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LED Blinkers

493 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  fz750bhl
Ok, I'm assuming this has been gone over a million times but I couldn't find anything helpful when I searched for it. So here it goes...
I got a set of LED blinkers for Christmas and I finally got around to putting them on tonight. I got it all back together and when I turned the key, the bike's turn signal light stayed on like the bulbs were blown. I figure I need to put some resistors inline with blinkers to get them to act right (draw enough current to tell the relay that there's a bulb there). Any idea's if I've got the right idea or completely wrong? If I am right, what would be a good ohm value to put in there? Thanks for any responses!
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2 or 3 ways of doing this.

1 electronic flasher. You set the flash rate you want with a potentiometer.
2 Heavy Duty mechanical flasher. Like a Tridon HD10 I belive it is.
3. Ballast resistors. Low ohmage, Hi Wattage Wirewound power resistors. Usually around 3 ohms or so resistance and at the very least 20watts power disspation/handling. They need to be wired in parallel. That is ACROSS the blinker wires. One end to ground, the other end to the positive blinker wire. One resistor on each blinker cause the blinkers are wired in parallel with each other front to back. The resistor basically replaces the "load" the flasher lost when you replaced the incandescent bulbs with LEDS. The LEDS have very high internal resistance which doesn't load the flasher down correctly. The resistor will load the flasher back down and make it blink slow.

Hope this helps..
Well, I haven't actually got the blinkers to blink yet. The blinker just stays on really dim and the indicator light on the dash stays on like the bulb is burned out. The front light won't even stay on as a running light. I don't know if that gives you any better idea about what is happening. Thanks!
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