I did the common mod of removing the rear black fender extension and relocating the license plate to the green upper fender. In doing so, the license plate light is lost. Since I do ride my bike on the street after sunset occassionally, I was worried about catching Johnny Law's attention by not having an illuminated license plate. I didn't bother finding it, but Colorado law states that a light is needed if riding at night.

K&S Technologies just released a new product, LED License Plate Bolt Lights:





These look like they might work. First thing that I did upon receiving them was to do a bench test to measure the power consumption compared to the stock license plate light. Not bad, together they consume about 1/10th the power.

So I fabricated up a small wiring harness with some wire and heat shrink tubing and added terminals. I drilled a hole through the license plate bracket and fender and installed a rubber grommet.



And here it is installed and lit up. I'm disappointed with the brightness and how poorly they illuminate the plate. But hopefully its enough that if I do get some scrutiny that at least it'll look like I made an attempt to be legal.

 

I think they look good and can't see why they would say anything,the plate is illuminated

 

Nice job, that is cool how they incorporated the lights into the bolts. But I have to say, and its only because of my OCD, the plate is not straight with the fender. I know I'm sick that way, but I just can't help it. [&:] Otherwise great work.

 

i've been running my pllate mounted the exact same way for a week or two now, and i've been thinking it would be a good idea to illuminate the plate also. to wire those, do you run both red wires together with one of the license plate light wires from the bike, and both black wires together with the other wire from the bike? common sense says yes, but easier to ask first.

 

Yeah, it bothers me too (that the plate isn't straight). The holes are drilled, so oh well. ...should have measured instead of eyeballing it.

 

Yes, they are wired in parallel. (the two reds together and the two blacks together). And it does matter how you plug it into the wiring harness. The blacks go to the BLK/YLW wired plug and the reds go to the RED/WHT wired plug.

 

Interesting and clever product as is this...

 

see, glad i asked. thanks for the info.

 

I've kicking around the idea of trying something like this. Now that it's been done, and doesn't work all that great, I can say thanks for saving me the trouble Dan. Once again, this forum rocks!

 

As we used to say in the Navy: "What do you think you got? ...a calibrated eye?"