# AYUP problem and possible solution



## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

someone sent me a set of Ayups to have a look at as they had gone very dim 
they originaly thought it was the battery but on replaceing the battery the problem was still there .

so after a fair bit of head scratching wondering how to get into the damn things when I did there was a strong smell of burnt electics .










most of the wireing was a charred mess with the bare minimum connecting it all together and upon disasembly it just crumbled to nothing 
the only thing left was the resistor above .
the leds were toast too but did emit a small amount of lumens when tested.

What I have done is slot in 2 XPEs and Regina reflectors but need to drive them somehow 
this I have not yet decided on .
but as I tested it on the power supply @ 1000ma drive the 2 heads did get very warm

Does anyone know what current an Ayup is supposed to run at and what value is the resistor they use .

for future reference to mod old ayups the driver on board single xpg optimised for the Regina would be a good implant

pic of the modded Ayup


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## zen bicycle (Mar 23, 2007)

They did a direct drive with the original battery pack at about 600ma as I recall. Don't hold me to it though.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

zen bicycle said:


> They did a direct drive with the original battery pack at about 600ma as I recall. Don't hold me to it though.


Cheers Zen that sort of makes sense as tested at that and they stay pretty cool .
but we all know that when it comes to modding lights we want it all not 66%

I think on a normal dark night in the uk it will be ok at 1 amp I hope

main problem is there is nowhere to put a driver


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## zen bicycle (Mar 23, 2007)

In later models Auyp put the driver in the battery pack, so there was never supposed to be a driver in those things. Maybe a cord mounted bflex in a small case on the cord just behind the lights?


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

zen bicycle said:


> In later models Auyp put the driver in the battery pack, so there was never supposed to be a driver in those things. Maybe a cord mounted bflex in a small case on the cord just behind the lights?


Yes that was my thoughts I have some of the cheap 960ma drivers from the ebay guy 
may do that with one .

I have just been out walking the dog with it cobbled to a battery and 1 amp driver with no heat problems at all just luke warm

I am thinking the owner will be very happy with it


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

Are you going to share how you got it apart in a condition that could be put back together?

Lots of my mates here would be very interested in knowing that 

Those ebay drivers, are you using the dimmed version or did you get the ones where you put the resistor in to suit your desired level? Just asking to see if you are still getting the very little noticeable difference between the 50% power and full power we spoke about before


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## unterhausen (Sep 28, 2008)

ok, for some reason I feel compelled to ask which ebay guy we're talking about


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

This one


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

emu26 said:


> Are you going to share how you got it apart in a condition that could be put back together?
> 
> Lots of my mates here would be very interested in knowing that
> 
> Those ebay drivers, are you using the dimmed version or did you get the ones where you put the resistor in to suit your desired level? Just asking to see if you are still getting the very little noticeable difference between the 50% power and full power we spoke about before


Ha I should have taken photo`s as now it is reassembled rather permanantly .

the front is a nylon ring which compresses a silicon rubber seal on to the optic it just snaps in and it quite difficult to remove without damage .

I warmed the light up to just holdable and it made it flexible enough to get a sharp small screwdriver under the lip and lever it out with a small amount of damage to the ring

then the silicon seal is easy and the rest just pulls out . the led star was just sitting on the heat sink and no compound .

to pull the heads off was a riddle but the easy way I discovered was when you turn the heads they come to a stop just turnd it a little past the stop and then pull and the head unclicks .
and pulls away there is some length on the wires inside but if it comes with a jerk you may pull the wires out and break them so a little care here is needed .

2 orings on each end seal the light and did disintegrate on this one which is why it is now sealed with the faithfull silicon and no longer adjustable


















Reference the driver 
it is dimable but I will just do it as a single power so no switch needed to keep it cheap .

no reassembly the regina and 20 mm star fit perfectly 
but I had to leave out the seal and use silicon and then click the nylon ring back in but did need to cut 2 x1 mm plastic lens covers 
from a welding mask cover any thicker and the nylon ring would not fit .

but I guess if you were good with the silicon you could just use that

and I did put some thermal paste in


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

Cheers mate, thanks for the reply


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## Vancbiker (May 25, 2005)

troutie-mtb said:


> the led star was just sitting on the heat sink and no compound.


