This weekend I installed a set of red plasma rods on my SG. I wound up mounting them in a little different way and I believe it gave them more visibility. The plasma rods for those who haven't seen them are 8" long LED's. They come in Red and Amber and 2 or 3 wire configurations. The LED itself is smoke colored so it is actually hard to see when it's not lit up. I chose the red lights because I was only going to use them as stop lights and in the 2 wire configuration. If you have any sort of tail light module on your bike you must install these before the module. The part here where I made the change in mounting was the use of vinyl 3/4 corner round molding from my local Lowes home center. The plasma rods are mounted using double sided tape. The SG facia has an inside radius. If you mount the plasma rod on the inside of the fascia the LED faces the back of the saddle bag and the amount of LED that is viewable is very limited. Plus the gluing surface is very limited. If you use the corner round molding with double sided tape it fits perfectly in the radius on the back side of the fascia and the normal side of the molding that usual sits against the wall now presents a nice flat surface to double side tape the Plasma Rod to. The vinyl molding sticks great too. This gives it plenty of sticking surface and the LED presents itself perfectly now with alot of visibility in the rear when it's lit. Like I said they are almost invisible between the bags and in my case only light up as a brake light. Mounted like this they are very visible even in direct sunlight.
Plasma Rods are a product of Custom Dynamics.

 

Good idea! Looks good! Bright too!

 

 

Yo dude good idea, I've added them to my list of **** to order

 

Looks good. I was looking at those as well. Nice and discreet when not on.

 

Looks good, I plan on shaving the tail light and turn signals this winter and using just the plasma rods and the tri-bar.

Glad to see they are actually as bright as they claim.

 

Nice....

 

i have a module to shut the alarm light off on the dash cuz i have kuryakyn LEDs and i also have a run,brake,turn module both these have to come off first and can i reinstall after lites are on. or i cant use them at all.

 

I have a panacea module from Kurayken. The Plasma Rods have to come before the module.
On my 08 Sg the harness for the rear lights comes out of the fuse block on the left side of the bike. I disconnected the connector to the Panacea module and found the two wires I needed to connect to. There is not a whole lot of room there. I would have liked to remove the pin connector but couldn't get it out so I just skinned the insulation back and soldered on my wires to the original wires . I taped the whole thing up and plugged it back in.

 

Like most of you I am concerned about increasing the visibility to the rear, especially the brake light. I bought the tri - bar tail light / brake light upgrade but can't seem to figure out how to chnge the old one out for the new one. I also bought the air wing luggage rack with the LED stop light addition which should help some. Anyone ever change a rear tri bar light out before? I am always looking for ways to get a drivers attention before they smash me from the rear.
Thanks.