Been working on increasing visibility from the back.
Pardon the dust - been working on pipes, that's dusty.
On top, made a custom Highlighter that is run brake & turn. In the outline of a Spartan helmet, with Frenched-in blue eyes. The eyes come on with brake and turn. The other 60 red LEDs are run and brake. In this pic, I have the left turn signal on, so Spartacus is winking at you. The eyeballs are powered by the relays circuit below, that also powers the marker pods. The outline is wired same as my standard Highlighter for run & brake with a diode and resistor.
The OEM tailight "lens" is replaced with smoked plastic. You can find the lens on ebay, around $40. Inside is a Radiantz LED array. Most of these you find are priced around $90. Amazon has it at
http://www.amazon.com/Radiantz-Tail-Light-Honda-Shadow-Valkyrie-VTX/dp/B000TK8LY8/ref=cm_cr_pr_pl_footer_top?ie=UTF8 Yeah spendy but it has 128 LEDs and they are the old school, not surface mount ones. Some small mods were needed with a Dremel to modify the display angle and make clearance for the lens. It is incredibly bright. I might want to reduce the running brightness a bit with a resistor - though it is still pointed up higher than optimum for the following cager's eyeballs, so I might not. I'll wait for feedback from my riding pals.
The marker light pods I replaced with 1157 fronts I had on hand, and replaced the lenses with clear ones. Inside are 2", 48-LED (old school) Genesis 1157 Direct Base LED clusters, $25 ea.
http://www.customdynamics.com/motorcycle_led_bulbs.htm#Genesis_LED_Clusters_ I had to modify the pods slightly to provide clearance inside with a Dremel. (The 1.8" actually closer to 2" Genesis clusters will not clear a metal brace inside the 1157 front pods but you can remove the metal part that hits, with a Dremel without consequence. Save and re-insert the retainer clip part of that brace to hold the end of the plastic post.) The markers are run brake & turn, red, powered by my relay circuit I detailed at my tech page for Deerslayer at
http://www.horseapple.com/Valkyrie/Tech_Tips/VTX_signals/vtx_signals.html and reproduced the schematic below. I at first had set this up with the OEM 1156 pods and I had bought the new surface mount LED arrays - then found they are touchy about the resistance provided in the circuit to lower the brightness for run, then brighter for brake and turn. It turns out the current wants to take the path of least resistance and will favor one bulb over the other. I gave up trying to make them the same brightness. The old school LED arrays behave nicer. Meanwhile I had replaced the 1156 pods with 1157s since I had them on hand, and also had old school LED red 1157 arrays on hand, and ordered in the clear lenses for them. So the takeaway on this is, if you want to use my circuit below, if you use 1156 pods (single filiment, OEM rear pods) the circuit will work for run-brake-turn OK with old school LED arrays. If you use surface mount LEDs, you need to get 1157 LED bulbs, 1157 pods (fronts) and connect the run wire from the license light to the run wire on the sockets. These old school Genesis 48-LED arrays are MUCH brighter than the surface mounts, so I recommend using them. You can buy them as 1156 and use my diagram as shown, or as 1157 and get front pods and don't add the resistor part of the circuit to wire the running light segment. The former is cheaper of course. You can get clear lenses for either style pod. For 1157 (front pods - 1 screw underneath)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181503896832 For 1156 (rear single filiment pods - 2 screws on face)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/391192719692 Check what type lens you have before you order - I have both types on front pods in my stock - maybe same on the rear. Beware the 1 screw underneath lens has a plastic arm for the screw that breaks easily - both of mine broke. I replaced it with a piece of aluminum stock drilled and tapped and glued in with silicon glue.
The run-brake-turn relays are mounted on my relay board:
