Testing The Cree MC-E Lamp

We got some new Cree XLamp MC-E LEDs. The MC-E is a multi-chip LED providing 370 Lumens at 350mA.

We’re working on designing a circuit board to hold 4 of these things to give 12oo+ lumens of focused light with minimal power consumption.

I got the following information from ADVrider.com about the output of the stator on the LC4 motor. It doesn’t give us to much extra power to work with but we’re working on a solution to keep the watts low and throw a ton of light.

I had some correspondence from one of the electrical engineers at the KTM factory about this.

Basically 200W is MAXIMUM output. So you would get about 16amps at full RPM. At cruising speed (5500rpm), you are down to about 13.5 amps. The battery needs about 3amps to maintain good strong charge, so you want to keep your TOTAL amperage to less than 10 amps. Even then, at idle or cruising around town you are down to 11amps, and so if you had 10amps TOTAL, you would only have 1amp left for the battery.

So…bottom line. Add up all your loads, and keep it down to 10A total, and turn off the extras in town to manage load. (ie don’t sit at a stop light iding with your heated grips on “give-it-to-me”, and your 100W driving light balring)

Your headlamp alone is 55w = 4.6amp. Heated grips are another 3.5 amps, and roadbook/GPS/Accessory lighting=1 amps or so. So on my bike I basically have 9amps load, or 1 amp left for otther stuff. Also, in a subsequent e-mail, the engineer said that the accesory leads, and all lamps are on 1-10amp fuse, so you’d be running the risk of blowing fuses with too much more load.

Here is the engineers message.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~
Mr. Flannigan

I am responsible for the electric system of our bikes . I hope , I can
answer your questions .

To my information , the Adventures used on in the globerider story had stock
headlamps . For an other Adventure for an australien rider we made some
minor electrical modifications , like output for GPS and for charging
notebook battery .

Generator performance :
The generator / regulator output depends on engine rpm . Please see table
below
1500 rpm 9 A
2000 rpm 11 A
3000 rpm 13 A
6000 rpm 14 A
10000 rpm 15 A

Battery charge :
On a long trip your average rpm maybe around 4000 to 5000 rpm giving around
13 A generator output . Please make sure , that your power consumption is
less , around 10 A , to have some current for battery charging .

Wiring harness :
Our harness is made to minimum outside dimensions and we use small wire
sections .Other bike makers may consider KTM harness as too small .
With higher load , you may run into voltage drops problems . Voltage drop
can cause some problems :
* Bad light output , because lamp performance highly depends on
voltage
* Bad battery charge

Fuses :
The purpose of fuses is to protect the harness in case of short circuit .
Typical reason for short circuit is when wires are mechanically damaged .
Fuse rating has to be matched with wire section .
If you overload fuses with your higher capacitiy equipment , they may blow
and you will replace with a stronger fuse .
The problem of stronger fuses is , that in case of short circuit , they may
not protect the small wire section . The wire may blow before the fuse .

Couplers and switches :
Couplers and switches on KTM’s again are not overspecified . The just work
with standard load . With higher load , the may fail .

Conclusion :
If you know something on electricity , you can try . Test your system before
you start your trip and be prepared to run in one or the other problem
listed above .
If you have no idea on electricity , please do not change the system !

If you have further questions , please do not hesitate to came back to me .