Anyone hooked Whelen TIR3's to your brake lights?

[Tor]

We are using these extremely bright leds on both ST1300's (actually we use two of them on each bike, and they really really work .

So I am thinking about hooking one of these (red) for supplementing the 800GS brake light. It'll fit perfectly where the rear top reflector is now sitting. Anyone hooked these up with a CANBus equipped bike? All I need is a ground and a steady 12 brake signal. I am just afraid that if I hook this up to the leads going to the 800GS brake light, the CANBus will "tell" me "this aint gonna work, bud".

[Garp]

I haven't tried them but I suspect you would need to wire them directly to the battery and then use a relay tied into the stock brake light wire as a trigger.

[KnuckC]

What is the draw of the LEDs? I hooked up some P3 LEDs which have a minimal draw directly to the positive wire running to the brake light with no issues The draw is:

Current draw: tail light 100 mA, brake light 390 mA instantaneous, 150 mA continuous.
Operating voltage: 9 - 16 VDC

[Tor]

Originally Posted by KnuckC

What is the draw of the LEDs? I hooked up some P3 LEDs which have a minimal draw directly to the positive wire running to the brake light with no issues The draw is:

Current draw: tail light 100 mA, brake light 390 mA instantaneous, 150 mA continuous.
Operating voltage: 9 - 16 VDC

The spec sheet says 390mA,,,I am probably going to try....

[Ayrshire Bull]

Originally Posted by Tor

The spec sheet says 390mA,,,I am probably going to try....

did you ever have a go at connecting the whelen to the canbus? did they work well together?

[TowPro]

Originally Posted by Ayrshire Bull

did you ever have a go at connecting the whelen to the canbus? did they work well together?

I did. I removed that reflector below the license plate light and mounted my Whelen in its place. Then I spliced into the 1 tail light wire (plus 1 ground wire). Recall your BMW sends something like 6v to the tail light for running lights, then 12v to the same bulb for brake lights. I ran that same wire to the Whelen. Tail light it stays dim(mer) like the factory tail light, but when I hit the brakes it gets real bright. I know my friends who follow me in the daytime say "have remarked the extra brake light really gets there attention, Better yet, nobody has rear ended me. When I am sitting at a light and see a cager coming, I just flash the lights with the brake light switch and they slow down and seem to stay back further behind me.

I installed it 2 year ago, never had a problem with it triggering the computer with over-current.

[TowPro]

Originally Posted by Ayrshire Bull

did you ever have a go at connecting the whelen to the canbus? did they work well together?

If you hook it to the canbus, it will never work (and the bike will probably stop working).

the canbus is a set of twisted wires that connect the several computers together so they can communicate with each other (A canbus is a computer network).

What I think your confusing is the way BMW wired everything to the main computer. This computer feeds all circuits. Instead of using fuses, it has (electronic devices) inside it that sense the load. It can open a circuit if it sees more load then it expects, it can turn on a "bulb check" light if it sees less load then it expects.

[SilverBike]

I had the red one (flasher) installed on my bike. I hooked it to the wires thru a breaker. It's very useful for safety reasons.

Good luck.

[mapuda]

Not trying to hijack, but I connected this strobe from Custom LED. Wired in parallel with my rear brake light and it works whenever I apply the front or rear brakes because of the CanBus. Very simple installation. It has three wires, red, black and white. Red and black wired into the brake light circuit and white is used to program one of seven different flashing patterns (I went with the hyper-spastic quick flash).

I have had many positive comments about it and it easily mounts below the license plate on the stock GS tail. They have multiple colors but I chose red to accent the brake light.

Check it out here.

[TowPro]

Originally Posted by mapuda

Not trying to hijack, but I connected this strobe from Custom LED. Wired in parallel with my rear brake light and it works whenever I apply the front or rear brakes because of the CanBus. Very simple installation. It has three wires, red, black and white. Red and black wired into the brake light circuit and white is used to program one of seven different flashing patterns (I went with the hyper-spastic quick flash).

I have had many positive comments about it and it easily mounts below the license plate on the stock GS tail. They have multiple colors but I chose red to accent the brake light.

Check it out here.

Since this wire supplies low voltage for tail, and High voltage for brake, what does you strobe do when your brake lights are not on?

What I like about the Whelen is it actually lights up dim with tail lights, then is REAL BRIGHT with brake lights.
for those of you who dont know what Whelen lights are, if you have seen those real bright lights on a police car that are like 1" x 3" they mount on the top racks? They are probably whelen lights.