Clearwater Lights Group Buy: March 1st - March 30th 2013 (details inside)

Patriot · Mar 13, 2013

SacramentoMike said:
Barabus said:

Need pictures of the Awesomeness, please. Day/Night Low/High?

Click to expand...

I do ride in town with them on all the time--minimum at night, just under half power or so in the daytime. Splitting lanes in heavy traffic, maybe a bit more. I'm not sure what the hell I'd do with all the lumens those new Erica searchlights put out. And dark empty roads, by the way, pull out all the stops.

I also ride with them on 24/7...I choose to always run them at half bright during the day and full bright at night...fog or rain, 3/4

Now I also have the Glendas on the forks always at full brightness for conspicuity...they aren't even wired to the dimmer

So I don't need the dimmer particularily handy...it rarely gets adjusted during a ride...I choose to put the volume control for my amplirider near my throttle hand to be changed by my thumb on demand.

Barabus · Mar 13, 2013

SacramentoMike said:
Barabus said:

Need pictures of the Awesomeness, please. Day/Night Low/High?

Click to expand...

I posted this on YouTube quite a while ago. It shows what you'll see when you click from low to high beams and the Kristas go to full power too. The vid starts with me approaching with low beams, Kristas on minimum. Then I hit the horn and they come to full power. After I make the turn, I click on the high beams, which brings the aux lights up to full. I think you'll see what I'm talking about. At the end, I'm fiddling with the dimmer switch up and down, but it's hard to tell how whatever I'm doing is working, since I was just kind of going back and forth.

IMO, this vid shows the contrast between low beams and low power on the Kristas vs. the full monty--high beams with full Krista power--better than any other video or photo I've seen.

Mike- Thanks. Very nice. I am rethinking my decision to sit this one out. I especially like the second half of the video. Very effective.

user 28760 · Mar 13, 2013

Ordered some Darla's - can't wait to see these in action. Thanks for organizing the group buy.

SacramentoMike · Mar 13, 2013

Linc said:
garyahouse said:

Lorett was extremely pleasant and answered all my questions like a pro! love those guys

Click to expand...

I agree, been on the phone with her 3 times now... she has the perfect customer service attitude and I wish I was close enough to buy her a box of chocolates! For putting up with my incessant emails and questions last month, but mostly for having to deal with all y'all over the phone. My apologies Lorett! LOL

Linc--aka Abe--posted this a while back. Since I AM close enough to bring her a box of chocolates, I p.m.'d Abe and called his bluff, and he rose to the challenge. I took her a box of See's chocolates today and she was delighted and appreciative. She's been a little snowed under by all the orders coming in on this and another forum, so it came at a nice time. Good on ya, Linc/Abe. (um, p.m. coming with the tab.

)

Oh, and this is Lorett:

Linc · Mar 13, 2013

Rrram said:
Ordered some Darla's - can't wait to see these in action. Thanks for organizing the group buy.

Hey Ram, you're very welcome... hope you enjoy them! Darlas seem like a great lumen output in a very compact package!

SacramentoMike said:
Linc said:

garyahouse said:

Lorett was extremely pleasant and answered all my questions like a pro! love those guys

Click to expand...

I agree, been on the phone with her 3 times now... she has the perfect customer service attitude and I wish I was close enough to buy her a box of chocolates! For putting up with my incessant emails and questions last month, but mostly for having to deal with all y'all over the phone. My apologies Lorett! LOL

Click to expand...

Linc--aka Abe--posted this a while back. Since I AM close enough to bring her a box of chocolates, I p.m.'d Abe and called his bluff, and he rose to the challenge. I took her a box of See's chocolates today and she was delighted and appreciative. She's been a little snowed under by all the orders coming in on this and another forum, so it came at a nice time. Good on ya, Linc/Abe. (um, p.m. coming with the tab.

)

Holy hot mitts... Mike you are the man! You got my back and came through, thanks for calling my bluff!

PM back atcha', and thanks for the pic! Lorett seemed to be a little stressed the last time I talked to her, wanted a count of how many we had on the GB so far and she said it was keeping her plenty busy... could she get back to me later? And to find out theres ANOTHER group buy going on somewhere else? Sheesh.

Clearwater is good people... glad to support them and thanks for coming through as a local forum representative.

-- Abe

garyahouse · Mar 14, 2013

Guess what arrived UPS today?

This box...

So I opened it up and looked inside...

Below, brackets appear to be pretty robust... thicker than the current brackets I have that are holding my Baker air wings. Notice the section hanging straight down in the picture. It doesn't have a curve in it where it mounts up against the fairing at the location where the mirror mounts to the bike... like my current brackets do. That concerns me.

However, it appears that I have a problem. Though the new Kristas are beautiful, they are not the ones I ordered. I ordered them with blue bezels. The bezels on these are black, as you can see in the picture below.

So, I contacted Clearwater. However, it appears that I'll have to wait until tomorrow as they are closed for the evening.

Ugggh.

I've been counting the days and was so excited to get home from work today.

Now I'm really bummed out.

Gary

darksider #44

TomInPA · Mar 14, 2013

Gary, I'm sure you can go ahead and mount the lights. The bezels are threaded and sealed with an O-ring. I'd bet you get replacement bezels and will just use the box to return those.

