the road.

Because it's a static test at dealerships and based on DOT standards. When using this method you are sure you're not going to blind oncoming traffic. Note that, with aux lights, don't do that. Adjust your headlights as above but your driving aux lights like you're suggesting (for maximum reach given you'll not be running them in traffic).

Thinking about knob twiddling a bit, I might even be able to get away with raising the throttle-side light while leaving the clutch-side light down. Or not. I'll test this on the road.

I agree... for aux driving lights.

Quote

You don't want to go cheap on these kinds of lights. They short change you in lumens, color temp, and focus. LEDRider has a lot of various options as does Clearwater. Do some window shopping with the idea that a cooked-and-served-up deer that has been heat-blasted by your riding lights before you get close to it is your objective. Color temp is important because blueish tints to output can mask debris in the road. If the color is accomplished with a tint added to the glass of the bulb then lumens are lost to the coating before they ever get out of the bulb.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/blue/bad/bad.html

Daniel Stern... You loved him in Home Alone...
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(forget the damn kid!)

Now you love him on the road!

As always, there's a point between "paid a lot for the name" and "found at the Walmart outlet store".

Blue lighting can look very cool (literally) in some instances, mostly it's "you want to be in Fast and Furious 37 - Revenge of the Great Grandson of the Bald Guy". Good point about "why the sky is blue" and blue lighting. Anyway, my HID's in previous cars and bikes are/were ~3800K.

I find that I'm in agreement with many before me that color temps in the wrong range can actually mask debris in the road because of how our eyes process different colors. I've personally experienced it when trying to use after market H4 bulbs and choosing wrong.

I loved that my FJR had dual and independent headlight adjustments. I kept the left one lower and the right one up and out a tinch more so that when I switched to high beams, I had a better chance of seeing road-side Bambi without blinding people 9 miles down the road. As noted, those beams could definitely make use of some focus tweaks, but they were hella bright and expansive. I loved that bike, stem to stern, lighting included.

Just remember that driving lights can be turned off if aimed effectively; OEM headlights can't (and are a ticket-able offense).

So blinding the operator of a death machine coming right at you is cool?

It was a hard lesson I learned from those who taught me.

The LED lamps for my VW are DOA - the H4 adapters are a 100% fail (nothing to keep LED element in the adapter, short of fully re-engineering the lamp/adapter assembly. Sigh... In place of a return, the seller offered me a third of the price and I get to keep the d*** things. Guess who's about to get a negative on eBay. Grrr...

Screw that.  Ship them back to him and demand a refund from Paypal for defective merchandise.