LED Blinker Problem

[Mississippi]

Parts:
1st and 2nd pic - rear signals
3rd pic - front signals
4th pic - flasher relay

Problem:
When I use these signals with my original flasher, the flash rate is obviously fast. However, when I plug in the flasher control, the front signals flash at the correct speed. The back signals also flash at the correct speed, but only 3 or 4 of the led’s on either side will flash.

Is the flasher reducing the load to much? Do I need to go with resistors instead of the flasher relay and use a different size resistors in the front and back? Any ideas?

 

[mxgolf]

I'm in the process of changing my signals to LED and have questions also. What about the 3 wire front signals? My LED's are only 2 wire? It's nice to have the parking lights on all the time but with only 2 wires I don't think they will work? I'm not Joe Electrician so I could use some help also.
Thanks

 

[Motogiro]

Funny thing about LED's They can be finicky. I bought a set of Motrax lights for the rear of my bike and noticed that not all the LED's lit at the same brightness. It has to do with the the semiconductor region that produces the light. I took it back and got another that was fine. A lot has to do with quality control in purchasing and manufacturing.
If the light seems to work correctly (brightness) with the stock relay then I would suspect the replacement relay is causing a voltage drop causing some of the LED's not to reach their required break over current. The relay in effect should only be changing the timing interval, not the voltage. The relay may in fact be a solid state (not a mechanical) device itself and may be defective or pass current/voltage inefficiently.

Hope this helps...

 

[Mississippi]

I'm in the process of changing my signals to LED and have questions also. What about the 3 wire front signals? My LED's are only 2 wire? It's nice to have the parking lights on all the time but with only 2 wires I don't think they will work? I'm not Joe Electrician so I could use some help also.
Thanks

You could get a set of these, but they are expensive.
Custom LED Magic Blinker Relay - Convert 2 wire LED blinker to 3 wire

MSRP: $39.98 SALE: $36.95 PER PAIR!

*
Made in the USA!
*
New high-speed solid state design is compatible with all flasher relays.
*
Built-in Stage I Load Equalizer eliminates the no-blink or 4-way blink condition.
*
Comes as a complete kit with electrical connectors and detailed instructions.
*
Works with LED or incandescent indicators.
*
Manufacturer direct purchase!
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Typically ships same business day!
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Full 1 year warranty.
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In Stock!

 

[Mississippi]

If the light seems to work correctly (brightness) with the stock relay then I would suspect the replacement relay is causing a voltage drop causing some of the LED's not to reach their required break over current. The relay in effect should only be changing the timing interval, not the voltage. The relay may in fact be a solid state (not a mechanical) device itself and may be defective or pass current/voltage inefficiently.

I thought the whole point of the relay was to drop the voltage because LED's do not use as much voltage as regular bulbs. I thought that resistors did the same thing. By reducing the voltage in effect reducing the flash rate. Right?

 

[Motogiro]

Basically the device (the LED blinker) is designed for a 12 volt(nominal) direct current application. LED's are low voltage devices so what ever the application they are set up in, they are generally set up with resistors or other voltage/current regulation to match the supplied voltage. They use far less current than a conventional incandescent bulb and are great energy savers as well as have long life in hours of operation as well as mechanical ruggedness compared to an incandescent lamp but voltage wise they are delicate. They don't like voltage spikes even for a nano second. They also have limitation in high output (light/lumens) compared to incandescent bulbs.

Hope this shed's some "light?" on the subject...

 

[BranNwebster]

Hope this shed's some "light?" on the subject...

:ban:

HAHA!

 

[paulinus]

It's my understanding the resistors mimic the previously used incandescent bulb's resistance in the circuit which eliminates the "bulb burned out" fast flash since the load on the circuit is as it would be with stock bulbs. I wired in a load equalizer on each side on the rear of my bike and they flash fine. I still am using the stock front signals, however.

