LED lights, front brake not activating light

[Korr]

Hi all I just put put on a 7" round headlight and mini LED lights. I know that the LEDs will definately not work correctly, but would that interferewith my hand brake from turning on the rear brake light? The rear brake peddle still activates the brake light. I will go out and pick up some regular turn signals this Friday. Wow the LEDS are bright lol

[Crazcnuk]

Which ones did you replace with LEDs?

LEDS work fine everywhere, except with the signal light flasher, and the tail light burn-out indicator?

I would check the brake light switch on the hand control for the brake. It is probably gummed up.

[prometheus578]

"Or... or..."

Or... when you were dicking around putting in the 7" round headlight, you dicked up the wiring harness connector for the right side of the handlebars.
Or, as Crazcnuk intoned... maybe the handle bar brake lever hasn't been working for years and you never noticed.

[Korr]

I replaced the front turn signals with led's. When i get home i will double check to make sure i connected all the wires inside the headlight bucket and replace the led's with regular filament turn signals. It was working fine before i did the switch to the led's. This is actually my second time installing the round headlight. I have a cafe front fairing that got stuck on the stock turn signals. I did a test run with just the round headlight connected to see if it worked and all lights worked fine. I got the led turn signals a few days after that and finally installed the round headlight, led turn signals, and cafe front fairing last night.

[Crazcnuk]

You need a different flasher to ue LEDs on the signal lights.

However, none of this has anything to do with the brake light?

[Korr]

yeah i'm an idiot. i did not reconnect the brake light when i put the headlight on. it works fine now, but now my turn signals do not flash. they just stay on. i double triple checked the wiring and they are good. before i messed wit the led's my stock front turn signals were always on like running lights, but the ones in the rear were always off until i signal. so now that they stopped flashing front and back, the rear are always on now. so say if i signal left, the front left signal turns off and the rear left gets brighter and same thing with the right side turn signals. did i happen to burn out the flasher relay?

[prometheus578]

"Seeing how you made one silly mistake..."

Did you go for two?
Depending on the type LED bilbs you bought....
Some have one filament contact and others have two filament contacts.
The two contact ones go up front for running/turn signal, etc.
If you put a one contact light in the front... both contacts in the socket could touch the single contact of the bulb. What would happen then is..... The juice would flow to the front bulb to power the running lights, but as it's touching both contact, would then feed out through the turn signal circuit and light up the rear lights. (or something like that) That single contact bulb... when it gets the juice for the running lights... is also inadvertantly powering the front turn signals... so they are on already and can't flash.
Having a two contact bulb in the rear(I mean.. for the rear lights) is no big deal.

[strippedFJ]

Indicator relays are load based, LED indicators have far less load than standard incandescent bulbs. A load resistor in line with the LED indicators will bring correct the indicator relay timing.

I've had a few too many to figure out what size resistor you'd need, but it should be somewhere in the area of 5 ohm 5 watt.

[xschop]

Load of ^%$##!!

A Load resistor defeats the purpose of Using LED's (getting rid of system LOAD)and they get dangerously HOT, get a true 100% digital flasher....

[Korr]

I replaced the led's with regular ones

I'm running cheapo lockhart phillips turn signals up front now and it's still not flashing. I also noticed that the left & right turn signal indicator lights on the tach are always on now with a medium brightness. Whichever side i signal goes to full brightness and stay on while the other side will turn off completely. Still having the same turn signal problems.

I is not very smarts plz let me know if you wouldz like to hav teh mini ledz juz pey shippppinnggzz take teh hurt away

they are 2 1/2 inches long

http://cgi.ebay.com/LED-Stalk-Motorc...QQcmdZViewItem

[Crazcnuk]

Superbright LEDS has motorcycle flashers for $9 ea, near the bottom of the page.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...gi?product=CAR

You have to cut the end off and put your own terminals on, but that takes 5 mintues. They are small, square, and fit in the round rubber grommets on the bike.

Load resistors work, and for the signal lights, who cares about the draw? The above page has 6ohm 50 watt and 25ohm 25 watt ones depending on what you are doing.

It's the always-on park lights that you want to reduce the draw on.

[prometheus578]

I also noticed that the left & right turn signal indicator lights on the tach are always on now with a medium brightness.

Recheck that you haven't crossed any wires. A dash light that glows dimly can mean that you've lost the ground to the bulbs and it's using the indicator light as a circuit to get that ground.

[Korr]

Recheck that you haven't crossed any wires. A dash light that glows dimly can mean that you've lost the ground to the bulbs and it's using the indicator light as a circuit to get that ground.

ugh darn it! ok i will check that

[strippedFJ]

Re: Load of ^%$##!!

Originally posted by xschop
A Load resistor defeats the purpose of Using LED's (getting rid of system LOAD)and they get dangerously HOT, get a true 100% digital flasher....

I've used them a number of times without problem, a number of manufacturers even supply them for this purpose. Reasonable quality wire wound units should not get that hot. This is very common in the streetfighter world.


Just replacing 2 of the indicators will not have a significant load reduction effect. A proper digital flasher is the best way to go, but this option is effective and will get the system working while he waits for one to be sourced/paid for.

[Korr]

turn signal wires

umm..guys... my cheapo flashers have two wires. one is black and the other is black + white stripe. the XS has a blue & dark green wire on left side & a blue and chocolate wire on the right.
on my flashers is the ground the black wire & on the xs the chocolate & dark green?

I am going off of this, but i have no idea what wires are for what
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...ng+and+diagram