B
blo
Guest
Hi all!
Bike in question is a -82 GS1100 ez.
Just the other day I installed new turn signals on it. The signals were a perfect match to the originals, bought from Dennis Kirk. Bulbs are matched to the old ones.
During installation I cleaned the connection points, and rigged new grounding cables on the front signals. All in all a nice job I thought myself.
But ofcource there was problems....
The new lights just shine, they do not blink.
I have seen this before, and start to do some checks.
First of all - both bulbs on each side are ok, and putts out anticipated amount of light - so no bad connections there (one bad con. / broken bulb makes the turn signal relay not want to blink)
The manual (Hanyes) say to unplugg the self cancelling unit to test functionallity of the turn signal relay. Is this correct? It did no good. Lights still just shine.
Here is the strange thing:
Battery is new, and fully charged. But reving the motor up over 4000 rpm, giving a system
voltage of 13.8 V, makes the lights blink.
Having a background in electronics, this tells me the relay is experiencing just a tad to low current to tripp the flip/flop. Will try to measure line resistanse / voltage drop tonight, but does anybody have any other suggestions to this problem, other than a dirty connection I haven't found?
Phew, lengthy post, but I like explaning things
Regards
-blo
Update:
I found a 1 V drop in the voltage on the positive wire of my blinker system. This was corrected by cleaning contacts from the fuse box to the ignition and back to the signal relay. I felt much better about it afterwards
, but still no blinking.
I then realized that the relay is not a sealed unit. So I open it, and behold - a lot of crud!
Apparently sitting under the tank the relay absorbed oil and grit over 20 years, and was in need of a serious cleaning.
Still did not work, though.
The relay is really a simple flip-flop made up by a resistance (light bulbs + tuning resistor) and a capacitor.
Capacitors have a limited service life, and this one was out of it's. Not enough to not blink at all, but enough to be very voltage sensitive.
Remedy: Change the capacitor! (Will try this if I find the correct size in our workshop)
Thank you for your indulgence.
-blo
Bike in question is a -82 GS1100 ez.
Just the other day I installed new turn signals on it. The signals were a perfect match to the originals, bought from Dennis Kirk. Bulbs are matched to the old ones.
During installation I cleaned the connection points, and rigged new grounding cables on the front signals. All in all a nice job I thought myself.
But ofcource there was problems....
The new lights just shine, they do not blink.
I have seen this before, and start to do some checks.
First of all - both bulbs on each side are ok, and putts out anticipated amount of light - so no bad connections there (one bad con. / broken bulb makes the turn signal relay not want to blink)
The manual (Hanyes) say to unplugg the self cancelling unit to test functionallity of the turn signal relay. Is this correct? It did no good. Lights still just shine.
Here is the strange thing:
Battery is new, and fully charged. But reving the motor up over 4000 rpm, giving a system
voltage of 13.8 V, makes the lights blink.
Having a background in electronics, this tells me the relay is experiencing just a tad to low current to tripp the flip/flop. Will try to measure line resistanse / voltage drop tonight, but does anybody have any other suggestions to this problem, other than a dirty connection I haven't found?
Phew, lengthy post, but I like explaning things
Regards
-blo
Update:
I found a 1 V drop in the voltage on the positive wire of my blinker system. This was corrected by cleaning contacts from the fuse box to the ignition and back to the signal relay. I felt much better about it afterwards
, but still no blinking.I then realized that the relay is not a sealed unit. So I open it, and behold - a lot of crud!
Apparently sitting under the tank the relay absorbed oil and grit over 20 years, and was in need of a serious cleaning.
Still did not work, though.
The relay is really a simple flip-flop made up by a resistance (light bulbs + tuning resistor) and a capacitor.
Capacitors have a limited service life, and this one was out of it's. Not enough to not blink at all, but enough to be very voltage sensitive.
Remedy: Change the capacitor! (Will try this if I find the correct size in our workshop)
Thank you for your indulgence.
-blo
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