A little surprised they would skip such an inexpensive performance and longevity enhancing detail.


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## smudgemtbuk (Jul 13, 2008)

:thumbsup: Nice work Troutie.

I wonder how many have thrown these away and can now see what can be done to resurect them.:madman: 

Any chance of a beamshot? shame you hadnt got a working Ay-Up to compare it against.

He'll be well happy with that, well done


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## scar (Jun 2, 2005)

Troutie, maybe he just needed to run one of these heatsinks :thumbsup:










***


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## emptyvoxel (Jul 2, 2008)

This is a very timely thread. A busted Ayup just made it's way to me and I was considering a dual xp-g regina build.... hmmm. Unfortunately the previous owner cut the nylon snap rings trying to take the thing apart.
Out of curiousity, how did you go about removing the jack? Seems to be sealed in there with copious amounts of glue.

Thanks for all the detailed information, it's very helpful.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

emptyvoxel said:


> This is a very timely thread. A busted Ayup just made it's way to me and I was considering a dual xp-g regina build.... hmmm. Unfortunately the previous owner cut the nylon snap rings trying to take the thing apart.
> Out of curiousity, how did you go about removing the jack? Seems to be sealed in there with copious amounts of glue.
> 
> Thanks for all the detailed information, it's very helpful.


Brute force and it is non replaceable but a new one will glue in place 
you dont really need the nylon ring if you can be good with the silly cone


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

Don't use the cone that comes with the silicone tube.

Go to your local chemist / pharmacist (depending on where you live) and buy a 5 or 10 ml syringe. The end of the syringe normally has a small "nipple" on it, cut this at about a 60` angle. Pull the plunger out of the syringe. fill the syringe about 3/4 full with silicone. Replace the plunger and now use the syringe to accurately apply the silicon where you want it, first time.

When you have finished, squeeze out all of the silicone from the syringe. Get a small container and put some kero in it then just suck the kero up into the syringe, push it out and do this a couple of times. this will dissolve the silicone and leave the syringe clean for the next use.


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## slidecontrol (Apr 8, 2007)

I pulled my ayups apart last year [ 1 y/o at that stage ] to replace the leds, got one apart ok but trashed the plastic rings on the other. to replace them I used some silicone orings that were slightly bigger than the ID of the lamp body and a ptfe backup ring. takes a little bit of manipulation but they snap into place nicely enough. the a quick chamfer of the backup to make it look pretty.

the pics show the original parts laid out and the oring replacement in their new home

if you're careful with a pair of pliers, by gently squeezing around lamp socket you can crack the glue and pull the end of the plug out.

the socket itself is just the business end of a 2.1mm female dc plug. ( don't get the metal ended ones though, they don't work ) plastic surround type only.


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## emptyvoxel (Jul 2, 2008)

This thread is fantastic, thanks for all the tips.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

Ok now had the chance to do a like for like comparison .
I got sent 2 fully working Ayups yesterday .
so replaced the leds and optics with XPGs and Reginas in what was a pretty easy swop .

this left me with one standard and one Ay-upgrade

beam shots

Standard Ayup









Ay-upgrade









the standard Ayup is drawing from an 8 volt supply and taking 410 Ma

the Ay-upgrade is drawing 600 ma .

I have only changed the leds not touched the resistor 
so why the extra draw from what should be more efficient leds

is it to do with the lower VF of the XPGs .
not measured anything yey but will do when I do the second one


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

Yes, It's due to the lower Vf of the XPG as compared to the XR-E. And as a result the LEDs are actually drawing more power. If they are using a simple resistor to regulate the current, then you'll need to swap out the resistor when you change to LEDs with a different Vf if you want to keep the power to the LED approximately the same. Otherwise, it's not really a fair comparison since you're actually driving the new LEDs at a higher power levels.

