OEM LED indicators installed - a bit of advice to others!!

[bosnjo]

I've just installed Suzuki LED indicators. They are really great and now my bike looks the way it should have when it came out of the factory.
Front ones were straight forward, simply swapped the old ones.
Rear ones were easier then I thought. I needed to remove rear mud guard but it was easy. Removed rear rack first, then side covers for panniers (I have covers bolted on as I don't have panniers). Then two plastic clips beside licence plate light, but from the inside, unplug the plug under the seat and pop the mud guard out. Simple !! At the end swap the relay and plug it to negative of the battery and that's it. All pieces come in the box, no need to fabricate any plug or cable.

Now, there are two things I really need to underline here, for all of you who are going to install those LED indicators in the future.

The first one, in the box, there are two male and two female 3-pin plugs. I didn't need to read installation guide untill I saw those connectors. Looked at the papers and, for my big surprise, found out that I needed to remove side plastics from my bike, lift, unplug and completely remove the tank, remove air box... All that to reach the plugs from cables coming from left and right hand handlebars switches. Then, it indicates to remove three pins from each of the plugs: 3 pins from female LH switch plug, 3 pins from male LH switch plug, 3 pins from female RH switch plug and finaly 3 pins from male RH switch plug. Then insert those pins in new plugs and connect everything again to match the connection that existed before.
WTF ?????
All that work just to remove pins from one plug and put them into other plug and then connect everything the way it was ????
As you can imagine, I skipped this part and went on with installation. Just swaped indicators and relay and connected extra pin on new relay to negative on the battery, using supplied cable and that was all. Everything works like a charm. I still can't see the point of changing those plugs.
Whatever...
The second important thing is that it really matters the way new indicators are pointing. You can´t just install them and not care about where they are pointing. So it took me a little while to direct them right way. They are like headlights, they need to point at the correct hight so all of the brightness is used. It was one hour of trial and error but I managed to do it.

[Juvecu]

So that truck driver sitting up high isn't going to notice that you want to turn because the angle of the LED indicators are wrong for the height he's at?

[Ptarmigan]

Hmm, that sounds worrying!  

[bosnjo]

Well, here is a deal. If you simply bolt them on, they sort of clip in. That way, they have great brightness at 1 meter from the ground and then lower to the road. I installed them, turned hazards on, and then stepped away from the bike. I was standing, 3 meters away from the bike, and brightness was poor. Then started to lower myself and at the 1 meter hight of my eyes from the ground, I cauth huge brightness that left me a bit blinded. I kept lowering my head, all the way to the ground, and the brightness stayed strong. Stepped further from the bike, and brightness' top edge kept lowering, closer to the ground. So I knew they had great brightness but just needed better orientation. The point was in pointing them higher but that meant forcing them out of they natural clip-in position, which was not difficult as their base is made of rubber.
So, I did one by one. Released the nut a bit, turned the indicator a bit, to point higher, hazards on, step back to see... It was a lot of trial and error, one hour for all four indicators, but now, when I step away from the bike, at 5 meters distance, I have high brightness starting at 30cm from the ground and ending at 1,5 meters from the ground. At 10 meters away from the bike, I have brightness starting 20cm from the ground and ending somewhere much higher then my hight (I'm 1.90m tall).

Just to make myself more clear, I have done rough sketch:

ORIGINAL POSITION:



MY POSITION:

[Juvecu]

So even if you're not looking at the height where they are really bright you can still see them flashing? That wouldn't be too bad then.

[bosnjo]

So even if you're not looking at the height where they are really bright you can still see them flashing?

Yes, that is true. But, I'm safety freak (mostly on visibility). I have white helmet (Schuberth C3 Pro) with silver reflective stripes on the front and sides and red ones on the back of it, Cree LED DRL's at the front of the bike, extra brake lights on my top box, big white leather insert on the back of my black leather jacket...

Did I mention already that I'm visibilty freak?  

[grimcookie]

I looked at having theses fitted to my bike when I purchased it, had a real good look at dealers demo and decided they where too focused I.e. the field of view was narrower than bulbs so I left them. just saying......