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Saturday, June 9, 2007

How to make a Custom Integrated Taillight - How-Tos and FAQs @ KawiForums.com

http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=48279

Original post by: cobrajjf

How to make a Custom Integrated Taillight out of your stock circuit board.

What’s up guys, I know this is my first post, so I decided to make it a good one. This past month I decided that it’s finally time to get rid of that huge hunk of plastic on the back of my bike. Instead of forking out the 100+ dollars for a pre-made integrated tail off the internet, I decided to make my own. This whole project cost me about 20 dollars, and I was able to do two bikes with it. So here it is:

I have a ’03 ZX6R 636, I know this works for the ’03-’04 models, however, the newer ones are probably fairly similar, and this could be used as a general guide.

Parts List:
1) 20-30 Amber LED’s (Preferably 5mm, as bright as you can find, and as wide-angled as you can get, the ones I used were 11,000 mcd amber off of eBay)
2) Heat Shrink (12” of 2mm or so diameter, and 6” 4mm or so)
3) Silicon Sealant/Epoxy
4) Wire (Both “Normal” Size and slightly thinner wire)
5) 50-60 Ohm 3 Watt Resistor
6) Solder

Tools Needed:
1) Screwdrivers
2) Dremel with thin cut-off wheel
3) Heat gun
4) Drill and 1/16th” bit
5) Safety Goggles (Recommended)
6) Soldering Iron

Before you continue, let me tell you that this is not easy, I did this to two bikes (mine, and my buddies) when I did it by myself on my bike, I would say it took probably close to 10-12 hours to complete. I then did it again on my friends bike, and with the help of him and another friend, it took maybe 2.5 hours, so for those that are afraid of drilling, cutting or soldering, I would say go with the pre-made kits, for everyone else, this is Well worth the time and effort!

Disclaimer:
I am not responsible if you destroy your tail light circuit board or anything else, or accidentally cut off a finger as a result of this guide. Proceed at your own risk. However, if you are careful, there is no danger it damaging anything.

Step 1: Removing Rear Section
-First remove the rear seat
-Then with your ratchet, remove the bolt that holds the drivers seat
-Unscrew the 2 screws near the rear of the passenger seat.
-Remove the black plastic clips that hold the fairings together.
(A nice trick is to push the inside circle a little bit till it snaps in, then pull the clip out, I learned this the hard way)
- Remove the single screw that holds the cargo tray in
- Remove the top rear Fairing, don’t forget that there are rubber grommets that hold plastic pins in near the front of this fairing
- Remove the 2 10mm bolts that holds the under tail to the frame, and the 2 5mm Hex that hold the old fender
- Unplug the 4 connectors on the right side
- Remove the under tail faring and the 2 screw holding the taillight to the fairing

Now, it should look something like this:


Sorry for the lack of pictures on Step 1, this part is rather trivial.

Step 2: Separating the Taillight
Time to pull out that trusty dremel. When I did this, I used the thinnest cut-off wheel I could find, but as long as it can fit in between the two pieces of plastic it should be fine
1) After securing the tail light to a bench or vice, put on those safety goggles, and
Start cutting. Try not to leave the dremel in one place too long, as the dremel will end up melting some plastic if left there too long. You want a nice clean cut all the way around the light; the sides can be a little tricky, so take your time.


2) Once you have the two parts, remove the two Phillips screw that hold the circuit board to the casing, and pull it far enough away that you can get to the back with a soldering gun
3) Next, Un-solder the 3 wires that are connected to the board by simply touching the connections with the Soldering iron, and pulling the wires away. Remember what wires are connected where, if you forget, I’ll tell you later in the guide.
4) Now, take the clear part and dremel out the red plastic inner lens. This part is optional I suppose, but the amber won’t look very amber with the red lens in there.


5) (Optional) After I took my board out, I decided that I wanted it to look “blacked out” when the LED’s weren’t on, so I colored the white part of the circuit board black. All I did was take a black Sharpie and color it in, cheap, I know, but it works perfectly.

Step 3: Drilling Holes for the New LED’s
1) Insert the 1/16 bit into the drill
2) The amount of LED’s you use is up to you, I used 8 on each side. The more you use the brighter, but it’s also harder to wire up, and you will need a different value resistor.
3) You can use the picture as a guide for where to drill your holes,I put dots on the picture where I drilled my holes, but the main thing to remember is that they should be about the same distance apart as the LED leads, and make sure that you drill from the back of the board to the front, so you don’t drill through anything important. The darker portions of the board are where the connections to the original LED’s are, make sure when you are drilling, that you don’t drill so wide that you completely cut off the connections or else you will ruin the original board.



4) After drilling all of the holes, you can pull out your LED’s and start putting small strips of Heat Shrink onto the Leads. Cut the Heat shrink so that it covers about 3mm or so of the bottom of the lead. The reason for the heat shrink is so that when you put them through the circuit board; it doesn’t make a connection with the original wire that is imbedded into the board for the original LED’s. Make sure to heat the heat shrink after all of this so that its stays on there well.


5) Start putting the LED’s into the board, arrange the positive (Long lead) and negative (short lead) in such a way that a single wire can run across all of the positives, and all of the negatives without having them cross each other, Make sure you pay attention and put them in right, because after the leads are cut, it will be hard to find out which side is positive and which is negative. Just FYI, The long lead is positive, short is negative. Bend the leads to the sides, and cut off the excess, leaving only a couple mm of lead left.


Step 4: Wiring It Up
1) Break out the Soldering Iron, and the thin wire.
2) The wire I used has a coating that melted away when heat was applied, this was nice so that I could just lay the wire around and solder all the leads together without worrying about having to cover up bare wire. This part can be tricky, so take you time, and make sure that each one has a good connection, and the wire isn’t touching any other part of the board.


3) I decided that to make it easier I would just tie the negative leads of both sides of new LED’s to the ground on the original board, that way I would have only two new wires coming out of the housing, Left Positive, and Right Positive.
4) Grab your 50-60 ohm 3 Watt resistor, and connect it to the positive side of each group of LED’s, one for the Left side, and one for the Right. Then connect about 2 feet or so of wire to the other side. You need to drill a couple holes in the housing for the new wires to come through, if you did it my way, you only need 2 holes total. Feed the wires through and connect them to the old connectors from the existing rear blinkers, I realize that the connectors have two wires, but you only need to use one of them, the one that isn’t black, since you already have it grounded through the original board. Also don't forget to reconnect the original wires to the board, black to GND, red to TAIL, and blue to STOP.


5) Before you do anything else, test out all the blinkers, and the brake light.

Step 5: Putting it back Together
1) Once you know it works, put the board back in the black plastic and screw it back down.
2) Take the sealant and put a bead all the way around and seal it back up.
3) Put it back in the bike, and put the fairings back on, reverse of step 1.
Now you have your own custom Tail Integrator.
This may look long, but it’s not as hard as it seems. If you have any questions, let me know and ill try to help, the best I can. Good Luck!



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