Brakelight Farkle

I'd been thinking about getting the "stopper" light strip from Motorrad Elektrik to supplement the amount of red light the cagers see on my bike when I come to stop and am sitting at a stoplight.

On a whim, I stopped at the local AutoZone store to see what kind of LED lighting they had and found something made by Pilot, model# CZ-153R LED Grill Lights. They were meant to be mounted on a car's grille and either scan back and forth or glow steady red for lighting effect.

Being that they were only $30, I decided to buy them and see how they'd work out for enhancing the brake light and grabbing an oncoming cager's attention when I am at a stop.

Attached with two-sided foam tape for now.

Since I wanted it to "scan", I hooked up the red wire to the hot lead on the brake light and the black wire to the ground on the brake light. Nothing fancy for now, if I stick with this setup, will redo the wiring to something more durable.

They came out pretty good in terms of a clean install, and they do seem to catch one's eye while the bike's brakes are engaged at a light. The most inward LEDs light up and blink bright red first when applying first the brakes and then the whole set of LEDs scans/blinks back and forth.

The LEDs keep scanning back and forth after the main brake light has ceased blinking and is now glowing steady on. I used to release the brakes and engage them again to cause the blinking action on the brake light to grab nearing cager's attention, now the LEDs will hopefully do that for me. I still have the blinking brake light the first few seconds I engage the brakes of course.

Here's a movie on youtube.com, showing the lights in action.