With distracted driving increasing, being seen is more important than ever. My Givi E52 box's built-in incandescent lights, never terribly bright, finally died. Even while lane-splitting, I am always nervous about some texting twit rear-ending me, so replacing the Givi brake lights was a priority. I could have gotten a direct-replacement kit for the original Givi lighting (around $60 from RevZilla or Twisted Throttle), but I was interested in the AdmoreLighting LED kit for the Givi http://www.admorelighting.com. Though more expensive ($79), the Admore LEDs are much brighter than the Givi incandescents, and the E52-TM kit, which also provides running lights, is a direct replacement for the Givi incandescent lights, so no rewiring. There's also an E52-TS model with turn signals, although that's way more expensive ($154 for the FJR) and a more-complicated install. Because I was thinking about adding the Admore Smart Lightbar, a high-tech LED bar that flashes on deceleration and also contains a flashing strobe, progressive turn signals, and running lights, I thought the combination of the Givi box's flashing red turn signals, the lightbar's progressive, yellow turn signlals, and the FJR's flashing yellow turn signals might be overkill and distracting for drivers behind me, thus defeating my purpose. Although spendy at $199 (plus an added $29 for the FJR-specific adapter that, although not strictly necessary, makes the install a whole lot easier), I thought it worth it for the added visibility. Note that the lightbar is user configurable. The kit comes with a USB cable that plugs into a port on the lightbar and, via a downloadable configuration utility, allows the user to set, among other features, brightness and brake-modulation.
Here's what the rear end looks like now with the Admore LEDs:
Note that the brake and running lights, although they look yellowish in the photo, are actually bright red in person. The progressive turn signals (they move left or right in three stages) on the lightbar (not shown) are bright yellow.
The Admore hardware is well made, but you'll be on your own a lot during the install because the written instructions are limited and murky. For example, on the Givi box lights, there's an instruction that if the lights don't work at first, you should "reverse" the wiring. When only one side of my my new Givi box LEDs worked at first, I followed the directions and reversed the wiring, moving the left wiring to the right and vice-versa. The result was that now only the other side worked. The original Givi install has a cross-cable that carries current from one bank of lights to the other. Polarity doesn't matter so much with incandescent lights, but it's everything to LEDs, so on a whim I turned one end of the cross cable upside-down, and upon connection both banks of LEDs lit up. "Turn upside-down" is not, to me, the same as "reverse."
The Admore instructions aren't inaccurate, per se, just limited and vague. Another example is the instruction that the Yamaha brake-light connector can be found behind the left side cover. That's a bit like saying that the fuel injectors are under the fuel tank. Yes they are, but there are things in between. Removing my 2006 AE's left-side cover reveals a hydraulic oil container (for the auto-clutch?) that also has to be removed to then get access to a calcified wire bundle buried deep within which is the Yamaha connector to which the Admore FJR-specific adapter connects.
Here's a picture of the lightbar from the Admore site:
Here's a picture of the Admore Givi lights and Admore lightbar. Here, though they look yellow, they are actually bright red. Turn signals and flashers are bright yellow:
The lightbar is a marvel. It flashes bright red on decelartion and braking, and there is a bright, white, three-LED strobe incorporated that flashes as well. Very attention-getting. The turn signals are bright yellow and move progressively, in three sections, toward whichever side you've flicked the turn-signal button. The whole bar flashed bright yellow when you turn on the flashers.
Admore is a small, Canadian company; you can't blame them for wanting to save the cost of printing and distributing pages of instructions, instead putting supplemental instructions on the web, but unfortunately a new web site isn't yet completely set up, so I couldn't find those.
Their customer service is excellent, though, and via toll-free phone calls, emails, and persistence I was able to work through the issues and get both products installed. I am happy with the results.
One flat note was the downloadable, lightbar-configuration software: it didn't automatically load the lightbar driver on my Windows 7 laptop. Being a computer tech, I was able to figure out how to manually load the driver, but I think some people might find that daunting. There are supplemental instructions available on the web site that provide instructions for manually loading the driver. Once the driver was loaded, I easily connected to the lightbar and changed the default modulation for the brake lights to four flashes.
Another flat note was the firmware update software/process. To update the firmware, you need to hold a supplied, round, rare-earth magnet to a corresponding circle on the back of the lightbar. This puts the lightbar into programming mode, after which you remove the magnet. Once the lightbar is mounted, though, you can't see where to hold the magnet. (PLEASE NOTE: This is all moot because there is as yet no firmware update available.) Admore says that a future firmware update will obviate the need for the magnet, but I can't imagine that a year from now, or even six months, I'll be able to find the rare-earth magnet that will allow me to install the firmware that makes the rare-earth magnet unnecessary.
Once these high-quality products are installed, though, these issues seem minor, and the added visibility will keep me and my pillion safer.
PS FROM ADMORE: "We are working on a new release of the firmware which will have some added functionality and will eliminate the need for the magnet to do firmware upgrades. We expect to have the new firmware available by the end of the month."
