In the true sense of the words, auxiliary motorcycle lights, spotlights, fog lights, and riding lights all serve different purposes. To most motorcyclists, though, the terms have all come to mean adding super-bright LED lights or occasionally auxiliary halogen lights to our motorcycles.
The wonderfully enthralling (not) Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 defines what is permissible when adding lights to your motorcycle. However, remembering that I’m not a lawyer (see Internet Advice below), it would appear that if the light is white or amber and points forward or is red and pointing backwards, and neither of them is flashing, you are good to go.
It is common sense, and in the regulations, that your lights must not dazzle other road users. So claiming that your 20,000 lumens led spotlight is aimed at oncoming traffic to help them see you isn’t an allowable answer.
Having decided that you need, want, or simply would like to add LED or Halogen auxiliary motorcycle lights to your bike, the range of options available is staggering. Everything from complete kits for upwards of £500 to DIY solutions from eBay and Amazon for £80 are available.
Naturally, I took the £80 option. Here’s how.
Internet Advice
The internet is a beautiful thing. You can find all sorts of advice, guidance and information with just a few clicks. The problem is that most of the time, we have no idea if any of this information is given by people who are qualified to do so.
Here are my qualifications – I’m an idiot who likes motorcycles. I’d strongly advise you to seek a professional opinion before making any modifications to your motorcycle.
Canbus Controllers
As my KTM has a Canbus system, the obvious place to start was with a Hex Ezcan or Denali Cansmart controller. Canbus systems – as I write this – are common on late model BMW, Harley Davidson and KTM motorcycles. Most of the other motorcycle manufacturers are yet to adopt canbus as a technology.
Ezcan and Cansmart controllers plug into the motorcycle’s canbus system and allow you to control your auxiliary motorcycle lights based on the status of other signals on the canbus. If your auxiliary motorcycle lights support dual intensity, you can program your canbus controller to have your auxiliary lights on half power with dip beam and full power with high beam.
The possibilities with canbus controllers are impressive. You can have your motorcycle auxiliary lights turn off on one side when the indicator is on. You can make the auxiliary lights flash when you sound the horn, although you might want to check the road vehicle lighting regulations before using that option.
Canbus controllers make all sorts of things possible, and in some cases, they are a necessity. As canbus systems monitor the electrics on your motorcycle, if something fails, you receive a warning. Adding auxiliary motorcycle lights into an existing lighting circuit could be seen by the canbus system as a failure and produce unwanted alerts.
And the cost? A canbus controller will set you back around £200, and that is before you have paid out for whichever set of motorcycle auxiliary lights you have chosen.
Package Deals
When it comes to picking the auxiliary lights for your motorcycle, some excellent all-in-one solutions are available from well-known manufacturers.
Denali manufacturer an array of different motorcycle auxiliary lights that will either plug into a canbus controller or wire into your motorcycles electrics more traditionally. They even manufacture the wiring harnesses for you.
SW-Motech, along with their excellent soft luggage, also manufacture two different auxiliary lights – a fog light and a spotlight – complete with motorcycle specific mounting brackets.
As their names suggest, the fog light has a wider dispersion pattern and is designed for better visibility in bad weather. In comparison, the spotlight has a narrower beam pattern and is for illuminating further into the distance.
The auxiliary lights, wiring harnesses, and mounting brackets are well made and a guaranteed fit, but this quality and convenience level comes at a cost.
Excluding the canbus controller, a Denali S4 light kit will cost between £260 and £400 depending on the options you choose, plus a further £60 for the light mounts.
The kit from SW-Motech that includes the motorcycle specific mounting brackets, handlebar switch and wiring harness will set you back around £300 depending on your motorcycle.
LEDs from China
Whereas I have no doubts over the quality of the Denali or SW-Motech equipment, like most people, I did search eBay looking for a secondhand set to fit my KTM.
It is a testament to the quality of those lights that there are very few available second hand, and those that do come up command 70%-80% of the new price, even when used.