You said you were testing at 8V, I don't know the battery voltage of a standard Ayup setup, but if it's much higher than 8V, the LEDs will be running at really high power levels and will probably overheat without a resistor swap.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

Cheers MtbMacgyver

Agree its not like for like but then you dont want to mod something and it be the same 
output .
so for an easy upgrade it seems a nice result for those with aging Ayups .

the battery is a 2S li ion and well underdriving the leds .
changing the resistor is not an easy task due to the copious use of epoxy 
and the inaccessability of where it is .

had it running in still air on my washing line with an ambient of 9 c and it stabilised at about 18 c and sat there for over an hour with no increase in heat .

so in my opinion 

ease of mod 
cost of mod 
end result 

all get a :thumbsup:


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

Nice work chris.

Can we keep this thread quiet though, I don't want all my mates with ageing Ay-Ups to get any ideas, just want them to throw away their redundant lights, my way


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

troutie-mtb said:


> Cheers MtbMacgyver
> 
> Agree its not like for like but then you dont want to mod something and it be the same
> output .
> ...


Wasn't trying to imply it wasn't a good mod. I just didn't know enough about the Ayup setup to know what the final drive current would end up being. Sounds like they are so under driven that actually having it increase some is likely a good thing. This is increasing the power dissipation in the resistor by a small amount, but resistors will typically stand up to a fair amount of abuse so it'll only be an issue if it was already badly under spec'ed.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

MtbMacgyver said:


> Wasn't trying to imply it wasn't a good mod. I just didn't know enough about the Ayup setup to know what the final drive current would end up being. Sounds like they are so under driven that actually having it increase some is likely a good thing. This is increasing the power dissipation in the resistor by a small amount, but resistors will typically stand up to a fair amount of abuse so it'll only be an issue if it was already badly under spec'ed.


Any chance you could explain this direct drive thingy I dont remember ever seeing it discused on here before .

I had a look over on CPF but every thing I saw assumed you knew what you were doing .


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## tanner72 (Sep 28, 2008)

Troutie,

The value of the resistor is pretty easy to work out, just subtract the total forward voltage of the LED's from the voltage of the battery pack - So for 2 LED's with Vf in series of 3.3 the total Vf is 6.6v (easy so far!); Take this away from 7.6v (nominal batter pack voltage) to give 1v

To get 1 amp flowing in the LED's just use V=IR ... which in this case is pretty easy as v=1, I=1 so R.... you guessed it equals 1 ohm! And as 1 amp is being dissipated at 1v it needs to be a 1 watt resistor.

There is a great little calculator here: http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

That said I have been direct driving (ie with no resistor) a pair of Seoul P4's from a 7.6v lithium pack for a couple of seasons now and it makes a good small helmet light.

Despite the dire warnings of meltdown and LED's going pop, my set (and the 10 or so similar sets that the guys I ride with) all have kept going strongly with no problems.

I started out by using a 1 ohm resistor but in reality I was only getting something like 700mA so I took it out and just run the 2 LED's directly from the battery and like I say no issues so far.

I do have a low setting on the light which uses a 5 ohm resistor giving about 200mA just for battery conservation - I haven't got a photo to hand but will post some after the weekend.

I have been playing around with direct driving 2 XPG's and without a resistor they run at about 1.2A which might be a little high, but I think I will try a pair of those for a while just to see what happens.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

Thanks Tanner72

so let me get this right you can just connect up 2 XP e/g s to a 2s li ion battery pack 
with out them going pop even fresh off the charger .
and they will run at about 1.2 amps .

I guess they then dim as the battery drains .

now goes away to try and kill an xpe led


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## tanner72 (Sep 28, 2008)

Well thats what I have been doing with the P4's for some time without any trouble!

I tried it briefly with a pair of XPG's to measure the current draw but I will be getting a set together to run over the winter just to see what happens....

Let me know how you get on, but like I said there were a lot of dire warnings about blowing LED's when I first did it but to date nothing has gone pop!


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

I just nervously connected 2 XPGs to a 7.5 volt battery and meter they didnt die 
but the current through them was 2.4 amps  

tried the same with 2 XREs out of an Ayup and they had just under an amp current .

the vf of the xres is 7.5 volts as the xpgs was 6.6 volts 

so would I be right in thinking that for a basic 2 led light all we would need is a couple of resistors and a switch to give us hi and low power settings .

Please forgive the questions here also what if 4 leds in a 2s 2p con fig .

would they then have got half the 2.4 amps each .


