| I've always felt that the tail light
on this bike was too dim and too small. It has a small lens and uses only
a single tail light bulb. Riding behind other bikes with a similarly
designed tail light confirmed my belief that this bike is hard to see from
the back, especially in mist, rain or other poor visibility conditions. I examined several different possible solutions, and came up with an innovative and very effective design that has now become a very popular commercial product. This consists of two LED modules, attached with brackets to either side of the rear license plate, as in this photo:
The LED modules are connected to a control module, housed in the rear section of the motorcycle, which provides the brains for the system. In tail light mode, the LEDs are rapidly modulated, such that they just appear to flicker. I carefully chose the modulation rate such that it maximizes the motorcycle's visibility, without being distracting. Utilizing a high-speed microprocessor and fast-acting, high-intensity LEDs, the design exploits the difference in persistence of vision between the eye's central field of view and its peripheral view. When viewed directly, the LEDs appear not to flicker, yet when seen out of the corner of the eye, they have a noticeable flicker, significantly enhancing the motorcycle's conspicuity. When the brakes are applied, the LED's instantly get much, much brighter. They can be programmed to flash (in two different sequences) or to simply go solidly on. The programming is done via the brake lever, so there is no need to fiddle with tiny switches on a circuit board. I also added an emergency flashing mode, again activated by the brake lever, that puts the lights into one of three flashing sequences. These can be set to operate when the bike's parking lights are on, so you can leave the now very visible bike at the side of the road while you go to seek help. You can see more details and photos at the main page for this product: |
