If you have spent any time at all on this web site, you will know that I am a long time proponent of superbrightleds.com - and a long time customer. They have consistently been at the forefront of LED technology, and offer several things that the majority of eBay and other LED resellers don't provide: Consistency, quality, and service. Consistency, in that if you buy something from them, you know that you can go back to them six months later, and find the exact same product again. The same definitely cannot be said for the majority of eBay sellers. Quality - their products work, every time, and do not fail shortly after you install them. Service - if you DO have a failure, or other issue, they work to resolve the problem, quickly and to your satisfaction. This is not some business brochure I am getting this from, it is based on many years of my own personal experience as a customer of superbrightleds.com. When they approached me to review a couple of their products, I agreed, knowing that the products would very likely be of good use to members of the site. I was not mistaken.
The SuperbrightLEDs Motorcycle Engine Lighting Strip Kit is a waterproof, heatproof strip of colored LEDs that can be affixed pretty much anywhere on your motorcycle to provide accent lighting. They are available in nine different colors, and the kit includes two, 20-inch long strips. The strips can be cut to any desired length, at every third LED. The kit contains pretty much everything you will need to install the LEDs on your bike, including instructions:
A quality, waterproof blade fuse holder and an appropriately-sized blade fuse are included in the kit.
Two weatherproof, silicone-filled wire nuts are included. I am not a fan of using wire nuts outside of house wiring - I always solder and heat-shrink my electrical connections. If you are averse to that sort of thing, and don't mind this somewhat amateurish method of connecting your electricals, I suppose these would suffice:
A waterproof toggle switch with wires already attached and insulated is also included, a nice touch.
The strips themselves are encased in a soft, very flexible silicone material, with a very strong 3M adhesive on the back. Insulated wire pigtails are already attached.
The strips can be cut at three-LED divisions, where the line with scissors indicates. If you so wished, you could connect the separated parts with wires, by cutting away the silicone and soldering to the exposed pads.
I had offered these sample light strips to my wife for her PC800 Pacific Coast, and she jumped at the chance. She decided that she wanted blue LEDs. The first thing I did was to hook up the strips to a 12 volt source, to ensure there were no defective LEDs. All of the LEDs lit up a brilliant, blinding blue.
These LEDs are supposedly for illuminating the engine of your bike. On the PC800, the engine is completely enclosed by plastic, and cannot be seen. I figured that if they were meant to illuminate the engine, they must be resilient to heat. To prove this hypothesis, I decided the best place to mount them was in the radiator vents on either side of the PC800's lower fairing. Extremely hot air, heated by the radiator, exits these vents. If the adhesive or LEDs were going to melt or otherwise fail, it would become readily apparent very quickly. Installation went very quickly - I sourced a switched +12V lead, ran it through the supplied blade fuse, then the supplied switch, and from there to the two lighted strips. I needed about three feet more wire than was supplied. Being that the vents on the PC800 are removed often for all kinds of maintenance, I installed standard two-pin Hitachi type connectors on the strip pigtails. This allows the vents to be removed and easily disconnected from the bike for servicing, without having to remove the LED strips from inside the vents. I cleaned the surface of the inside of the vents with rubbing alcohol to ensure the adhesive stuck well, and positioned the strips where I wanted them.
As you can see, the LEDs light up the inside of the vent quite brightly.
After four days and 500 miles of riding in very hot weather, you can see that the strips remained firmly fastened, and did not peel away at all.
Overall, my wife was thrilled with the end result, and ended up riding with them on all of the time, day and night. At night, they give a very startling and distinctive look to the bike. For a simple, turnkey, quality and reliable lighting effects kit, I have to say that the SuperbrightLEDs kit delivers. Recommended.
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