Ok, so to recap just a bit… Last year I was looking at doing the LAB2V event and read that some of the finishers finished in the dark. I hadn’t run the event since it was a race called B2V and that was back in the late ’80s where on one occasion I definitely did finish at night. That was due to my seizing the motor of my YZ250 a few miles from the finish line and literally pushing it the rest of the way.
That led to me to look into adding some additional light and Motominded made a kit that simply bolted on and had a few Baja Design units. The problem was that there wasn’t enough time before the event. They needed an 8 week lead time. With 7 or so weeks I headed to ADV and found a wonderful guy named Scott who loaned me his unit.
The light worked good, but had one issue I needed to correct. The bulk of the light was blocked by my fender bag. If I could just move the lights higher up, that would be so much better. I returned the borrowed unit to Scott and reached out to Motominded to see if they could simply make one for me with the lights up a little higher.
Unfortunately and fully understandably, I didn’t get the answer I was hoping for.
My bike after all is a 2014, they just moved to a different town, new model years are just coming out and really how many of these would they sell? I get it.
So I set out to build my own. Starting out with the lights.
Baja Designs:
The Motominded kit (https://www.motominded.com/collections/ktm-2008-2012-18-690/products/ktm-690-2008-2012-2018) uses an Epic Squadron Pro and an S2 Combo from Baja Designs. The S2 is the “low beam” putting out 2,450 lumens, with the Squadron Pro putting out 4,095 lumens as your “high beam”. Pricing would be S2 at $175.00 plus the Squadron Pro at $215.00 or a total of $395.00. I’m not sure where MM is getting their math but 2,450 + 4,095 = 6,545 Lumens and not 7,350 and I’m guessing that that number would be with both lights firing at the same time.
NOTE: Lumens are an arbitrary way to measure light output but it’s something that the industry uses so we’ll go with it. It’s also a marketing term. What matters more is how those lumens are focused and where they illuminate.
The Ruby R7
I had talked to Eric at Ruby at a bike show a while ago. No matter what I did I was looking at getting the light(s) up above my fender bag. Ruby makes an R4 and an R7 model. I started out thinking of something similar as the Motominded setup with a small light as the low beam and a larger one as high beam. I could do a single R4 as low beam and a single R7 as high beam.
But then I started looking at numbers. A single R7 put out 7,158 lumens and would run me $350, they had a dongle (from Motominded of all things) for the 500 that reduced the voltage to the light for low beam and gave it full beans for high beam. That meant for $370, that I could use just one light for both!
So Ruby R7 it is!
Next I had to build the mounting bracket. This is what Motominded did (and did well) with the Baja Designs. The headlight bracket mounts to the headlight mask with 4 little screws. The two upper are on one plane, while the two lower are on a different but parallel plane. This will make a little more sense as we go along.
Here’s a picture of a plane just to screw with you. Of course I’m talking about a “Cartesian coordinate system for a three-dimensional space” – that kind of PLANE!
I had long since returned the borrowed MM unit but what I believe I remember is that it tied in the two left and the two right sides separately. This meant that the vertical side pieces had to bend in a zig zag fashion of sorts. Then there was then an upper and lower piece crossing horizontally that tied in the 4 mounting pieces.
I started out the same way but realized it would be easier to do the opposite. Using my old mask, I crafted out what I needed in cardboard to go from point to point across the top and bottom.
I then hacked out the same size in 3/8″ thick cutting board. Cutting board is made from what is called HDPE. It’s easy to work with, it sands and cuts easily, but is pretty strong.
Here’s the top and bottom cross pieces in HDPE. The mask is upside down but you can see what I mean about the top and bottom being on parallel planes.
Next I needed to tie in the top to the bottom. I did this with some 1″ aluminum bar, which I could easily cut and bend in the zig zag I needed.
Once I had the aluminum straps the size and shape I wanted I could bolt them in. I got the right sized bolts, washers and nuts in stainless and then went as wide as I could.
My mounting bracket was far from the elegance of the MM but now I had a solid base from which to work. Next I needed to build out the two side brackets that would hold the light itself. I knew it was 4.25″ in width but I wanted to make sure so I waited until the light arrived to move further.
With the light in hand I went for my first mock up.
To securely mount the brackets I was going to bolt through the aluminum straps with M5 bolts. I cut out room for the nuts giving that space a full 1/2 inch. That should be strong enough. I then picked a point where I thought the Ruby mounting hole would be and did a little shark fin to give it some art.
After mounting everything up, Mockup #1 was looking good. Not perfect, but close. I went down to the local TAP Plastic and bought two 6″ x 6″ inch blocks of 1″ thick in black. This is what I would make the final version in.
MM had also 3D printed a behind the light mask of sorts. You don’t want all of the wiring behind the unit to be unprotected. You can see the MM version here.
I thought I could do something with a flexable piece of cutting board I had from Ikea. I just needed to cut it to shape to fit behind the mask and then give room for my light mounting brackets to poke through.
So here’s the 1″ think blocks cut and mounted with my Ikea board also mounted on the bracket.
With the super thick blocks I knew I’d be too narrow for the light to fit. I then need to remove a certain amount of material from the inside. So here’s the blocks mounted and the marked with the area I needed to remove. That left just about an even 3/8″ for the light to bolt to. Plenty strong enough!
Next I test positioned the light and everything was looking good.
Next was to trim the outside of the Ikea board and then mount the unit into my real mask. I had been using an old mask that I had replaced when I replaced the graphics on the bike. It needs to fit with the new mask and windshield.
Everything looked ok. Let’s see how it looks on the bike… NOPE! To get the light to point where I wanted, which was to barely hit the front fender with it’s lowest beams, Bracket #2 was just a little too close. I needed like 1/2″ more.
I had plenty of 1″ block to work with so I recreated what I did on Bracket #2 except I gave myself plenty of room on Bracket #3. I figured I’d get back to this point, figure out exactly where the mounting hole had to be and then I could pretty it up. So I masked up Bracket #3 and had plenty of extra room.
With the holes marked I then took it all apart again and trimmed Bracket #3 down to what it needed to be. You can see where on this version I have a little more clearance behind the top of the light and the mask. This is where I was wrong on Bracket #2’s positioning.
The light is now mounted about as high up as I can. It’s centered in the mask and if need be, I can tilt it up to throw even more light down the road.
The low beam and high beam work off of the stock switch and the 19% trickle of light that the MM dongle puts out, combined with the tilted angle is plenty of light to see riding around in town and doesn’t seem to blind cars. I was watching for oncoming to flash their lights at me – none did.
High beam is like turning on the sun! Amazing what 7,500 lumens can do! The 7 LEDs are a great combo of spots and floods and really throw a big wide pattern of light out there. Great Job Ruby!
I tried to GoPro a quick example of what I am seeing but it’s really hard to do without setting up your GoPro for the right ISO and other things. But this will give you a small idea.
Conclusion:
I’m a long time mountain biker and when high powered LEDs came on the scene we all started night riding. I typically run an single 800 lumen spot on the bars pointing closely in front of my tire at the trail I’m on. A second one (1,200 lumens) is mounted on my helmet and pointed further down the trail so I can better see what’s coming up. In this way you pretty much light up ONLY what you need to see. Why waste a lumen, right?
But on a moto, riding up hills, down hills, up and over and around things and doing it all at a greater speed, more light is needed. Further down the road and in a much wider field of view.
I’ll probably never plan to ride offroad at night. I just don’t see that as being a thing. But if I’m ever out there and need to, I’m now confident that I am prepared to do so!
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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