LED turn signals HELP!!! 2003 wr450

[TwIzTeD NuTz]

Ok guys,

Here is my delima, i bought a set of 4 LED turn signals for my bike. I cannot get them to flash. when i hook up the relay(it is an LED relay according to the package, but it might not be the right one), the lights will come on and stay on solid no flashing, if i hook the ground up on the relay the lights go out? why is it doing this? Can anyone help me figure this out? I cant get the lights to flash, and if i hook up the ground to the relay the lights go out. Also the lights are really dim or appear to be dim? Please help i have spent way too much money for these not to work.

Thanks,

John

[roushxteam199]

i just answered your question on smj. I dont think you have the right relay

[buggs bunny]

the guy at trick dual sport told me that the led require more power than filiment bulbs thats my one cent.call dale at tds 661 268 1094 he's really nice and smart he used to work on the space shuttle before opening up his own bussiness.he will be able to steer you in a good direction even though you don't have his sytem or you would have called him already.?

[TwIzTeD NuTz]

the guy at trick dual sport told me that the led require more power than filiment bulbs thats my one cent.call dale at tds 661 268 1094 he's really nice and smart he used to work on the space shuttle before opening up his own bussiness.he will be able to steer you in a good direction even though you don't have his sytem or you would have called him already.?

It was a lot cheaper to build my own system, i understand wiring and how stuff should work so i wasnt worried about it. I have a temporary fix on it for now till i can get an LED flasher.

[matt4x4]

The problem actually lies with LED's drawing less power (amps) than incadescent bulbs - in most DC applications, the system thinks that the lights are burned out due to the low draw.

Adding a resistor (dissipates more power) to the DC circuit fixes this in most cases.

Also - you likely bought 12V DC LED lights and from the problems you're experiencing , I'm guessing your system is 12V AC, which really only works out to +/-6V either side of 0V and your LED's are oscillating on the positive half of the sine wave, getting a pulsed 6V (they only work on the positive half of the sine wave since LED's will only light up with current flowing in one direction). Incadesccents will light up on both sides of the sine wave making the light brighter - they don't care about direction of current flow, LED's do.

When you ground the relay, it sounds like your whole circuit grounds out - likely also because of AC voltage, the ground is only for DC circuits.

you could try building a simple voltage rectifier using 4 diodes (not LED's) - this will at least provide you approximately 5.3V dc continuous for your blinker circuits possibly making the lights a little brighter (5.3 because you have to minus the .7V voltage drop across one diode) - Likely still too low a voltage to give your LED's good brightness though since they were designed for twice the voltage.

For AC applications, I find it's usually best to build your own LED lamps since there isn't much readily available unless it's MR16 format.

http://shop.thumpertalk.com/catalogs/Western_Power_Sports_Offroad_2007/default.asp?p=595&s=2

[TwIzTeD NuTz]

The problem actually lies with LED's drawing less power (amps) than incadescent bulbs - in most DC applications, the system thinks that the lights are burned out due to the low draw.

Adding a resistor (dissipates more power) to the DC circuit fixes this in most cases.

Also - you likely bought 12V DC LED lights and from the problems you're experiencing , I'm guessing your system is 12V AC, which really only works out to +/-6V either side of 0V and your LED's are oscillating on the positive half of the sine wave, getting a pulsed 6V (they only work on the positive half of the sine wave since LED's will only light up with current flowing in one direction). Incadesccents will light up on both sides of the sine wave making the light brighter - they don't care about direction of current flow, LED's do.

When you ground the relay, it sounds like your whole circuit grounds out - likely also because of AC voltage, the ground is only for DC circuits.

you could try building a simple voltage rectifier using 4 diodes (not LED's) - this will at least provide you approximately 5.3V dc continuous for your blinker circuits possibly making the lights a little brighter (5.3 because you have to minus the .7V voltage drop across one diode) - Likely still too low a voltage to give your LED's good brightness though since they were designed for twice the voltage.

For AC applications, I find it's usually best to build your own LED lamps since there isn't much readily available unless it's MR16 format.

http://shop.thumpertalk.com/catalogs/Western_Power_Sports_Offroad_2007/default.asp?p=595&s=2

Everything but the headlight is wired in DC, the tail, the turns and all relays are running on DC power. The headlight is running AC power. The reason the system is dying when i plug in the ground on the flasher is because when the flasher is properly hooked up the LEDs do not register a load on the flasher. After doing the math i found that a 5w bulb proved around 30 ohms resistance to the circuit using the formul P=IxE and then using E=IxR assuming voltage at the lamp was 12 volts(measured with a voltmeter it was like 12.5 without the bike running. I found that the incadecent bulb used .42 amps and it would sucesfully turn on the relay instantly. using the .42 amps and voltage of 12 i determined the resistance in the circuit to be 28.57 ohms. the LEDs dont have the currnt draw, or the ohm ratings included with them in the package. so all i could do was count the bands on the reistors to find that each signal has 2 220 ohm reistors built in. assuming they are in series(i dont know for sure), that means i have 880 ohms resistance in the circuit giving me a current draw of .014 on the entire circuit. also the LED signals already have a diode wired into them.

[matt4x4]

I wasn't sure about the way you had it all wired up - and going off the issues it sounded like a possible AC issue.

The single diode in the signals is there to avoid frying them if hooked up in reverse - usually found on the negative lead and stops current from entering in reverse because the reverse voltage on an LED is extremely low.

How many LEDs per signal? Usually LED's are not run in Series, rather in Parallel, if the LEDs are matched perfectly, you can run them in series, however, it's abnormal to do so.

So essentially, the signals you bought are manufactured correctly for a 12Vdc application, the resistors are there to drop the voltage to each LED enough so as not to blow the LEDs.

The resistors are likely also in parallel - one per LED is the norm, each resistor may however feed several LED's (all run in parallel after the single resistor), if you have many LEDs in each light, it may be a wattage limitation per resistor as to why there are two on each signal.

Follow my previous link and take a look at the resistor at the top of the page - this is usually the same thing one would install to cure LED signal issues on cars, it'll draw enough of a load on the circuit to properly activate the Signal relay. By the looks of it, possibly the "low" light output may only be because of the LED's flashing at a very fast rate, therefore never coming up to full brightness.

You can probably find something a lot cheaper - try 10 ohm, 10 Watt resistors (Radio shack) - one in the left and one in the right circuit - this should show the flasher relay a load.

Do you happen to know your forward current for the diodes by chance? Normally, you would use a 180 ohm resistor on an LED that is rated 3V 50mA - your 220 ohm is close to that, and likely, the LEDs are 3V (most common).

[willy_fitz]

If the flasher is affected by current flow (and it sounds as it is) you have an old design flasher such as a bimetallic strip that needs to heat up to open a contact that allows it to cool down and start the cycle over. This type of design is very sensitive to current levels. An electonic flasher is a voltage sensitve device that relies on a RC circuit (resistor - capacitor) to set the time between flash cycles.

I believe you will find if you change out the flasher for an electronic version your problem should clear up without any other changes.