Being what they are, eBay and Amazon did also offer me … err … let’s call them “cost-effective” alternatives, mostly from China.
The country of manufacture has nothing to do with the quality of the item. However, SW-Motech is not going to put their name on something that is poorly made, and that is part of what you are buying when selecting one of their auxiliary motorcycle light kits – You are buying proven quality.
Some of the “cost-effective” motorcycle auxiliary lights I looked at were a complete waste of money.
Made from plastic rather than steel or aluminium and with no way to dissipate the heat the LEDs created, they were likely to burn out after a few hours of use.
The wiring on the cost-effective alternatives was another concern. It was often little more than two wires going into the auxiliary light housing, without any waterproofing or protection for the cables.
I must have looked at hundreds before finding the (supposedly) IP68 waterproof & dustproof, aluminium bodied, auxiliary motorcycle lights, with good quality weatherproof wiring connectors. They are the ones shown in the image above.
My natural scepticism is told me that for £30 a pair, it is easy to make these claims, and there is no one to send them back to if six months from now, they give up the ghost.
The optimist in me was saying that they look well made, and unlike the other cost-effective lights, I couldn’t find a reason not to try them.
The DIY Kit
Buying the auxiliary motorcycle lights as a stand-alone item also means that I needed to find and purchase all the other parts to create a complete lighting kit.
I found a pair of brackets on Amazon that mounted on the engine bars and came with different-sized rubber inserts to absorb any vibration. The handlebar light switch also came from Amazon. I wanted something waterproof that wasn’t illuminated, which in hindsight, was a mistake.
Turning the lights on and off while riding dark country lanes would be so much easier if I could see the switch in the dark. It is an easy fix, and other than that, the switch I bought is well made and only cost a few pounds.
And finally, a relay, extra bolts, cable connectors, heat shrink and wire added another £20 to the bill.
All up, my complete auxiliary motorcycle lighting kit cost me £78.92, plus a few bits I already had – so let’s call it £80.
Installation
I opted to mount the auxiliary lights on the engine bars. After a couple of dry runs to ensure I had used the right-sized rubber vibration mount between the bar and the clamp and made sure nothing would clash when I braked, the lights were simple to mount.
I needed a switched-live for the electrical wiring, so the lights go on and off with the ignition switch plus a steady supply of power. Third-year physics may have been a lifetime ago, but I can still remember that Amps equals Watts divided by Volts. The auxiliary lights are 40 watts each, so a total of 80 divided by 12 volts gives me 7amps and the best place to get that is direct from the battery.
As standard, the KTM has a 1amp switch-live and 10amp constant-live prewired in the headlight and the tail unit (thank you, KTM), which saved me from the effort of running cables and tracking down a switched-live. The even better news was that as it is all part of the standard wiring, I wasn’t going to get any canbus alerts.
I still needed to install a relay to convert the KTM supplied 10amp constant-live into a 10amp switched-live and connect the lights, but I was saved from stripping off the Tupperware to route the wires.
Let There Be Auxiliary Lights
If it is possible to have too much light, then I may have achieved that. At 4,500 lumens each plus my standard headlight, which as it is a typical halogen bulb is most likely around 1,500 lumens, I am pumping out over 10,000 lumens of light on to the road ahead. The problem isn’t so much the volume of light I’m pumping out as controlling where that light is shining.
In the UK, even motorcycle headlights are biased towards the left-hand curb. With my £80 LED auxiliary lights pointed below my standard low beam’s cut off pattern, I could see the auxiliary lights were still illuminating road signs.
As daylight auxiliary or riding lights, my £80 kit is going to be superb. For night use, I’m going to have to work on where they are pointing to ensure I’m not lighting up the road for myself and being a pain in the backside for everyone else.
Bottom Line
Having invested time in selecting the parts, I spent £80 of my own cash money buying all the bits I needed. As to whether my homegrown kit was a wise investment over a kit from a reputable manufacturer such as SW-Motech, only time will tell.
If I turn out to be as dumb as I look, I’ll let you know. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
