pcguru000 Posted August 26, 2010 Posted August 26, 2010 Alright- installed a R1 integrated tail on my seca 2- worked great for 3 weeks. Finally got a pair of led flush mounts- installed on the front... Now when I hit the switch left I get 4 ways... all lights blinking... and if I hit the switch right, the left front blinks and the right rear blinks HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN. Seriously I am at a loss now- I bought a new relay thinking perhaps it was shot... a nice new one built for LEDS ( I did have resistors in before but that seems to make no difference) Testing the power to the back lights is strange... if I disconnect the set of wires running to the tail/rear signals the whole system stops- relay stops firing etc... HOWEVER after testing the pins for the signals I found there is 6 volts on the left and right wire if switched left (turn signal switch on handle bar) and 6 volts ONLY on the right if switched right. 6 volts? Not sure if its of any consequence but the two running lights wires are just hanging not connected... sealed but not connected... could that effect it? Is there a simple way I could just avoid all of this? Wire my own setup?
Moderator Cynic Posted August 26, 2010 Moderator Posted August 26, 2010 Alright- installed a R1 integrated tail on my seca 2- worked great for 3 weeks. Finally got a pair of led flush mounts- installed on the front... Now when I hit the switch left I get 4 ways... all lights blinking... and if I hit the switch right, the left front blinks and the right rear blinks HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN. Seriously I am at a loss now- I bought a new relay thinking perhaps it was shot... a nice new one built for LEDS ( I did have resistors in before but that seems to make no difference) Testing the power to the back lights is strange... if I disconnect the set of wires running to the tail/rear signals the whole system stops- relay stops firing etc... HOWEVER after testing the pins for the signals I found there is 6 volts on the left and right wire if switched left (turn signal switch on handle bar) and 6 volts ONLY on the right if switched right. 6 volts? Not sure if its of any consequence but the two running lights wires are just hanging not connected... sealed but not connected... could that effect it? Is there a simple way I could just avoid all of this? Wire my own setup? Ok, this is getting more and more common. Not sure on the one front one rear thing but for now, may just be more resistance in those units:- The reason is to do with the bike's wiring. On a bike with normal filament bulbs in the indicators there is a power draw of obviously 42 watts (plus a bit for losses) this needs power ie amps to make it happen. Bit of ohms law and we know your using 3.5 amps or thereabouts. The 3.5 amps is the key to the problem, LED lamps use milliamps to power them and this is the cause. The little bulb in the dash lights up when you turn left or right. It is actually connected to both left and right circuits on the bike but due to the vagaries of electricity there will not be enough power after the dash lamp (it only draws around 1/2 amp or less)to power the othr indicators so the electric just runs to earth through the filaments but doesent actually light them up, (we need 3.5A for that remember) With the LED lamps its different, they only need milliamps to make them work so when the dash lamp earths through the opposite side to that which you want, the 1/2 amp or so thats running to earth will happily power them up. Giving a 4 way flasher effect. You have a couple of options, fitting diodes like the rectifiers on early trailee's like mine. One side of the dash lamp would have BOTH feeds to it via the diodes with the other to earth. (My personall favorite soloution). You could fit resistors to each side of the dash lamp. Not sure how big you need them as you may affect how bright the little dash lamp is. Or simply fit another dash lamp so you have one for the left and one for the right. The easiest method for now is to take the bulb out the dash. As this simple action splits the connection between the circuits. Then the problem can wait till MOT time if need be.
pcguru000 Posted August 26, 2010 Author Posted August 26, 2010 Absolutely genius- don't know why i didn't think of that... ive been staring at the wiring diagram for three days thinking ... there must be something goofy here.. It never occurred to me but DUH- on my 250 i had separate signal indicators- here there's just one... power sneaks through it and hits the leds on the other side... makes perfect sense... It also explains why the one side is sometimes a little bit duller- the LEDS doesn't get quite enough power... ONLY problem now is that I think i nuked the relay i just bought.... lol waiting a lot of $ on this project... but really need working signals.
