neutral light blinks

[Guest]

I noticed today when I had my turn signals on that the neutral light was blinking also, it would stay green but I could tell it was pulsating. Any ideas?

[chef1366]

At an idle very normal.
Check your voltage at the battery at idle.

[Mekanix]

Yup a few ideas

1 low voltage at the ignition switch, or if your battery is low that would do it too.

I say ignition switch because you could have 13 v at the battery and only 10 or 11 at the red wire on the ignition switch when the bike is idling and the lights are on and blinking.

Reving the engine does compensate for low voltage but doesn't fix the problem.

If your want to troubleshoot it, Id suggest:

Start the engine, high beam on, turn signal OFF ( for now)

check your battery voltage, keep that number in mind.

Check your voltage at the red wire at the key switch and then check the voltage at the orange wire while your there.

Is there a big difference between the batt and either of the red and orange wires? ? There shouldn't be. However with the wiring on these bikes there is allot of voltage drop and current loss so sometimes there can be a big difference.

If there is no difference then its just a matter of too low of voltage at the battery or dirty connections. ( Or you could switch them all over to LED's that take less than 0.05 amps and never see a blink again)


If you do see a big difference then Id suggest finding the source of current loss or replace the wire from the fuse to the key switch.


I'm saying all of this because I just replaced that wire on mine with something almost double the gage and now nothing dim's ever unless the battery is close to dead.


hope this helps

Or if you don't want to troubleshoot. yes its normal but it shouldn't be too dramatic, Just slight dimming.

[posplayr]

Yup a few ideas

1 low voltage at the ignition switch, or if your battery is low that would do it too.

I say ignition switch because you could have 13 v at the battery and only 10 or 11 at the red wire on the ignition switch when the bike is idling and the lights are on and blinking.

Reving the engine does compensate for low voltage but doesn't fix the problem.

If your want to troubleshoot it, Id suggest:

Start the engine, high beam on, turn signal OFF ( for now)

check your battery voltage, keep that number in mind.

Check your voltage at the red wire at the key switch and then check the voltage at the orange wire while your there.

Is there a big difference between the batt and either of the red and orange wires? ? There shouldn't be. However with the wiring on these bikes there is allot of voltage drop and current loss so sometimes there can be a big difference.

If there is no difference then its just a matter of too low of voltage at the battery or dirty connections. ( Or you could switch them all over to LED's that take less than 0.05 amps and never see a blink again)


If you do see a big difference then Id suggest finding the source of current loss or replace the wire from the fuse to the key switch.


I'm saying all of this because I just replaced that wire on mine with something almost double the gage and now nothing dim's ever unless the battery is close to dead.


hope this helps

Or if you don't want to troubleshoot. yes its normal but it shouldn't be too dramatic, Just slight dimming.

think you are correct that it is voltage drops that are caused by resistance, but I think most of that resistance is due to connection. The poor connections are usually corroded crimps and poor contacta in bullet connections.

Some of the primay supply and return wires are a little under sized, but if those runs are kept relatively short (1 foot) then the split current paths are adequate to support the current.

[Mekanix]

Some of the primay supply and return wires are a little under sized, but if those runs are kept relatively short (1 foot) then the split current paths are adequate to support the current.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there on the length.

Unless you mean just the red and black from the RR to ground and the battery. then yes they are just enough but I'd prefere bigger


Coming from the battery the power wire goes 5 feet to the ignition.

from there it gets switched to the orange wire which goes 6 feet to brake pedal switch and then gets spliced with another orange wire that goes back up the harness another 5 feet and then

It splices to all the other orange wires that supply electricity to everything.

Each of those spliced wires ( 4 in to 1) go another 3 feet to where ever they go,


thats 16 feet of 18 gauge wire before you get power to anything.


Put it this way just to get from your battery to your ignitor is another run up and down the harness and it is


25 Feet No wonder we need the coil mod

[posplayr]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there on the length.

Unless you mean just the red and black from the RR to ground and the battery. then yes they are just enough but I'd prefere bigger


Coming from the battery the power wire goes 5 feet to the ignition.

from there it gets switched to the orange wire which goes 6 feet to brake pedal switch and then gets spliced with another orange wire that goes back up the harness another 5 feet and then

It splices to all the other orange wires that supply electricity to everything.

Each of those spliced wires ( 4 in to 1) go another 3 feet to where ever they go,


thats 16 feet of 18 gauge wire before you get power to anything.


Put it this way just to get from your battery to your ignitor is another run up and down the harness and it is


25 Feet No wonder we need the coil mod

I have traced out the 82/83 GS1100E , the 80-83 GS750E's , the GS550's as well as some others that have come up and there is a circuitous current path due to having the main ignition switch at the front of the bike and the fuse box/battery/R-R at the back. The connections that have the most sensitivity to resistance are those between the R/R and the battery. Those connection need to be below 0.05 ohms!!! (i.e. 10 amps times 0.05 ohms = 0.5 volt drop total)

Using the link below:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

The 16 gauge wire is 4.016 ohms/1000 ft
and
The 18 gauge wire is 6.385 ohms/1000 ft.

IIRC the primary wire are either 16 or 18. On the positive side is much longer because they run from R/R battery to the ignition switch and back.
The ground sides share alot of current so any single wire carrying 10 amps will be pretty short.

So at most I'll assume we have at most 4 ft (2 ft to and 2ft back) of wire between R/R and Battery

With 10amps of current flow

If we use a total of 4 feet of 16 gauge wire is 0.016 ohms which would give 0.16V total voltage drop.

If we use a total of 4 feet of 18 gauge wire is 0.025 ohms which would give 0.25V total voltage drop.

So if the connections are all good then 16 of 18 gauge is adequate. Personally if I was replacing those wires I would go 14 Gauge and keep them short because my total budget for voltage drop is at most 0.5V and losing 1/2 of that in the wire is not a good stating point.

The next most sensitive circuit is the ignition circuit. Yes this probably has 3 legs back-front-back so call it 15 feet of 18 gauge carrying 7 amps for ignition. I came up with a 0.67 volt drop. This is acceptable as the voltage drop in the igniter is about 1.2V and dropping 2 volts at 14.5 is still 12.5V (across the coil) running down the road.

Many GSs suffer much worse that this and it is the connection not the 0.7V drop of the copper. You have to remember that as these bikes left the factory, many were fully functional and operated according to manufacturers specification. The issues arose with corrosion and degradation of connection and not degradation of the wire. That is why I say most of the wiring is adequate.

I do agree though that at least the primary leads should be 14 gauge and the runs from front to back should be reduced using relay mods specifically like the Coil relay mod. Others find it necessary to do similar for lights and horns. If those are upgraded to higher power it is probably warranted.

I just did an "OPEN HARNESS SURGERY" on my ED harness last weekend. I pulled the new harness apart to get at the primary power connections between R/R-Battery and Fuse box. It would be nice is those wires were 14 gauge; I replaced them as such when warranted. I also soldered the crimps at three points in the harnes (red wire between battery and R/R at the "T", black white grounds and the Orange/Green circuit)

The biggest issue was the dumb bullet connector running from fusebox to battery + that was contributing to a 0.4V drop from R/R(+) to Battery(+). After modifications I had less than 0.1V total drops on both positive and negative side at 5K RPM.