LED turn signal diode/ resistor help

[1018cc]

I know that this is an old thread but I just went through an LED conversion for the dash lights on my '08 (T5 bulbs) so that I could actually see them.

I thought rather than using two diodes and scraping off insulation on another wire I decided to do a similar trick but with a bridge rectifier. That way you only have to cut into the two wires that go to the indicator dash bulb.


^Locate the two wires to the bulb in the dash (light green and one of the black ones)

^You'll need 4 x schottky diodes (1N5819 is what I used). Schottky diodes rather than normal diodes because they have a lower forward voltage drop than regular diodes (as discussed previously in this thread)

^Arrange them like this (note where the silver bands are on the diagram). +ve to LED is to the dash light and -ve from LED is from the dash light.

^As the diagram but in real life. Twist the ends and solder

^Cut the two wires you found earlier, strip the ends and wire your new schottky bridge rectifier in in the right way (hopefully your soldering job is better than mine). Note the lead where the two silver bands on the diodes point together is positive and -ve is where there isn't a silver band from the diodes pointing together. These two leads will always be positive and negative respectively. The other two leads doesn't matter which way around you put the lime green / black leads as a bridge rectifier always corrects and puts the current / voltage the right way around. Wrap some electrical tape around each connection and around / over the rectifier and reinstall in the bike. If the bulb in the dash doesn't light up, flip 180° and it should work which ever way you are turning.

For those of you that are still reading - the reason I used Schottky diodes is due to the low forward voltage drop. Due to the design of a rectifier, there are always two diodes in the circuit. You can buy rectifiers off the shelf but they all tend to be with normal diodes (they work the same). Rectifiers are commonly used in AC circuits to turn AC into DC voltage (hence if you ever look up circuit diagrams online you'll often see "AC input" and "DC output".

Just another option if people are interested.