Customizing Your Motorcycle with LED Lights

Customizing your motorcycle is part of the riding experience. You don't want to be like every other rider out there, and you can express yourself best when you incorporate your own designs and preferences onto your bike. With LED lights, customization has never been so easy. These bulbs come in little strips that you can place virtually anywhere on your motorcycle, creating a brilliant light show that highlights all the best parts of the bike. And best of all, you can do this yourself pretty easily! It's simply a matter of working with connection cords and the battery, which isn't very difficult, but if you're not comfortable dealing with the electrical components on a motorcycle, feel free to bring it into Interstate Cycles for the installation process. We're right here in Lake City, FL, but we also serve the areas of Gainesville, Tallahassee, Alachua, Valdosta, Jacksonville, and Sanderson, Florida.

Organizing and Testing the Strips

You should start the installation process by getting yourself organized. You don't want to waste time fumbling around for light strips and extra parts during the installation, so first lay out the strips, fuse box, spanning wire, and switch. If there's a diagram with the LEDs you purchased, use this to save yourself the time of drawing everything out. Masking tape is also good to have, since you can use this to test the strips in various temporary locations.

Next, make sure you test everything before going through the installation process. You can connect everything to a 9-volt battery, or use your bike's battery if you don't have one. Just run a charge through, and if every bulb lights up, you're good to start mapping out the design.

Laying Out Your Materials

You bought LED strips to add a custom look to your bike, so if you really want a unique look, you'll want to spend some time figuring out beforehand how you want the lights to be laid out. Use the masking tape to temporarily stick them to different locations on the bike. Be creative, and fidget around with some of them if you don't like where they're at. You could even run a charge through with that 9-volt battery if you want to see how it lights up. Otherwise, you'll get to see how they look once the installation is complete.

Connect the Wires and Battery

To begin the installation process you need to start by gathering all the wires together with a connector box. Group them into one box for positive leads and another for negatives. If you have a remote activation system, you can connect the relay box directly to the battery. This system has it's own fuses, so you don't need to use a fuse boat. But if it's not a remote system, you'll need to connect that fuse boat into the negative lead. Then mount the light switch, preferably somewhere where it can be hidden by the frame (the goal is to avoid exposing cluttered-looking wires. This is all about style, after all). Next, you'll need to connect the ring terminals to their respective leads, so you need to make the copper wire under the plastic of every wire. Take a small knife and cut off about a half inch of plastic. When you can see the copper, wrap each wire around the terminal's connection point so that contact is made with the opening. Then you can connect the positive lead and positive terminal to your battery. Before doing any of these processes, your battery needs to be turned off. But at this point, you can turn it back on to test your strips. If everything looks good, you can hide any remaining cluttered wires, and you're ready to ride in style!

Every rider wants their ride to be special, and one of the easiest ways to do this is with LED lights. This guide walks you through the basics of light installation on a bike, but if you have any other questions, or would like us to make the connections for you, come on into Interstate Cycles in Lake City, FL. We serve riders from all over, including the areas of Gainesville, Tallahassee, Alachua, Valdosta, Jacksonville, and Sanderson, Florida