LED Flasher Relay conundrum

[16VGTIDave]

This one has me stumped.

I have changed all the light bulbs on my Maxim to LED's. Including the instrument and indicator lights.

To get the turn signals to flash, I purchased an LED Flasher relay. It works just fine when I connect it to a battery and an LED turn signal bulb on the workbench. One bulb = flash flash flash...

However, when I install the relay in the bike, it won't flash unless an additional load, like a test light, is connected to the wires going to any of the 3 lights (front, rear, indicator) or to the wire from the flasher to the signal switch. If I install an incandecent bulb in one of the signal lights, the flasher works and all the bulbs are flashing brightly.

1 LED bulb on the bench and it works, 3 LED bulbs on the bike and it doesn't.

I thought it might be bad ground wires, so I connected a jumper from the battery negative to the bulb socket - with no change.

I'm out of ideas. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[bcware]

Which flasher did you buy?

 

[jmd_forest]

Disconnect your instrument signal bulb. Does it work now? On our 80 XS400 the instrument bulb cross feeds power to the opposite side signals and needed a little rewire with 2 diodes to make it work correctly. You could also try removing all the bulbs and reinstalling one by one to see if you can narrow down the problem to wiring with a particular socket. One more thought .... Any possibility you wired the flasher into the wiring harness incorrectly??

 

[16VGTIDave]

Not that it should matter, but it is a Grote LED Flasher relay. Sorry, I don't have the part number handy. Regardless, it works on the bench, but not on the bike. I can't figure out why.

On the Maxim, there are separate left and right indicator lights for the turn signals. I can't see how they could cause the problem I'm having, but I'll try it later today just to be sure.

 

[jmd_forest]

I have a single indicator bulb in the dash where originally each of the 2 wires going to the bulb feeds off the hot wire to the turn signal bulbs on each side. When one side blinks, the dash indicator bulb gets its voltage from that side and "grounds" through the turn signal bulbs on the opposite side. If you have a right and left indicator bulb in your dash that should not be the issue.

 

[jayel]

do you still have the turn signal canceller unit wired in? or maybe polarity on the flasher (Brown Brown/White) wires are wrong on the bikes plug in for your new flasher

 

[16VGTIDave]

do you still have the turn signal canceller unit wired in? or maybe polarity on the flasher (Brown Brown/White) wires are wrong on the bikes plug in for your new flasher

No, the flasher relay I used is a 2 pin with a separate ground wire. I'm fairly certain I have the polarity correct... Another thing to check.

Thanks!

Posted via Mobile

 

[bentwrench]

Something I found that was odd - the grounds from left and right have to fork before going to ground. I don't know what else is on the wiring harness to make it matter, but if you ground them separately, they don't work.

 

[16VGTIDave]

That is odd. This make me wonder if this problem is being caused by my conversion of the turn signals into marker lights and turn signals that are using 1157 bulbs.

My temporary fix has been to use standard incandescent 1157 bulbs in the front lamps.

Time for more experimenting. Thanks for the insight!

 

[bcware]

So, wait, using regular bulbs instead of LEDs fixes your problem? It has to be your flasher then.

 

[16VGTIDave]

Please re-read original post.

At the moment, to have the signals working, I'm using regular bulbs in the front signal lights. LED bulbs's in rear signals and indicators in the instrument cluster.

As I stated in my original post, the flasher works fine on the bench with a single LED bulb connected to a battery. When installed in the bike with LED's in all lights it won't flash, unless I add an additional load like a test light. The test light is more than enough load on it's own to get the flasher working. I'm using the same LED bulbs to test on the bench as I'm installing in the bike.

I'm baffled as to why one LED bulb works on the bench, but 3 in the bike won't. The only thing I can figure is that something in the system is feeding a slight voltage into the signal wiring and the flasher relay is not seeing the load of the LED bulbs and being triggered. I'm thinking it may be something related to the auto cancel system. More testing will be done...

 

[arfstrom]

Is that Cricket noise? this has been dead for a month, just figured I would kick it again,

I'm baffled as to why one LED bulb works on the bench, but 3 in the bike won't. The only thing I can figure is that something in the system is feeding a slight voltage into the signal wiring and the flasher relay is not seeing the load of the LED bulbs and being triggered. I'm thinking it may be something related to the auto cancel system. More testing will be done..

So the auto cancel system is connected to the speedometer, (right?) could that be your "slight voltage into the signal wiring?" did you find out what that irreguluatity was?

I am looking at doing the same thing, but my bike is a year older, and a little different, I will find my answer via the past blogs. I have been looking into this update for a year or so, Good luck

 

[ClaudeLynch]

This one has me stumped.

I have changed all the light bulbs on my Maxim to led lights. Including the instrument and indicator lights.

To get the turn signals to flash, I purchased an LED Flasher relay. It works just fine when I connect it to a battery and an LED turn signal bulb on the workbench. One bulb = flash flash flash...

However, when I install the relay in the bike, it won't flash unless an additional load, like a test light, is connected to the wires going to any of the 3 lights (front, rear, indicator) or to the wire from the flasher to the signal switch. If I install an incandecent bulb in one of the signal lights, the flasher works and all the bulbs are flashing brightly.

1 LED bulb on the bench and it works, 3 LED bulbs on the bike and it doesn't.

I thought it might be bad ground wires, so I connected a jumper from the battery negative to the bulb socket - with no change.

I'm out of ideas. Anyone have any thoughts?

Were you able to sort out the relay problem? i think you made good decision of changing all lights to led, hom much does it cost you?

 

[16VGTIDave]

Well, I eventually got it to work, but I can't say what was the fix. I've had the head light apart and cleaned all the connectors in there again, and then applied di-electric grease to them. I've also installed a module in the rear that allows my turnsignals to also operate as brake lights. The module has its own ground connection, so that may have helped.

The auto cancellation system has been disconnected on my bike for quite a while, it was driving me crazy turning off the signals just before I got to my turn...

As for cost, the flasher relay was $20, 6 x 1157 LED bulbs were $60, 4 x 1157 sockets were $8, the dash bulbs were around $10, and the wiring module was $10. The countless hours of labour, wires, heat shrink tubing, solder, etc I don't want to calculate... All for lights that look stock but are bright and draw virtually no power.

Was it worth it? Well, my idle doesn't surge and the headlight doesnt dim with the turnsignals now...