Good luck. I know from experience the LEDs are tricky. I had trouble getting my lights in my Givi's to work correctly. Then again, it was all a homemade install. That prolly doesn't help matters

 

[Mississippi]

It's my understanding the resistors mimic the previously used incandescent bulb's resistance in the circuit which eliminates the "bulb burned out" fast flash since the load on the circuit is as it would be with stock bulbs. I wired in a load equalizer on each side on the rear of my bike and they flash fine. I still am using the stock front signals, however.

Good luck. I know from experience the LEDs are tricky. I had trouble getting my lights in my Givi's to work correctly. Then again, it was all a homemade install. That prolly doesn't help matters

Do you remember the size of the resistors that you used?

 

[Wavex]

Mississipi: Did you replace the original flasher relay with yours, or did you simply add yours in series?
My guess is that your flasher relay's resistance is too high... I would get rid of it and just use a load balancer resistor from Autozone... it should work.

mxgolf: if your LED only has 2 wires, then you won't be able to use them as running lights (who cares anyway )

 

[Mississippi]

Mississipi: Did you replace the original flasher relay with yours, or did you simply add yours in series?
My guess is that your flasher relay's resistance is too high... I would get rid of it and just use a load balancer resistor from Autozone... it should work.

mxgolf: if your LED only has 2 wires, then you won't be able to use them as running lights (who cares anyway )

I replaced the factory one with the new one. What is a load balancer resistor? Do you have a pic or link?

 

[Mississippi]

Wavex, is this what you were talking about? This is what I was thinking about, but I do not know what size I need.

Tech specs

General Features
Model 271-132
Product Type Power Resistors
Enclosure Color Gold
Recommended Use Max Working Voltage: 350 Volts
Body Material Multi
Fits What
Model 271-132
Miscellaneous Features
Min Operating Temperature -67 Fahrenheit
Max Operating Temperature 158 Fahrenheit
Supported Languages English
Mounting Kit Lead Length: 30 ±3mm
#per pack 2

 

[Wavex]

They come in many different shapes, and are generally pretty chunky (because they get hot!)... one example:

The ones at autozone are white (ceramic I believe) and just a few bucks if I remember right... you will need one per turn signal, and they are mounted in parallel (see below), like this:

 

[nimzotech]

My rear Rizoma Signal LEDs blinked at the proper rate. It was not until I installed the front LED Watsen Design LEDs that the flashing rate increased. I have ordered a relay since then to mount in the front. Awaiting the results.
opcorn:

 

[Motogiro]

What the load resistors do is provide a current path to ground. This emulates the same or near the same load as the incandescent lamp. Instead it turns the power to heat within the resistor. Some of the current passes through the LED and the majority of current passes through the resistor. Basically you're using the same amount of power as an incandescent bulb. If you do choose the load resistor method make sure the resistor is somewhat equal to the original load. Make sure the resistor's wattage rating is enough to dissipate the heat that will be generated and also make sure the resistor is located where it can't cause harm electrically. If, for instance you have incandescent bulbs in the front but LED's in the back you will need a different resistor than if you have LED's front and back to come up with the same flash rate.

It's better to get an electronic relay that has a fixed flash rate to go with LED's or incandescent or combination.

Good Luck and Have fun out there!

 

[Mississippi]

It's better to get an electronic relay that has a fixed flash rate to go with LED's or incandescent or combination.

I do have a relay with a fixed flash rate, but it is giving me the problems with the led's. With the aftermarket relay in place, the back blinkers only have 3 or 4 of the 14 led's working. With the stock flasher in place, everything works, just at an accelerated pace. The only thing left that I know to do is get resistors to try to equalize the flash rate and allow the blinkers to completely illuminate.

Can an aftermarket flasher be bad?

The front led signals completely illuminate no mater what flasher that I have them attached to. Just faster with the stock.

