LED turn signal, strange issue...?

[PsychoRallye]

So I posted this over in my rebuild thread, but no bites, so I figured I'd ask here...

I replaced all my stock incandescent turn signals with LEDs. I know that the LEDs do not draw enough to get the stock relay to "flash". Not surprisingly, when the stock relay is installed, the turn signal switch turns on the appropriate side's signals - no flash. Great, as expected.

Put in an eBay "LED Turn Signal Relay" (I have two, tried them both) relay, and now nothing works. The relay is supposed to be designed to handle low draw items such as the LED lights.. but still handle up to 20A. (it has printed on it: CF13JL02 FLASHER FOR LED, 12V/0.02A-20A)

The relay has 49, 49a and 31. per the attached, this makes sense. Since my factory harness is expecting a 2 wire relay, the 3rd pole goes to ground... it should work. But.. nada. Not even lighting up the side selected, never mind a flash.

Could this be related to the cluster and the signal indicators somehow? I don't think my bike has a self-canceling turn indicator (it never cancelled for me and has 3 positions, L, R or OFF).

Thoughts? What am I missing?

 

[cowboyup3371]

Why don't you go to Pep Boys, Autozone, or OReilly's and pick up a newer flasher? See the Electrical Odds and Ends section on Basscliff's site for instructions.

 

[PsychoRallye]

The relay I have is new.. how would going to Autozone help? Basscliff's site only discusses a relay replacement for incandescent bulbs.. not LEDs...

 

[cowboyup3371]

Check out this thread...

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=161958&highlight=LED+relay

 

[Bustedknuckles]

i had the same exact issue... i replaced all of my signals with shorty clear lens LED's (cheap ebay junk)... wired up to the factory flasher they wouldnt flash... so i bought an aftermarket flasher meant for LED's and it still wouldnt work...

after looking around a bit and not having any success i ended up splurging and buying more expensive higher quality LED's (also larger and brighter)... wired those in, and they worked with the aftermarket flasher...

after some closer inspection of the cheap LED's i realized that the actual Diodes themselves were about half the size of the nicer LED's and there were also about half as many... dont know if this is correct but the wimpy nature of the cheap LED's may have added to the lack of power draw making it harder for the flasher to work properly... The nicer LED's were pretty beefy compared to the cheap ones and i think that may have contributed to them actually working... again i could be completely wrong about this, its just speculation... all i can tell you is what happened to me, what worked, and what didnt...

check out this website>> www.radiantz.com << its where i got my "beefed up LED's" and also where ive gotten various other LED products...

 

[PsychoRallye]

Cowboy and Busted.. thanks guys. I'll experiment a little tomorrow. Worst case I'll try temporarily adding a load to the lines to see if that really is the issue. Who the heck knows?

The post link tells something of the same deal.. so thanks!! Sometimes I think the search function doesnt like me.. I never saw that one HAHA

 

[PsychoRallye]

Ok so I played a bit more.

I can get the flashers to flash now, even at the right rate, if I put 3ohms to ground (seems low, doesnt it?) by putting two 50watt 6ohm resistors in parallel to ground from the relay flash line (the "output" of the relay to the flasher switch).

Yet, somehow not all the LED light up. 2 manufacturers, 6 different lights. On the turn signals themselves only like 4 of the 20 LED light up. On the in-mirror LEDs, only one half lights up.

Could I have polarity wrong?

And does 3 ohms sound right?

And more disturbingly, does the relay always flicker? I mean, I hear it clickity clickity away even when the turn switch isn't activating the signals on either side.. just less pronounced. Harumph.

More questions than answers!! Sigh.





ps - Got the new relay to work as well as the old. Had the color codes wrong - the two pins on the relay are reversed on the new one. That issue aside.

 

[PsychoRallye]

Barf.

Barf.

And the saga continues. Sigh.

So. I now have two situations. And one big question. Anyone have a diagram for the INSIDE of my cluster? I vaguely recall the kid who sold me the bike telling me he replaced the lights in the cluster with LEDs - I have never opened it... couldn't tell if he did some, all, none. Does anyone have a circuit diagram for it? I'm wondering if the turn indicators on the cluster are messing with the circuit.

I do not have self canceling signals, BTW.

So I can get the signals to flash at roughly the correct rate, if I put a resistor to ground on the output of the relay. This however, presumably from leakage through the relay (or the cluster, hence my question above), is hyperfast clicking 100% of the time, even when neither signal is activated. When I do this though, the voltage to the LEDs isnt enough to light all of them, so they are more dim.

I can put a resistor inline and get hyperfast flash, but they all light up.

Can't win.

Tried the stock relay - no dice, it never notices any load, even with load resistors inline or to ground. Worked fine with the incandescents though.

WTF??????

 

[850GT_Rider]

Anyone have a diagram for the INSIDE of my cluster?

It would probably help IMMENSELY if we knew WTF you were riding (model & year).....

 

[cowboyup3371]

Agreed. Put your bike info in your signature block.

 

[PsychoRallye]

Ah.. where'd that go!? Haha. 1981 GS750EX... 200mm rectangular headlight with cluster model...
Just added it to sig block again... dunno where that dissapeared to. Will show up on future posts!!

 

[PsychoRallye]

In case any of y'all were curious, here's my (sorry, spottedly posted) rebuild thread. Shows some pictures from a week or two ago...
http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=169352

 

[four_shot]

3 ohms sounds right to me. Thats the size I had to use when I did the conversion on my car.

I think the rule of thumb is 6 ohms per bulb in circuit.

 

[Steve]

Thoughts? What am I missing?

Well, the first thing I was going to say was missing, was some bike info, but I see that that issue has been addressed.