Pauls927 · Mar 14, 2013

Hey Gary, according to the clearwater website, the colored bezels are only availble for the Glendas and Darlas. Did Lorett quote the additional fee for the colored bezels?

pcmem · Mar 15, 2013

just finished placing my order. Very nice company to work with. Lorett is most helpful. Looking forward to getting them. Thanks for putting the group buy together.

garyahouse · Mar 15, 2013

TomInCA said:
Gary, I'm sure you can go ahead and mount the lights. The bezels are threaded and sealed with an O-ring. I'd bet you get replacement bezels and will just use the box to return those.

Hey Tom

I spoke to Lorett today around noon. Funny, when I called, she'd just arrived at the office and needed a few minutes to get "opened up" as she said. So I called back in a few to explain what happened. We talked about the OOPS, and I elected to have her ship me the blue bezels, so when they arrive I'll switch them for the current black ones. On another note, when I mentioned that her pic with the chocolate in her hand was posted up on the forum, she was tickled about it, and didn't realize that we'd posted it. Said she was awful busy lately and didn't have time to get on the forum to try to see what we'd written on this thread. Anyway, time to start my install.

Gary

garyahouse · Mar 15, 2013

Pauls927 said:
Hey Gary, according to the clearwater website, the colored bezels are only availble for the Glendas and Darlas. Did Lorett quote the additional fee for the colored bezels?

Paul,

Yes the Kristas can be ordered with blue bezels. There's an additional 25 dollar fee. Since I've got a beautiful blue 05, I gotta have the blue bezels. In addition, the same bezels fit the new Ericas as well, since they share the same exact housings as the Kristas. Since we talked briefly about the new Ericas, she also mentioned that they might not be shipping in April as the website says though she said it's nearly impossible to predict... but mentioned late spring or early summer as a likely ship date for those choosing to order them. She quoted tooling, machining, powder coating and anodizing as things that were taking some extra time.

reaction57 · Mar 16, 2013

Well my Darlas have arrived! Now I just got to find the time to install them plus finish my cruise control install! So much to do so little time! Atleast the weather has been crapy so I don't get the urge to ride.

tjwallib · Mar 18, 2013

Just ordered mine for my FJR and my Blackbird.

Spoke with Glenn, what a gentleman! He suggested getting the wiring harness for the FJR that will handle both the Krista and the Darla. Should be like "daylight" when they are both running!

MNFJR Pilot · Mar 19, 2013

Ordered Krista's last year and if anyone feels the need to see better order up ASAP. Awesome quatily Products! Not cheap but bang for the buck!

someguy · Mar 20, 2013

DOH......

trying to figure out how to fly a set in under the radar.

the accountant (wife) is a bit grumpy after shelling out $3K for a new tranny in the truck...

garyahouse · Mar 20, 2013

someguy said:
DOH...... trying to figure out how to fly a set in under the radar. the accountant (wife) is a bit grumpy after shelling out $3K for a new tranny in the truck...

I would think you'd already know what any good military man could tell you, it's not the RADAR that ya gotta worry about...

Anyway, I received another package from Clearwater. It was a bear trying to get those bezels switched out, but I finally got em done. Factory bezels were on there fairly tight. I ended up using an oil filter wrench and a couple turns of electrical tape to get the black bezels off.

WARNING

Tape removes the white "Clearwater LIghts" logos from the bezel's surface. If you plan to keep and reuse the bezels (which I don't), DO NOT USE ELECTRICAL TAPE to protect them when removing. Maybe blue painter's tape which doesn't stick quite as well?

Anyway, they sure are gorgeous.

Pauls927 · Mar 21, 2013

I completed installing my Kristas this weekend. Because of my FZ1 mirrors, it took a lot more time than expected. The shorter studs on the FZ1 mirrors made it impossible to get the nuts on the threads of the studs. Someone mentioned grinding the base of the studs down, but this will only work if you don't place the rubber boot of the mirror in its correct position. The only way I could fix this was to remove the bushings from the mirror mount and cut off about an 1/8 of an inch. This allows the base of the light bracket to sit flush on the faring ( with a homemade gasket in between faring and bracket) with the boot in position on the mirror.

I mounted both the controls for the lights in the square for the heated grip controller.

I did ride with them on tonight and they definitely light up the street. I may need to adjust them some more, but I'm very satisfied with this purchase.

Niehart · Mar 21, 2013

Nice job on the dimmer switch and on/off switch. No Tupperware ruined there.

I enlarged the mounting bracket holes until they just fit over the fairing bracket posts. Then built a gasket that fit between the mounting bracket and fairing. Several hundred miles later and no movement.

It took about three runs and adjustments before I was satisfied with the aim of the lights.

Expensive but well worth it in my humble opinion.

Thanks for putting this group buy together Abe!

FJRRider08 · Mar 22, 2013

My Kristas have arrived!

I'll post up some before and after install pics.

learnin4life · Mar 23, 2013

After all the positive comments, I'm nearly ready to contact the Clearwater folks and order a set of Kristas, My only hesitation is that I just added some FZ1 mirrors this past winter and from the the few rides I've been able to take this past winter, I've already confirmed they offer a great rear view and are definite keepers. From the posts above it sounds as though one of the consequences of having FZ1 mirrors is that the mounting hardware that comes with the Clearwater lights is going to require some tinkering--not plug and play. I'm OK with that, but it would really help others in the same position as me to have step-by-step guide with pictures to making the lights work with FZ1 mirrors. The posts above from Niehart and Pauls927 confirm success, so we know it can be done.

I know its asking a lot, but is anyone willing to go the extra mile with a how-to for those of us with FZ1 mirrors?

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Clearwater Lights Group Buy: March 1st - March 30th 2013 (details inside)

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