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## Ofroad'bent (Jul 10, 2010)

troutie-mtb said:


> I just nervously connected 2 XPGs to a 7.5 volt battery and meter they didnt die
> but the current through them was 2.4 amps
> 
> tried the same with 2 XREs out of an Ayup and they had just under an amp current .
> ...


Do I sense a Troutie version of the Ay-ups coming up?
2 XP-Gs with Reginas and a high/low setting in tiny housings?


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## tanner72 (Sep 28, 2008)

2.4A - Eek!

I am highly surprised that there is such a massive difference between the two different LED's and it’s exactly twice the current I measured with the XPG's - they were in series? (sorry to ask the obvious)!

Yes for a basic light all I used initially was an ultra miniature 3 position toggle switch and 2 resistors.

I’ll take some pics when I get home and stick them on here.

It does rather sound like there is a 'Trout-up' coming!


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## MtbMacgyver (Jan 23, 2007)

Keep in mind that wires are resistors and current meters are even bigger resistors. So when direct driving the actual current can change significantly with changes in the wiring or when you remove a meter from the circuit. It can be difficult to measure the current of a direct drive setup because the reistance of inserting a meter can drop the current by a large amount. You also have to keep in mind that battery voltage drops as current goes up. So the current for a direct drive will settle at the point where Vf of the LEDs plus reistive voltage drop in the wiring match up with the voltage/current graph of the battery. There is nothing wrong with direct drive other than it tends to be a pretty touchy setup and the current can change pretty significantly with temp, battery voltages, battery and LED variations.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

tanner72 said:


> 2.4A - Eek!
> 
> I am highly surprised that there is such a massive difference between the two different LED's and it's exactly twice the current I measured with the XPG's - they were in series? (sorry to ask the obvious)!
> 
> ...


Yep series Xpgs 
the battery is a 4 cell 7.4 volt Li ion pack if that makes any difference .

I also tried them on the bench power supply slowly turning up the voltage 
and when I got to 8 volts the leds started smoking ( they were on a large lump of heatsink ) and the amps had gone 2.5 maps 
so rapidly turned it back down .


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## tanner72 (Sep 28, 2008)

Hmmm might be something to do with the pack size?

I use a 2 cell 7.4v pack.

The first photo shows the pack fresh off the charger direct driving a pair of XPG's at 1.3A - the question is how accurate is my toy town meter! :???: I will rig up a Max or B Flex and check it against a known drive current this weekend.

The other pics are of my head lamps ( - I hope you don't think I am hijacking the thread! )

The silver one was my first attempt - it has a one ohm resistor and a five ohm resistor selected by the toggle switch with the middle position being off.

The blue one is MK2 I took out the one ohm and it direct drives on high and uses the five ohm on low.

Both use the Seoul P4 which from memory give 220lm each at 1 amp.


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## bwack (Oct 11, 2009)

MtbMacgyver said:


> Keep in mind that wires are resistors and current meters are even bigger resistors. So when direct driving the actual current can change significantly with changes in the wiring or when you remove a meter from the circuit. It can be difficult to measure the current of a direct drive setup because the reistance of inserting a meter can drop the current by a large amount. You also have to keep in mind that battery voltage drops as current goes up. So the current for a direct drive will settle at the point where Vf of the LEDs plus reistive voltage drop in the wiring match up with the voltage/current graph of the battery. There is nothing wrong with direct drive other than it tends to be a pretty touchy setup and the current can change pretty significantly with temp, battery voltages, battery and LED variations.


The matching of the voltage/current graph makes me think that, If you connect two leds directly to a 2Cell battery, it is crucial that the battery must not have too low resistance (steep voltage/current slope). So if you choose a big battery, say 2S10P will give you a very flat voltage/current slope, and the leds will likely burn off before that happens ? makes sense right= more cells, lower inner resistance, less ballast for the leds... I'm sure just a small ballast (resistor) would keep the current at bay compared to not having any at all..


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

OK will give it a try with a 2 cell pack and see if it is different .

managed to find some resistors but only .6 watt ones and wow they get pretty hot 
I shouldnt really have grabbed hold of it .


