Wolfie's Ducati Multistrada Pages: FAR/DP Mirrors

FAR/DP Mirrors
by
Jeff Gough (GrayMia)

I installed the FAR/ DP mirrors on my bike and love them. Much more surface area providing greater rear visibility. Another thing I liked, and found interesting is that the mirrors come with Amber lenses and Clear bulbs as well as Clear lenses and Amber bulbs! They arrive with the Amber lenses/ Clear bulbs in place.

Because I thought it looked better I swapped out the bulbs/ lenses. I thought the clear front better suited and matched the front of the bike (windscreen and headlight).

Well, then that got me thinking.... I've got that great tailight from heavycycles.com thats LED... How about an LED turn signal bulb replacement...

So I ordered part #WLED-A5 (194) Wedge Base 12Volt 5-LED Amber LED from SuperBrightLEDs.com. I also ordered for the license plate festoon type bulb part #3910-W6, which I have not installed yet, so more on that later.

The LED replacement bulb is put together with 4 LEDs pointing outward, perpendicular to the main 1 LED pointing straight out. This is to give it a broader viewing angle by illuminating in all directions. The bulb is really constructed well and fit securely in place.

But it sucked. It was crapola. The intensity was nil. If the standard incandescent bulb was a 10, then LED was a 3 tops. I tried it with both lenses while comparing to the other one still being standard. I would not recommend this LED at all. The beams from the LED's are too pin point and weak, and the chrome reflector in the housing does nothing to help.

Although, I did discover something interesting. I returned the AMBER incandescent bulb to its socket and tried it with both lenses. And to my suprise the amber lens with the amber bulb had the greater visibility and the greater illumination. I would have believed that both amber pieces would have dimmed the light.

So of course I had to google this! I found out that the color of the lens filters out all but the color it is. So a red lens will filter out all but red light! Which in turn makes the light appear more vivid in that color! I thougt this was very interesting considering the poplular fad is to go with clear lenses.