LED's and various lighting funkiness.

[headcase]

I've searched this entire section and there are a few threads that come close..but not quite. Several issues in the same basic area, so I hope someone can play detective here. I'll go chronologically.

A while back I deleted the self-cancel signal box. No problems at all, except that I will eventually get back into the harness to delete the wires that are no longer used. Any concerns with that?

Next up was changing the signal lamps and brake/taillight to led's. Tail/brake is fine. Front signals are fine. rears refuse to light led's, let alone blink. The bike came to me with Honda plastic rear signals, but they're single pin bulbs like the originals, one hot wire, one ground. Should be fine, right? I even switched polarity on the wires, but still no workie. So what I have currently is led's in the front and standard bulbs in the back, and they work. What's up with that?
I also changed the original 3-blade flasher unit (it was wonky to begin with, plus it was huge) to a smaller 2-blade vintage Ford can that works good. When the led's went in I expected the flasher to not work, so I tried the led flasher first that came with the order. I have yet to get it to work at ALL. I went back to the Ford unit, and it works again. As far as using resistors to get the standard flasher to work, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having led's? I did this to help the alternator out as much as possible. Even so, the rears won't even light with led's...round and round we go.

Part 3 of the wierdness is I also put led's in the tach and speedo (work fine) and center cluster between the two. Flasher indicator works fine. However the brake and headlight warning lamps are now lit full time. I think I know why the original bulbs were missing in those two sockets now. Why would those two be blazing away when the brake and headlight are obviously working? I'm thinking maybe all of this crap is tied together somehow and I'm just missing it.

I do have a serious headlight bucket-spaghetti-mess reduction session planned soon, even one or two wires less inside will make things easier to work on. The front signal relocation brackets are already mounted, and when I finally move the signals there I'll be simplifying the spaghetti as much as possible. Maybe even a small common ground block mounted inside of the bucket to get rid of the multiple 2-socket ground connectors hogging precious space in there.

Does anyone see any obvious booboos I can take the blame for? Or is something else going on? Thanks in advance for any brainstorming.

[richard]

It could be any number of things . The flasher issues could be related to lack of current draw. The front turn signal lamps are closer to the source of electrical power which is energized from your ignition switch.

I would test the rear LEDs with a 12 volt power source to make sure they light.

Autozone stocks a two prong flasher I recently bought for about $10 to replace the 552 I was using which failed when I got it wet. The package on the new flasher says EL12 Novita' Heavy duty Flasher. I noticed it has a capacitor in line which would help in a situation of low draw or bad ground. I must say on my all stock 71 it works great.

The other thing I would do is check the resistance and voltage of all you signal lamp wires to see if they all output the same voltage. Any variation could indicate bad ground or bad connection in the harness connectors. I replaced my 6 pin, 4 pin and 3 pin harness connectors with new ones from vintage Connections in Fremont, CA for that reason. You might be able to just clean yours. The difference between early connector and later connectors is the latch which holds male and female connectors together.

Yeah it doesn't make much since to me putting a resister in the line if it's going to make your current draw the same. Funny than the front would work and not the back. Distance from your switch is the only thing I can think. There's more voltage potential closer to the switch. Anything you can do to eliminate the resistance in the wires helps your charging system. Left turn front and back are on the same wire and the right turn front and back are on the same wire, as far as the flasher is concerned, so it may be that with the LED in line on the rear the resistance on left or right turn wire is just not enough to trip the electromagnetic flasher. make the connection to those rear lamps better so that there is enough voltage potential to light them, or get a flasher with a capacitor in it to create a the voltage spike with enough potential to light the LEDs. You can think of a capacitor as a battery which can only stores electricity for a very short time. It will store all of its capacity an discharge all of its capacity quicker than a battery ever could.

Well I guess the was a bit of a ramble.

[headcase]

Ramble on, sir. I've tested both rears with incandescent bulbs, and led's. They work fine on their own. I'm running the old bulbs right now and no problems whatsoever with blinking or brightness. Switch out the old for the new and absolutely zilch in the rear. The only flasher that will work with anything is the old car unit I have in it now, the new flasher specifically designed to run led's hasn't worked at all, no matter how I wire it up. I guess they just don't like me

[headcase]

And as far as the warning lights on the cluster....I can understand the tail/brake light led maybe setting off the warning light, but what gives with the headlight indicator? It looks to be the original headlight, and it's actually a really good one, wish I had that kind of illumination of the road in my car..it works that good. Low and high beam, yet the warning light is on nonstop. Thinking the entire harness should come out next fall for a thorough inspection and talking-to.

[richard]

Well the head light warning was put there in case your low beam went out. The power would automatically switch your high beam on so that nothing was interrupted as you were driving at night. The module for that is under the seat right behind your battery. I still have the module on my 1980, but they have been known to fail, so a lot of people recommend jumper-ing the wires and eliminated the module. I have yet to do it on the 80. There is an electromagnetic relay that cuts the head light until your engine has started. It recompletes the circuit to the headlight when it sees power from your generator windings. Your problem with the head light warning might be the contacts in that electromagnetic relay or the warning module. When mine wouldn't work it was the electromagnetic relay. I'm not 100 percent sure, but as I remember it might be the center of the three relays. I jumpered around the headlight warning module and no change so I went back to checking the electromagnetic relay and found power in, but no power out, even when I energized the sensing lead of The relay. That is how I discovered it to be the source of the problem, and not the warning module.

So in your case on the warning lights I would test to make sure your grounds are where they should be. Next I would temporarily jumper out the headlight warning module to see if the warning lights go out. I have also noticed on the special models that the engine has to be running a lot of times for the blinkers to work rapidly, or blink at all on some bikes. You could try the turns with the charger running on the battery to see if the extra volt or two makes a difference? I would also pop the two prong Molex off the flasher and check the voltage there.. with the turn selected on the bar switch (both left and right) to see what voltage you are getting at the flasher. Anything less than equal to your battery voltage indicates resistance in the turn circuit. If the flasher circuit voltage checks out then I would check the voltage of each of the rear turn bulb sockets with the flasher pulsing. Voltage there should be pretty much the same as the battery voltage too. Your battery voltage should be around 12-13 volts with the engine off. It should be about 14-15 with the engine running over an idle.

Of course if your charging system is putting out over 15 volts for very long you've got a problem. My 71 will put out close to 15 volts for the first five minutes after the bike hasn't been run in a while. I think the volt meter on that one may be a little off to the high side.

[headcase]

Thanks for the input, Richard. I'll keep this post handy for when I finally tear into the harness.