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

Well Have I got real good batteries cos just tried a 2 cell pack and it went to 3 amps and a little magic smoke escaped from the leds .:yikes: 
but not enough to stop the poor leds from working yet.


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## xyz-saft (Sep 23, 2010)

If you have several .6W resistors you can connect them 2s2p and the resistance will be the same but they will take 1.2W instead.


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## troutie-mtb (Sep 20, 2007)

xyz-saft said:


> If you have several .6W resistors you can connect them 2s2p and the resistance will be the same but they will take 1.2W instead.


Thanks I just tried that still got a bit warm but not flesh burning hot.

so would I be correct in thinking you would need to heat sink the resistor 
as it would be inside a housing .


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## tanner72 (Sep 28, 2008)

troutie-mtb said:


> Thanks I just tried that still got a bit warm but not flesh burning hot.
> 
> so would I be correct in thinking you would need to heat sink the resistor
> as it would be inside a housing .


It wouldn't hurt - I just made sure they were in good contact with the body.

You could use one of these kind which allow you to fix them to a sink using the hole:


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## Vancbiker (May 25, 2005)

tanner72 said:


> Hmmm might be something to do with the pack size?
> 
> I use a 2 cell 7.4v pack.
> 
> The first photo shows the pack fresh off the charger direct driving a pair of XPG's at 1.3A - the question is how accurate is my toy town meter! :???: I will rig up a Max or B Flex and check it against a known drive current this weekend.


If the meter was removed from the circuit, the current draw through the LEDs would increase. When you use the current setting on a multimeter, you are inserting a low ohm resistor in the circuit. The meter just measures the voltage drop across its internal resistor to calculate and display the current flow. Works fine for most measurements but gives misleading results when measuring devices that have very steep voltage to current curves like LEDs. Use a current clamp type meter to get slightly more accurate measurements. Take two turns of wire through the meter jaws and divide the reading by two to get a little better resolution at low currents.

edit: fixed spelling and clean up some grammar


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## uncle_bob (Jul 26, 2010)

*Thank you*

Found this tread the other day and thought in stead of sending my 2008 Ayups in to get upgraded I might give it a go myself.

I then ventured onto the Cutter sight purchased the appropriate Led (xpg x2) and some Regina reflectors, they are great to deal with by the way.

Meandered into JayCar bought some 1W 1 Ohm resistors, one for each light, dug out my trusty soldering iron and got to work.

I must say after little effort and no knowledge, except that skimmed from the post here, they came up a treat. They get a bit warm standing still, but should be fine when moving.

Thank you for the great information, it gives newbs like me the ability to create better lights for less. Only problem is that I think I may get hooked on lights now, I have decided to fix a nonfunctioning Nightflux light too.

I also have a mate with a lathe so stay tuned. It may not be pretty but at least it will be bright.


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## spence77 (May 14, 2011)

Very interested in this direct drive method for a small rear light (this a clip-on red reflector of some sort) running in low ~200mA, which could be run on high for a helmet light (remove red reflector).

But would it be possible to incorporate a simple flasher circuit (like the 1000's of curcuit on the web for running the 5mm low power LED) or will these burnout quickly when run with XPG's. was thinking of using 3-4 AA Nimh with a single XPG


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## uncle_bob (Jul 26, 2010)

Ok, for those interested, I took some beam shots of my modded ayups.
1. XPG R5 Regina with standard resistor ( forgot to look at the colours, so don't know the value)
2. XPG R5 Regina with 1w 1ohm resistor ( runs a little hotter and brighter but not hot enough to worry about)
3. Standard Ayup: XRE Medium optic.
Water bottles are at 10 metre intervals.
Hope this helps anyone wanting to upgrade their own.

cheers 
Simon


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## playpunk (Apr 1, 2005)

Has anyone done a mod like this more recently? I have some 09 aayups I want to mod.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## ausgt (Sep 9, 2004)

Me to but will need some instructions, and a list of bits


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## emu26 (Jun 23, 2008)

ay-up upgrade, have you contacted them?


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## ausgt (Sep 9, 2004)

Already had the upgade done, not that much different in my opinion. Really shows with other lights around they just dont cut it anymore.


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