2015 USA pcx 150 made in Vietnam

[pcx man]

Just got back from my local Honda shop here in Ohio and they had a 2015 pcx. It said on the vin plate made in Veitnam. The turn signals are built into the body, bigger tail light and a little body reshaping. It was the peral white and looks good. I hope the build quality is just as good as the 2013. Also checked out the seat and I don't think it will bolt onto the 2013 model. It has a totally different under seat storage tub.

[iceman]

Despite a few members on this forum having build issues with early models supplied to dealers in the UK (at least two forum members had major issues straight out the door of the dealer), the new model seems as reliable as you would expect and hopefully improves on the old model for some things i.e. leds lights (last longer), bigger tank, tweaked ECU, etc.

[gn2]

LED lights don't always last longer in vehicles because the vibrations and shocks can break them.
And they can be extremely expensive to replace.

[Valiant]

LED lights don't always last longer in vehicles because the vibrations and shocks can break them.
And they can be extremely expensive to replace.

http://www.oveready.com/a-engines-heads ... d_165.html

I think if a small shop can figure out how to make flashlights suitable to be mounted on firearms, Honda techs shouldn't have much trouble putting in enough shock dampeners to handle bumps on the road.

[gn2]

Firearms?
wtf has that got to do with lights on a scooter?
They do fail, I've seen it with mine own eyes, and they are expensive.
Just pop into your local Honda dealer and ask them how much replacement led units cost for the new PCX.

[Valiant]

Firearms?
wtf has that got to do with lights on a scooter?

My apologies, I was laboring under the delusion that recoil from a high caliber firearm induces more "shock" than hitting a pothole on the road.

They do fail, I've seen it with mine own eyes, and they are expensive.

I don't doubt that they're more expensive, but would they fail more often than a standard bulb? I figure anything that shocks the LED enough to fail is going to shatter a bulb easily.

In any case, I've heard of people switching from incan/HID to LEDs for all sorts of vehicles, but never the reverse, so I personally think the risk is negligible if people aren't bitching about the costs.

Just pop into your local Honda dealer and ask them how much replacement led units cost for the new PCX.

I'm thinking a couple hundred minimum.

[Tribpreper]

LEDs are made to be use specific. In TVs they are not resistant to vibration but they must be extremely color and luminosity accurate. In Chinese flashlights, they need only be cheap. Their use in motor vehicles has reached, oh, say...their adolescent phase. Low power emitters for interior use have only become reliable at the target price in the last few years. Heat is the killer for high power LEDs. Bleeding off that heat or making them produce less heat, is the trick. LEDs do not fail suddenly (well, unless there is a manufacturing flaw) as filaments do in incandescents, rather, heat degrades the LED junction, decreasing ouput. LEDs degrade by losing luminosity. Testing with control groups has determined that in home and office environments, 30% depreciation in output is about the maximum tolerable to the group. I have no idea what at what level Honda's control group found the decrease in output to be intolerable, but I guarantee that Honda knows.
Sure , LEDs have a long life. But at what point in their service life will we decide to replace them?

[gn2]

The simple fact is that LEDs designed for use in vehicles (and specifically in scooters) and fitted by manufacturers as original equipment (not sourced by owners from eBay ) do fail.
And they can be very expensive to replace when they do.
But do I have details of failure rates?
No.
Should it put you off buying a new PCX?
No.

[Valiant]

Damn right it won't put me off .
If it burns out, I'll only have an excuse to go over to candlepowerforums and see if I can't have a custom(and more powerful ) array made with a pure copper heatsink .

[Tribpreper]

Actually, aluminum would work better than copper for most parts of an LED heatsink.
Copper conducts heat. Aluminum dissipates heat. That is the main reason automotive radiators are made of aluminum - In addition to: cost, weight, supply, malleability, storage, etc.

[Valiant]

Wouldn't that also depend on whether or not the heatsink itself has someplace to dissipate the heat to? I'll certainly say that I'm not an engineer, so I'm not sure what the heatsink would attach to, and whether or not there's any airflow there. Another caveat emptor is that my limited experience is with high powered handheld flashlights, which only have to be on for less than 10 minutes, and are probably only a third as powerful as car headlights(1000 lumens OTF).

Granted, if the heatsink itself is large enough(again, small handheld flashlight, so my heatsink is about a cubic inch or less), then the material used probably doesn't matter given that it would have enough mass to draw heat away from the emitter. Though I DO believe that some of the more efficient emitters available(XPG2, XML) would probably be an upgrade over the stock emitter, and you could pick out a better tint for better color rendition. I've never found anything stock from the factory to be satisfactory, as I think even a smear of Arctic Silver heat conducting paste would help a lot with heat conduction(stuff works great when applied properly).

But it may be possible to get the best of both worlds. In flashlights, the body is typically aluminum, and the copper heatsink conducts heat away to the aluminum body, so perhaps a hybrid would do well.

[Tribpreper]

A good friend is an engineer with a company that fits specialty copper, I'll ask him about that when I see him for brews in a couple of weeks. He should at least have an inkling about hybridization of metals. I know I don't! Though we've discussed it on occasion.

Your point about venting is intriguing. Lets see; the PCX headlight and turn signals are LED, right? So, for the longest life, there should be some airflow. I wonder if integrating the turn signals allowed just such venting - headlight too. Hopefully in a week or so, my unit should be here and I will make it a point to make a determination.

I would love to know what candela the PCX throws on high. They may have a proprietary emitter and, we are the guinea pigs...
Are they using two LEDs, one for high one for low? Nahhhh, cost too much.
So many questions, so many neurons!

[you you]

Actually, aluminum would work better than copper for most parts of an LED heatsink.
Copper conducts heat. Aluminum dissipates heat. That is the main reason automotive radiators are made of aluminum - In addition to: cost, weight, supply, malleability, storage, etc.

All metals conduct and disparate heat. Car radiators used to be made out of copper, aluminium is cheaper and lighter.

[Tribpreper]

All metals conduct and disparate heat. Car radiators used to be made out of copper, aluminium is cheaper and lighter.

Radiators are still made of copper/brass.

Yes all metals conduct and disperse heat. Some more so than others. Manganese, of which my well water is overly abundant, is a metal, and among the poorest thermal conductors. And, while aluminum is cheaper in the short term, copper/brass is cheaper in the long term because copper/brass can be repaired. Aluminum can't - mostly. Hence the reason that commercial, aftermarket, and racing radiators are made of copper/brass.

Radiator choice is not so simple as one metal being a superior conductor. Were that the case, race cars would have diamond radiators, diamond being the finest thermal conductor available. But then there is the prohibitive cost, even for racing! Diamond conducts thermally by vibrational waves rather than electron movement as in copper and aluminum.
Yes, the lower weight of aluminum is a the main factor. However, aluminum is stronger metal than copper, thus allowing wider tubes providing a greater surface area for cooling. Also, the solder used on copper is an insulator, whereas the welds used on aluminum are a conductor.

In summation, building anything is a compromise. For mass produced automotive radiators, it's $ / K.

Have a great day!

[DAB]

Copper conducts heat. Aluminum dissipates heat.

Heat flows from high to low, independent of metal used. Some flow faster and some slower, it's called Thermal Conductivity.

[Tribpreper]

Allow me to rephrase:
Copper conducts heat better than aluminum.
Aluminum dissipates heat better than copper.

Sorry for not being more explicit.

[Alibally]

So aluminium is better for radiators then if that's the case.

[you you]

So aluminium is better for radiators then if that's the case.

I want a diamond one