indicator problems....help

[zophill]

hi all, iv recently put on led front indys,all in one led rear light,led relay on my bike. wired it all in.an with the ignition on all works as it should, when the bike is running however the indys dont work at all until i turn the headlight on then all is fine. tried the standard relay back on and indys flash fast either with it running or not with or without the headlight on...

could it be down to a faulty relay? or have i just over looked something?
any ideas please as im stuck an been trying to fix it for two days :mad2

cheers all zophill

[tony.mon]

Indicators aren't earthing down properly?
When you turn on the headlight it establishes an earth path through the wiring for that.

Lastly some LED's are fussy about which way round they're connected, try reversing each one's polarity.
There's only two wires, try connecting each one separately and seeing if it works. If not, swap leads over and try again.

[zophill]

what do you mean by reversing the polarity?

[zophill]

iv tried everything i can think of now, can only get them working while runnig with headlight off with standard relay which flashes fast, iv now broke led relay :mad2
i have 2 resistors that came with rear light just dont know where they go!
any ideas?

[marravtr]

it will flash fast with the standard relay, you need the led relay as leds use very little power, the resistors go inline on the wires for the rear indicators, sometimes you can get away with not fitting these, depends on how good the led relay is (or was )

[zophill]

will any 3 pin led relay work if i chopped and changed the terminals? cant find another that plugs into existing plug

[marravtr]

you can give it a try matey, but leds can be a mare! when i had them fitted on my old bike i bought the led relay from my local bikeshop, just told em what it was for and they sorted it, plug n play everything worked fine

[zophill]

ah, the rear tail lights and indicators are intergrated, will that make any difference how they wire up?

[tony.mon]

what do you mean by reversing the polarity?

With a normal filament bulb, it doesn't matter which of the two wires goes to live and the other to ground.
(for live and ground you can use +ve and -ve).

But for some LED's they need to be wired the right way round; if you wire them the wrong way round they won't work.

The ones in my combined indicator/mirrors are like this.

Because each mnfr uses different colours there's no way to identify the correct way round, you just have to connect and try.

The resistors you have are to give the same load as a filament-style bulb. With a LED there is a lot less resistance, and it's this resistance that is used by the flasher unit to flash at the correct rate.
There's a little bi-metal strip inside which connects, heats up and then bends away from the contact causing a break in current flow. The bi-metal strip then cools, and re-makes the connection. This happens every half-second or so, making the indicators flash on and off.

With an LED there isn't the same current draw, and the bi-metal strip heats up and cools quicker, usually doubling the flash rate.

So you put an additional resistor in line with each LED to make the load the same as it would be with a filament bulb.

If you also have additional rear LED indicators, (two sets at the back) you STILL need to fit the resistor. Even two LED's each side doesn't make the same load as a normal filament-style bulb.
But if you leave the original indicators on you can wire the new integral rear ones in parallel with them; the additional load is then within range for the original flasher unit.

A combined rear unit makes no difference; I have one fitted. If it's the same as mine there is a wire for the live side of each indicator, (L and R) the stop light live and the rear running light live, plus a single ground- so five in all.
You'll need to establish which one is the common ground, didn't the unit come with a wiring diagram?

[zophill]

The wiring you described at the end is what iv got! had diagram an tested it on jump pack first an all was good.
its only when the engine is running when the problem starts. :mad2
I have ordered a new relay and try again.
what you said makes sense just my bike is not co-operating like it should.

[tony.mon]

Just in case, meter out battery voltage when the engine's running- checking the output form the reg/rec's ok.
Should be up to 14.5v or thereabouts.

[zophill]

problem solved was a faulty relay!!!!
cheers for the assistance guys

[marravtr]

nice one, problem solved!