pcguru000 Posted August 26, 2010 Author Posted August 26, 2010 DAMNIT! Didnt work. Not sure whats up- I got a new relay... the other one was working before... then suddenly stopped this morning... this relay is doing the same thing. First I tested to see if I could get the relay to work- its nothing... the switch seems dead... nothing changes when I switch it. Then I removed the indicator bulb from the dash- I sealed the plug with some electrical tape... still nothing- I think something else broke... what should I be lookin for? I checked fuses! They are fine. What could this be- the switch is now totally dead... should I open it up again and look to see if there is something burnt? I just dont know... how could it have changed... This is extremely annoying. lol - luckily though the advanced auto replaced the relay i bought for free... im under the impression though that the relay was not broken... again something else is shot...where should I begin the search.
pcguru000 Posted August 27, 2010 Author Posted August 27, 2010 Turns out after searching the whole bike I found a resistor that was soldered onto the circuit board of the integrated tail I have had broken free... it was jumping around and making bad connections all over... Re soldered it all back together and now its working great through and through. Just a good point to make I think- regardless of the fact that I installed front turn signals AND THEN I had problems- does not mean that the front turn signals were actually the problem... although doing something causes X - and thus undoing that something usually fixes the problem... SOMETIMES the issue comes from something entirely different.... on the opposite end of the bike.. for no damn reason. But hey- +1 to electrician and troubleshooting skills :> ALSO - going to install the indicator light in the dash again just to test that out. If it does cause 4 way blinking, I think putting a LED indicator light in should do the trick.
Moderator Cynic Posted August 27, 2010 Moderator Posted August 27, 2010 Turns out after searching the whole bike I found a resistor that was soldered onto the circuit board of the integrated tail I have had broken free... it was jumping around and making bad connections all over... Re soldered it all back together and now its working great through and through. Just a good point to make I think- regardless of the fact that I installed front turn signals AND THEN I had problems- does not mean that the front turn signals were actually the problem... although doing something causes X - and thus undoing that something usually fixes the problem... SOMETIMES the issue comes from something entirely different.... on the opposite end of the bike.. for no damn reason. But hey- +1 to electrician and troubleshooting skills :> ALSO - going to install the indicator light in the dash again just to test that out. If it does cause 4 way blinking, I think putting a LED indicator light in should do the trick. Glad to hear you sorted it.
pcguru000 Posted August 30, 2010 Author Posted August 30, 2010 Glad to hear you sorted it. Yeh really, me 2. Also- just throwing it out there... installing the indicator in the dash does cause some very SLIGHT power to sneak through, however it happens in the tail light (as this seems to be the first to get power)... when turning left the right turn signal will flicker very very faintly- you have to focus to see it. I am going to put one of these in for the turn signal indicator: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2FWLED-x.htm I am already using 3 blue leds like these for the gauges, getting a green one for the neutral light, blue for high beams, red for oil. should be set.
Moderator Cynic Posted September 1, 2010 Moderator Posted September 1, 2010 Yeh really, me 2. Also- just throwing it out there... installing the indicator in the dash does cause some very SLIGHT power to sneak through, however it happens in the tail light (as this seems to be the first to get power)... when turning left the right turn signal will flicker very very faintly- you have to focus to see it. I am going to put one of these in for the turn signal indicator: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2FWLED-x.htm I am already using 3 blue leds like these for the gauges, getting a green one for the neutral light, blue for high beams, red for oil. should be set. You will need 2, one for the left and one for the right. The ordinary bulb dont care which way the eleccy goes. Right side to left or the other way. LED's, well those above anyway, only work in one direction so you would need to wire them in a bridge. So the LED's are connected together + to - at each side,no not a typo the positive of one to the negative of the other. Sounds confusing, then put your bike wiring, one wire to each +/ - connection. Then whichever way you indicate an led will light. But the polarity will mean only one will light. And stop the bleed over. Need someone better with electronic stuff for this.
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