LED Brake Lights

[alra]

I have installed a tour pack onto my R3T for those long road trips and now I would like to install an LED brake light on the pack. Will the LED brake light and OEM brake light work together?

 

[BigNorm]

I'd like to know too. I know there is stuff you have to swap out if you want to change the turn signals to LEDs but am not sure if it makes a difference adding to the brake light load.

 

[R-III-R Turbo]

It'll work fine. Only diff will be how slow the brake light will look going on and off next to the crisp immediate LED on or off of the LEDs
You can get a LED brake light 'bulb' for the OEM socket will solve that 'issue'

LED bulbs in factory filament indicator circuits do require other mods ie led flasher relay to avoid fast flash due to load requirements. Not required for brake, tail, drl or headlights

 

[cr0ft]

The only thing that's load sensitive are the indicators. Normal relays start blinking faster if they lose one lamp (as a warning, basically), but if the load goes too low (as it does with LED) they just stay on solid or something else dysfunctional. So you need to replace the relay or add load via resistors (on the R3T, with the self-canceling signals, you can only go with load equalizers/resistors, can't replace the relay.)

1157 CAN Bus LED Bulb - Dual Function 26 SMD LED Tower - BAY15D Retrofit | LED Brake Light, Turn Light and Tail Light Bulbs | LED Car Light Bulbs | Super Bright LEDs - that one in red is pretty decent. It's not very bright as just a tail light, but kicks up to 420 lumens when braking, which is where you want people to see it. At night it's plenty bright enough as just a tail light also.

There's also these, High Power LED Bulb Replacements - haven't tested them personally.

Also, an optional extra attention-getter: SupaBrake-3 TRIUMPH

A lot of money for a brake light modulator, but it's the best modulator I've ever seen. Even has some "intelligence", ie it doesn't incessantly flash the people behind you in stop-go traffic, it only flashes fully when it's been a while since you braked.

 

[DEcosse]

...LED bulbs in factory filament indicator circuits do require other mods ie led flasher relay to avoid fast flash due to load requirements. Not required for brake, tail, drl or headlights

Note the previous two posters have Touring model - cannot replace flasher relay and only solution is parallel load equalization resistors.

For brake, sure just connect in parallel with oem brake light - simplest device to tap onto oem wire is a PosiTap

Edit - echo! croft posted while I was composing reply

 

[cr0ft]

croft posted while I was composing reply

Type faster!

simplest device to tap onto oem wire is a PosiTap

Yep, a good spot to tap in is under the right-hand side panel. Much cleaner there than under the fender.

 

[R-III-R Turbo]

Note the previous two posters have Touring model - cannot replace flasher relay and only solution is parallel load equalization resistors.

Well luckily the OP was just asking about brake lights.
I only mentioned a difference between LED'ing brake lights and LED'ing indicators because Norm mentioned it. Wasn't being Rocket-specific

 

[DEcosse]

....I only mentioned a difference between LED'ing brake lights and LED'ing indicators because Norm mentioned it.....

Norm has a Touring model therefor your response was incorrect for his application

 

[R-III-R Turbo]

Norm has a Touring model therefor your response was incorrect for his application

Well done on spotting that in his profile and setting Norm straight, should he ever want to LED his indicators.
Did I answer the OP correctly??

Thanks again.

 

[alra]

Thanks to all for the info.