Givi E41 and E52 luggage modifications

Recently, I bought a 2004 Vstrom DL650 that came with Givi luggage: E41 side cases and an E52 top case.

Givi E41 side cases come with a red lens on the lid.



That red lens has behind it...
...a piece of glossy white paper.

This doesn't do much for conspicuity. I decided to fix that.

Using the paper as a template, I cut out pieces of 3M SOLAS tape (the gray stuff in the photo) to match the shape.

Notice the hole in the middle of the insert. It's there because the lens has a post on the inner side:

that accepts a screw through a hole on the inside of the case lid:

(sorry, no picture of screw) to hold the lens in place.

This is the "socket" for the lens, on the outside of the case lid, with lens removed:

The nubbins/nipples/protrusions in the floor of the socket serve to hold the white paper against the lens when installed. Good idea, poor result though.

Someone is probably wondering "why didn't you simply line the lens socket with the SOLAS tape?" You could do that, but I didn't because:

1) I tried that with my old Kappa K48 top case, which had a huge red lens. It didn't work all that well. The paper insert for the E41 lens holds the SOLAS tape right up to the inner surface of the lens, maximizing the amount of light that gets reflected. Putting the tape in the "socket" for the lens would reduce the effectiveness.

2) SOLAS tape is a PITA to work with. Once it sticks, you can't reposition it without destroying it, and the stuff is not cheap. It was way easier to use the paper inserts as templates, tracing their shape on the back of the strip of SOLAS, then cutting that out with scissors & sticking that to the template to use as an insert. I did fine trimming with the razor knife. My tape job isn't perfect, but you can't tell once it's behind the lens.

Took some photos last night to try to show the difference that it makes to have the red lens backed by the SOLAS reflective tape. Here's a photo of the back of my Vstrom with the E41's mounted. Case on left is unmodified. Case on right has the reflective tape behind the lens.

With no more than ambient light, I can't tell a difference. The right side is in shadow due to a vehicle parked in the driveway.

Add flash and HUGE difference. Right lens lights up quite a bit.

A flash from 6 feet away is brighter than car headlights would be, but you get the idea. 3M SOLAS tape is stupidly reflective.

That bright white area at the right edge of the photo is from my FJR. The side cases have large patches of reflective material applied. I didn't install them, but I think previous owner may have got them from here:


I'm probably going to grab a couple more of their products to make my FJR even more obnoxiously visible at night.

Regarding the E52 top case: Note that the red lens on the E52 top case doesn't light up much in either photo. It's backed with the same glossy white paper as the E41 lenses. I have a plan to fix that as well.

FWIW, another solution for the E41's is (or was) the Admore E41 LED lighting kit:


It's out of stock though. I would guess it's not coming back, as Givi E41's went out of production years ago, so there's probably not much demand.

That out-of-stock situation is one reason why I cooked up this idea with the reflective tape. Also, I didn't care to spend quite that much.

As for the E52 top case: Givi does offer an "official" lighting kit. However it isn't that great:
It only does a brake light function, with two arrays of small incandescent bulbs.

Admore sells an E52 lighting kit that is much better. It uses a bunch of LEDs in four banks to be much brighter, and to add turn signal repeaters to the tail & brake light functions:
I'm planning to buy and install one and will document that here.

Admore no longer offers a plug-n-play wiring kit for the 2004 Vstrom (if they ever did) so I'll be buying a tail light hook-in adapter from Eastern Beaver to handle that. The Admore lighting kit does come with Posi-Taps, but I don't want to poke holes in the factory wiring if I don't have to.

Another reason I'm using the EB adapter: the tail light wiring in the 2004 DL650 has almost NO slack. I need to add some length to tap it for the E52 lighting kit.

With the Admore E52 kit installed, I may also back the red lens with 3M SOLAS. I haven't opened up the E52 lenses yet, but would not be surprised if they also had white paper inserts.