Questions:
What is the light output in lumens?
What is the spread of the beam?
Do you consider these, fog lamps, visibility lamps, driving lights or spots?
Running at full power, what is the electrical draw in watts?
Is there a beam cutoff to prevent nighttime glare for oncoming traffic?
What are the Dimensions of the Lights?
What's the best method for cleaning the lenses?
Have a Question?
Contact Us and we'll tell you all you want to know about the Clearwater Lights™ experience.
Clearwater Company
2546 Mercantile Drive, Unit B
Rancho Cordova, CA 95742
916-852-7029
Here are Some Answers to
Frequently Asked Questions about
Clearwater Lights™
What is the light output in lumens?
Maximum lumen output is difficult to measure. But our lights produce the equivalent light of a 50 watt halogen bulb. With the same amount of light, our LED lights use about 1/4 of the power of a halogen bulb. A good lumen approximation is 550.
What is the spread of the beam?
The beam spread is about 15 degrees. We also chose a particular lens system to focus 80% of the light in a 15 degree spread. The other 20% is spread in a wider arc to aid in "off axis" illumination. Cars or on coming vehicles "really" see you even in daylight. Our wide arc is designed to make cars in adjacent lanes see you too.
Do you consider these, fog lamps, visibility lamps, driving lights or spots?
I would consider these a combination of a fog and visibility light. They can be a range of lights due to the dimming feature.
These lights are more for conspicuity than for "down the road" illumination.
Some customers have commented that even in bright sunlight, cars move over in front of them during their daily commute, where as before our lights, they were constantly ignored. I find the car pool lane here in CA rarely has a car ignoring my approach from behind.
Our lights will illuminate road signs, reflectors and deer retinas very well due to their higher bandwidth light energy. You might be amazed how far away exit signs can be seen.
Our lights are much too bright to leave on high at night. So, we designed a computer controlled "dimmer" knob. It mounts on your handlebar and allows you to infinitely control the brightness of our lights via the digital controller in each light. You can use full bright for daytime or open roads and then dim it down for night time use in traffic.
Our new "High/low" relay option is a useful addition to our lights. It allows you to "set" the intensity of the lights with our volume control. And then when you switch your factory high beam switch, our lights switch to high as well. When you dim your headlights, our lights then follow the knobs brightness setting. This way, you don't have to control both lights with two switches.
All wiring used is Silver plated fine strand copper with a very tough and high temperature Teflon insulation. The conductors are housed in a tough polyethylene jacket with silicone lubricant to improve long term vibration resistance. High grade silver content solder is used on all internal electrical joints. Adhesive coated shrink tube is used on all of our harness systems and relays. Top quality parts are used throughout our products. We include Posi-Products connectors which we feel to be excellent and very reliable.
Running at full power, what is the electrical draw in watts?
At full power, each light uses about 12 watts. At a slightly reduced light level, the power usage drops significantly.
The initial design parameter of the Glenda project was to create the most light
possible with a maximum of 12 watts of power (1 amp). This power level was set as it is the highest power that we could safely add to a headlight system without adding a relay.
To get the most light possible, we designed a digital switching power supply to increase efficiency of the LEDs. By using some of the most recently developed LEDs and our digital power supply, we are able to produce over 4x the amount of light that a traditional halogen filament bulb can produce. And, we chose a color spectrum that is very unlike any halogen bulb headlight on the road. People will notice you.
Is there a beam cutoff to prevent nighttime glare for oncoming traffic?
By designing the beam to be broad reaching, we can make the rider more visible in adjacent lanes of traffic. The dimming function is how we address oncoming glare.
Dimming is controlled by our volume knob and it can also be controlled with your factory High beam switch. The dimming knob sets the brightness for the LOW beam switch position, when the HIGH beams are selected, our lights switch to high too. So, you simply need to dim your headlights with on coming cars. This feature is pretty cool and if you use your "flash to pass" headlight switch, cars really notice you.
These lights are meant to improve your conspicuity and to add to side illumination. The color bandwidth of our lights is such that you will be very noticeable at night or in full sunlight.
What are the Dimensions of the Lights?
Outside diameter of our lights is just over 2" and about 2" deep.
Each light weighs about 7 ounces.
Yes. If you perform routine maintenance on your bike and are comfortable with basic tools, this should not be too difficult. Most installations take between 1-3 hours if you take your time. Bikes with full fairings can take a little longer.
We are adding new bikes all the time. Check out our new application list to see if your bike is there. We also can offer custom fabrication.
Each light is either CNC machined or forged from billet. Brackets are machined from 6061 series aluminum and use durable stainless steel hardware. The internal circuit boards are actually bonded to an additional aluminum plate for strength and heat management. Surface treatments consist of BOTH hard anodize and powder coating on certain models.
The front of each light has a colored bezel. Standard color is Blue, but we offer them in black, red and a polished bezel that is nickel plated. This looks great on all black bikes or most Harleys.
What's the best method for cleaning the lenses?
The best way is with plain warm water. If you have dried bugs on the lens, first use a wet towel and soak them till they get soft and can be washed off. Don't use Windex or any other cleaner that has ammonia.You can use any plastic polish (Plexus) that is made for acrylic.