The relay has 49, 49a and 31. per the attached, this makes sense. Since my factory harness is expecting a 2 wire relay, the 3rd pole goes to ground... it should work. But.. nada. Not even lighting up the side selected, never mind a flash.

Sure, the "third pole" probably does go to a ground, but which one is the "third pole"? If you connec the wrong one to ground, it won't work.

I can get the flashers to flash now, even at the right rate, if I put 3ohms to ground (seems low, doesnt it?) by putting two 50watt 6ohm resistors in parallel to ground from the relay flash line (the "output" of the relay to the flasher switch).

Three ohms sounds about right. With a nominal 12 volts, that would be four amps. With 14 volts, it would be 4.66 amps, or 65 watts. The stock bulbs are rated at 28 watts each, so that would be 56 watts for the pair. Close enough that it should work.

Yet, somehow not all the LED light up. 2 manufacturers, 6 different lights. On the turn signals themselves only like 4 of the 20 LED light up. On the in-mirror LEDs, only one half lights up.

Could I have polarity wrong?

ps - Got the new relay to work as well as the old. Had the color codes wrong - the two pins on the relay are reversed on the new one. That issue aside.

OK, did you just answer your own question?

.

 

[PsychoRallye]

Well, the first thing I was going to say was missing, was some bike info, but I see that that issue has been addressed.

Ha! What can I say

Sure, the "third pole" probably does go to a ground, but which one is the "third pole"? If you connec the wrong one to ground, it won't work.

Definitely not wrong there at least... 31 is ground, and that's on the bike's common ground. I'm an electrical engineer - many years out of practice - but the fundamentals are there.. theoretically! :lol:

Three ohms sounds about right. With a nominal 12 volts, that would be four amps. With 14 volts, it would be 4.66 amps, or 65 watts. The stock bulbs are rated at 28 watts each, so that would be 56 watts for the pair. Close enough that it should work.

Hmm. This worries me then. If nom is 56w per pair - 112w nom is normal... (aka around 10A total). My LEDs are nowhere near that. I have 3 LED sets now (turn signals in the mirrors, front signals and rear signals) - those can't draw more than 20W combined... So with a 3ohm (@12v = 4a = 48w) + the guessed 20w for the 3 LED sets, we're at 68w total. Half what the bike expected. Still should work with the new relay...

OK, did you just answer your own question?

.

Not really. Still wondering if leakage is a problem in the cluster.. or if the relays I have are crap in design.. or the LED lighting is. Something's got to be amiss... looking for ideas... I mean, when I do have the 3ohms to ground - the TWO things that worry me the most are 1. Why is the relay clicking even when the circuit isn't completed (i.e. the signal isnt on R or L signal engage) and 2. why is the voltage low enough that not all the LEDs illuminate (it's around 9.6v, and yes, all the connectors are pretty clean and lubed with contact lube).

 

[Steve]

I think you mis-understood part of what I said.

When I said that it was "56 watts for the pair", I meant that it was 56 watts for the pair of lights that would turn on when you activated your turn signals. One 28 watt light at the front, one 28 watt light at the rear. Unless you have an aftermarket 4-way flasher unit, you will not be activating all four at the same time, so it's only the 56 watts you need to worry about.

Most (but not all) of the electronic flashers are timers, so they don't really care what, if anything, is downstream. The 2-pin flashers, like the stock one, are thermal units, so they HAVE to have a certain load to operate properly. If you have one of the timer-based flashers, it will be easier (and cheaper) to use that, rather than try to incorporate some load resistors.

By the way, does your bike have a single indicator in the instrument cluster for turn signals or does it have one for each side? :-k
If you have one for each side, you will have no problems with your LED units. However, if you have a single light, you will have to do some re-wiring. The stock single-bulb dash indicator uses the filaments on the lights on the other side as a ground wire. That is, when you turn on the LEFT signals, one lead of the dash indicator is connected to the left signals. The other lead is connected to the right signals. Since they are not on, current goes through the indicator bulb, then through the right signal filaments and on to ground. Since the dash light won't pass much current, the signals on the right do not light. When you turn on the RIGHT signals, the left filaments provide the ground. When you switch to LEDs, you might or might not have enough to energize the dash indicator, and it just might pass enough to light up the LEDs on the other side.

If you do have a single bulb, I can provide a diagram to show how to isolate the dash bulb.

.

 

[850GT_Rider]

Just a thought.....why don't you go back to incandescents and make sure everything is working? You've got several things going on at once, with the mystery or left-over wiring, trying to change to LED's, etc.

Go back to square one and take it slower. Change one thing at a time, confirming correct operation at each step. You could even bench-test the LED clusters with a couple wires from a battery to make sure they work BEFORE installation on the bike.

 

[four_shot]

Go back to square one and take it slower. Change one thing at a time, confirming correct operation at each step. You could even bench-test the LED clusters with a couple wires from a battery to make sure they work BEFORE installation on the bike.

X2

Can't hurt to make sure that the base circuits haven't been damaged.

 

[PsychoRallye]

Thanks guys. I'll check the LEDs again -but I did start there a week or two ago making sure the LEDs all worked prior to install.

I may revert to incandescents to be sure the circuit works - but it sure looks like it does... but maybe I should also take voltage measurements too to see if there are any weird drops anywhere causing such an issue (like a partial or intermittent short due to bad soldering or chafing...

To answer your other question, my cluster has two separate left and right signals. I figured if it was a single I'd have to pick up some diodes. Maybe I need a bypass cap on the relay because its getting AC off my rectifier? Hmm..

And thanks for the tweak Steve. I mean (DUH! [at me]) - only one side will light at any given time. Sigh. Brain fart !

Maybe if anyone has a suggestion on a good timer based relay for LED type circuits..? Source of supply and price?

Thanks guys!