Looking in to making my battery & lighting system up to date. LED bulb replacement and that kind of thing. Would it be worth it to up-grade my 6 year old stock battery with a Lithium ion or TrueGel type?
Go Seahawks!

Thanks for the quick reply Justin. I was also thinking of less maintenance than a lead-acid battery. They seem so 19th century.

I installed a LiIon battery in my bike....it was twice the price of a stock battery and very tiny and very light.  It served my purpose well as it provided plenty of room for my revised air filter location.  The down side is that if you overcharge or let a LiIon battery go dead just once....it is toast.

I tried some LED aftermarket turns signals - and they are not bright enough in the daylight to get attention.  If you are looking at them you can see they are blinking - but if you are not focused on them you will not see them flashing in the sunlight.  I know that lots of sport bike riders get them as they are small.....but they are not safe to use.  Avoid lights that look like these, as they are just not up to the job.


I don't know anything about the replacement LED bulbs that plug into the standard socket.....they may be OK as long as your turn signal housing has a good reflector.

I ended up putting these LED's in the small turn signal housings that I had that used the small filament bulb (97), and they are really bright now that the original bulb has been replaced with 2 of these.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/led-wired-bolts/plm-series-wired-one-...

Agree with Dave that for a price the smaller size/weight of lithium ion gives you lots of options for locating the battery, freeing up space for toolkits, air filters, etc.  I can vouch for the people at Antigravity -- not cheap but they stand behind what they sell.

Also, keep in mind LED's are very directional, meaning that the less you are looking straight at them, the less bright they seem.  I think this is especially true if you're using them with reflectors that aren't designed especially for LED.

Dave, did you check your charging voltage before making the swap to lithium ion or did you learn about overcharging the hard way?  If you have checked, curious what your idle and mostly-full throttle readings were? Thanks.

runrun wrote on 12/16/13 at 16:50:16:


No, I didn't learn the hard way.  I bought an Earth-X and they state in their literature that Li Ion batteries are damaged if they are overcharged or run very low.  The Earth X has some special circuitry built into the battery to even out the cell charge.

Awesome! You are just the one who's advice i wanted. Thanks so much my friend!

 

It would take some doing, BUT, if I had a real expensive battery that simply could not be allowed to over charge or be drained w/o killing it, Id be forced to consider adding some circuitry to protect it.
A Zener that breaks over at a spot just below Max V for the battery could initiate an Open in the charge circuit & there are V reg circuits that could also be used to key switching that would open the circuits draining it. Thats just my "I was a near total failure in electronics" thinking, I have no idea just how big of a mess that mite actually be.. but there are some here who could bang it out, I betchya.

& Lookie here