WTB - Auxiliary Lights
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If you want good lights and a fair price,buy these:
Link
But if you want to spend a bunch of money for the same amount of light you can buy some "name brand" lights off one of the motorcycle vendors.
Amazon search
Northpole Light LED Light Bar, 2X 18W Waterproof Cree Spot LED Light Bar Work Light, LED Off-Road Lights
Link
But if you want to spend a bunch of money for the same amount of light you can buy some "name brand" lights off one of the motorcycle vendors.
Amazon search
Northpole Light LED Light Bar, 2X 18W Waterproof Cree Spot LED Light Bar Work Light, LED Off-Road Lights
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1,031 Posts
I'd use a relay and a fuse. A relay and a inline fuse is a couple of bucks. Replacing a wiring harness would really suck chit and a toasted KLR would be worse than that. If electrical is done right the first time, it last forever without any issues. Going around a corner in the dark would really suck if the lights ALL failed.
I've had 4 sets of those cree lights over the years. 3 bikes and a boat. One light went bad once but I had a spare set in the garage to replace it. For that price you can buy an extra set to have on hand just leave an extra inch or so of wire when you install them. I'm not sure a 500 dollar set will last any longer. Those Cree lights are killer bright.
Adding a relay adds another point of failure and additional wiring with more points of failure. These are 18w per light, which is about 1.3 Amps or 2.6 amps total. A toggle switch can easily handle that current. In KLR tradition, keep it simple. If you were adding more than, say 60 watts (4.5 amps) then I’d consider a relay.
Take a wire from the battery, with a fuse under the seat, to a switch on the dash, to the lights, to ground. Simple.
Take a wire from the battery, with a fuse under the seat, to a switch on the dash, to the lights, to ground. Simple.
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If you do it that way you're going to have two switches that you have to switch to go from high to low beam. The stock one and the new one. Agreed LED's take little power to run, until they short or fail in some way that is. To each their own but I always use relays and let the factory switch control the lights so the High low switch would operate the lights without any other switches. Sometime I add a switch so I can kill the new lights in case some cop gets a wild hair up their ass. If you use relays there's also no wiring that turns with the forks. A point of failure for sure. I worked on cars for 40+ years and I don't think I have seen but a few of the Bosch or Hella type relays go bad and if they failed, it was due to bad wiring. As cheap as the relays are, I'd try a new one but I don't really recall that fixing the whole issue. They're pretty bulletproof. Some might say I overkill wiring but nothing I install ever fails.
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Love your Pink Floyd quote reference...
I don’t think it’s a good idea to have the driving lights wired to the low beams. High beam, maybe. But I think it’s safer to be able to turn them on and off independently. So, just one switch on the dash foe the driving lights.
Yep...those are the exact Cree 18w lights I ordered from Amazon. But this is what I
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