LED lighting, HELP ME

[Rastlin_imp]

the bike, 2014 honda CB1100.

i took my bike to the Honda dealer and the guys cant figure out how to get led lights to work in the back for my rear turn signals, and tail light. now, that said,

they added resistors all the way around, that didn't work, except for the front.
they now have removed the rear resistors, but still, even with the led bulbs that have the resistor built into the bulb, those ones dont work in the back.

now, when i say dont work, i dont mean hyper-flash. i mean they dont come on at all. standard bulbs come on, but led bulbs dont turn on at all. in the front, without resistors, they just didn't blink. but, at least they turned on. the rear just doesnt turn on. i need some serious help on this guys. this project has been going on now for 18 months.... 300$ later... any help would be appreciated. i was told, by a Harley mechanic i know, to use voltage regulators in the front and back, as well as resistors. any ideas. also, i am color blind so take care when asking me about colors of wires. lol.

oh, and yes, all of the bulbs work. i have a tester i rigged up to check them out. all work, ive even bought 3 different styles of them; 2 without the resistor built in, one with. im out of ideas.

thanks everyone, in advance, for all your help, and even just for reading this post to see if you could help.

merry Christmas everyone.


Rastlin

[Toddman_imp]

http://www.hondatwins.net/forums/64-elec...-work.html

Read this...

[Olyrider]

It ain't the bike, as far as I know.

Without much thought, I bought an LED tail light/brake light bulb at the Honda store. Removed the oem bulb, twisted in the LED bulb. No problems. No drama.

And...I have Hyperlites mounted to the rear assembly for runnning, brake, and turn signals. But they came with their own "sender". The polarity was correct on my bike.

Good luck!

[kmoney_imp]

One of the things I learned from installing aftermarket led turn signals was that the effect of the resistors is cumulative across all four corners.

If you have four load resistors, in addition to internal resistors in the rear bulbs this may be too much to even allow the bulbs to even turn on.

When I did mine, I had 2 ballast resistors in the front and none in the back and that was enough to give me a normal flashing rate. You could try removing the front ballast resistors and then just running the internally resisted LEDs in the rear lights.

Probably the ultimate solution though would be to use LED bulbs with no resistors and getting the proper LED flasher module.

http://japan.webike.net/products/21124583.html

You do have to remove the tank to install this. But it is on sale right now!

[AzBob_imp]

Dump the resistors and replace your mechanical flasher relay with a digital one...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VTTDYY/ref=...KLFII8DR9R

Also, I'm not sure why someone would tell you to use a voltage regulator AND resistors... the voltage regulator's purpose it to deliver the exact current you need; the resistor(s) is/are built into the regulator.

Edit: Hmm, the fronts are always on, and are reverse of the rears in the blinking cycle, so you're probably going to want to buy what kmoney linked to; a generic relay most likely won't work on our bike.

[kmoney_imp]

Yup. The generic digital ones won't work on our bike. You could probably get a pin-out diagram of the flasher from someone on this forum and make one work by cutting the connectors and using your own spade connectors, but once you see where/how it's mounted under the tank it's not worth it. Kinda sucks because the generic ones are 90% cheaper.

[kennyw]

I found the rear turn signal wiring was backwards when I installed led turn signals. Luckily, led lights will not flow current backwards so no damage or blown fuses.

[Bob Sdaman_imp]

I still can't figure out why companies still use incandescent light bulbs. LED bulbs have been around on motorcycles since at least the early 2000's, and they're definitely cheap enough to build and supply these days. I know, this is a retro-bike, but Honda didn't put carburetors on this thing, did they? I'd eventually like to switch my entire bike to LEDs, just not sure if I'll wait till the originals burn out first. They're definitely the way to go in my opinion.

[Elipten_imp]

Look gentleman I wrote this up some time ago. Mr. T can provide a direct replacement flasher relay by Posh that will allow led turn signal bulbs. Resisters are not the way to go IMHO. Next the polarity on the 2014 DLX was reversed and the same others reported for the 2014 std. So the ground wire and power wire colors are reversed versus the Honda wiring diagrams. Look for my post somewhere on the site and good luck.


2014 CB1100 DLX
2013 CB1100 Std
1990 BMW K75 RT

[Bob Sdaman_imp]

Well this definitely seems to be the best way of switching to LEDs at the 4 corners, but it's a bit more expensive than I would've imagined.

http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5424

(I'm thinking the stock bulbs look just fine for now)