Do Underglow LED Strip Kits Drain Batteries?

You may want to be sure whether underglow LED strip kits drain batteries.

Truth be told, they may drain motorcycles’ batteries in some cases.

However, it is possible to avoid by improving the kits’ design.

Below, we will tell you the 2 most important causes for this issue.

• And how DITRIO’s LED strip kits minimize their risk – theoretically speaking, completely eliminate the possibility if properly used.

1. Why Underglow Kits Drain Batteries

1). Circuit boards use battery on standby

Typically, underglow LED strip kits for motorcycles have wireless control methods – by IR remotes, RF remotes, or Bluetooth on your phones. When you turn a kit off by the remote or your phone, you don’t see the LED strips give out light anymore.

However, if you don’t turn the kit off with a mechanical kill switch, then the circuit board is still using the battery of your bike. The circle board keeps using a small amount of battery to stand by so that it receives the signal when you turn the strips on again.

It is difficult to tell exactly how long the LED strip kit will drain the batteries of motorcycles if you don’t use a mechanical kill switch to cut off the power supply completely. It depends on the circuit boards’ design and the status of the batteries.

2). Mechanical switches malfunction

Unfortunately, it is still possible to have your battery drained even if you use a mechanical switch. This is because the switch may not be working properly. As a result, the LED strip kit keeps using an excessive amount of battery on standby.

It’s common for underglow LED strip kits to come with a simple mechanical kill switch, but not really well designed and well made. Motorcycles have severe working conditions – moisture, rain, and even liquid water when you wash with a spraying gun.

The metal components inside are usually thin, and they are likely to malfunction due to the rust resulting from moisture and water. Especially, the failed spring may not bounce properly to cut off the power supply.

We’ve tried to obtain a failed sample from a customer and opened the switch for an investigation into the failure. We can see clearly how the metal components have become.

2. Tests for Battery Usage

We have done some tests to simulate the standby with our underglow kits. And the tests use a new battery for motorcycles with rated parameters DC 12V, 7AH.

• First, we fully charge the battery, and leave it alone for at least 1 hour. Usually, the voltage reads 13.0 – 13.2V on a multimeter.
• Next, we connect a complete set of our underglow LED strip kit to the battery. Then turn it on and make sure everything works before turning it off again to stand by via the remote.
• During the days for such tests, we use a multimeter to test the remaining voltage between the positive and the negative of the battery from time to time.
• Generally speaking, the remaining battery reads approximately 12.3 – 12.5V after 5 – 7 days.
• We prefer not to drain this battery sample, so we didn’t verify the maximum of days when the battery’s voltage goes down to 12V.

Through the results, we can estimate our LED strip kits won’t drain the battery if you don’t cut off the power supply completely by the mechanical switch and leave it for several days.

However, we always recommend that it’d be better to turn the LED strip kit off by the mechanical switch after you turn it off by the remote.

3. Our Optimized Solution

As mentioned above, it is still possible to drain the battery of your bike, even if you use a mechanical switch to turn the underglow kit off, because the mechanical switch doesn’t have good quality components and waterproof housing.

To further minimize the risk of battery drain, DITRIO has moved one more step forward. We’ve picked a much better push button and designed a new waterproof housing with special plastic ejection technologies.

• The push button has better components inside – copper plates and a stainless steel spring, which are also much thicker. Therefore, they are more reliable.
• We’ve tested this new push button with an automatic device, which replaces a human’s finger to press the button repeatedly. The push button still works perfectly when the counter reaches 50,000 rounds.
• The waterproof housing has 2 layers of ejection plastics – The first layer is to cover the push button inside, and the second layer is to complete the design with an outer housing.

Therefore, we can make sure the push button inside is reliable for repeated pressing, and the switch is waterproof for underglow LED strip kits on motorcycles. And two of our LED strip kits – M12r and M18r-T – come with this unique switch in the sales package.

In this way, DITRIO’s underglow LED strip kits can help you avoid the most important causes of motorcycle battery draining.