 

[alanrim]

I do have a relay with a fixed flash rate, but it is giving me the problems with the led's. With the aftermarket relay in place, the back blinkers only have 3 or 4 of the 14 led's working. With the stock flasher in place, everything works, just at an accelerated pace. The only thing left that I know to do is get resistors to try to equalize the flash rate and allow the blinkers to completely illuminate.

Can an aftermarket flasher be bad?

The front led signals completely illuminate no mater what flasher that I have them attached to. Just faster with the stock.

This suggests that the electronic flasher is not the right type for the FZ or is faulty.

 

[alanrim]

Here is a post I wrote for another forum which may be helpful....


When fitting LED indicators we need to work out what power requirement we are taking away, and what we are adding back into the circuit.

Firstly if we had an electronic flasher unit then as long as we didn't exceed the rating then no change would be needed.

On normal flasher units the flash is controlled by a bi-metallic strip (think thermostat). As the indicators are off a heater in the flasher warms the bi-metallic strip which when warm enough switches the indicator on. When the indicator is on the heater is off, the bi-metallic strip cools and the indicator switches off. This process keeps on repeating. Note that when the heater is on it is actually in series with the indicator lamps, but not enough current flows to make the bulbs glow. The heater relies on the resistance of the indicator lamps being fairly low.

As you can tell this is really old technology, but it is cheap and works with the advantage that a failed bulb makes the indicator flash quickly, which acts as a warning to the rider that a bulb has failed.

The problem with LED indicators is that they use less power than a bulb which means the heater just doesn't heat up quick enough, and when it does it hasn't generated enough heat to keep the bi-metallic strip switched over. Hence the quick flash.

Now to work out the power an LED indicator is likely to take, you need to count the LEDs in your indicator. Typically 80mW per LED so...

6 LEDs ~ 0.48W
8 LEDs ~ 0.64W
10 LEDs ~ 0.8W
12 LEDs ~ 0.96W

We know that the flasher unit needs a 20W load (2x 10W bulbs)

If we replace the rear indicators with LED indicators that have 12 LEDs each we can calculate the ideal resistor value.

Each uses 0.96W we can round this up to 1W

Take the LED wattage from the wattage required, 20W - 1W - 10W (front bulb) = 9W

So we need to dissipate 9W through a resistor. As has already been said ohms law gives us the resistance we require to achieve this power.

To use one resistor we would need
9W/13.8V = 0.65A
13.8V/0.65A = 21.2ohm

The nearest standard size resistor is 22ohm, for safety we could use a 33ohm resistor, this would take 5.8W which will probably make the flash a little faster than standard but the resistor would run cooler.

A good way of doing this is to mount two 47ohm resistors in parallel, this gives us an equivalent resistance of 23.5ohm, or 8W with the advantage that each resistor will generate 50% of the heat one resistor would. This becomes important if for instance the flasher unit fails, Why?

The flasher is on for approx 50% of the time, so the heat dissipated by the resistor is 50% of what we calculated, so for instance the 22ohm resistor is dissipating 8W * 50% = 4W.

If the flasher unit fails so the inidcators don't flash, but stay on then we are dissipating twice the energy, which means twice the heat.

 

[paulinus]

Do you remember the size of the resistors that you used?

From the look of all the other posts here, I should have paid more attention to what I bought and all that. LOL I just bought some equalizers from the guy on EBay I bought the LED signals from. Combined shippin, baby! :thumbup: I really don't know what size they are.

 

[Mississippi]

From the look of all the other posts here, I should have paid more attention to what I bought and all that. LOL I just bought some equalizers from the guy on EBay I bought the LED signals from. Combined shippin, baby! :thumbup: I really don't know what size they are.

I have not purchased them yet, I am trying to figure out what I need. You can get them at Radio Shack pretty cheap or on the net. On my old bike I used the flasher relay, and it worked great, but not this time. I might try to get another flasher just to see if the one that I have already bought is faulty. I still have not made any decisions. Let me know what you have. Lights and resistors. The light that I am having trouble with have 14 led's in them.