Rear led Turn Signals

[Buckeye4Life]

Just ordered some led turn signals to replace the 21 watt stock stalks (say that 5 times fast). each turn signal has 5 led's and runs off of 12 volts.

Unfortunately, my general engineering course this semester doesn't cover wiring or circuits until next week. This leaves me with a problem. I have no idea what the heck i have to do to make sure that these signals run right.

Any help that I could get would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/280956501183?item=280956501183&viewitem=&vxp=mtr
^^^
Same led's i got from ebay.

[ThatOtherGuy]

very nice an unobtrusive, might be tempted myself considering one of my bikes is getting LED indicator mirrors.  could then remove the stalks altogether.  cannot help on the technical level, but I'm sure a propeller head will come in shortly with some great advice which I also look forward to.

[Buckeye4Life]

Lets hope! 

it may even just be cost effective to sell the stock stalks!

even if it's not, that will still make it a lot easier to do a real and a good looking fenderectomy!

[weedahoe]

I took my OEM rear stalks off and added after market LED stalks and wired them to + and - and they worked as they should

[piresito]

I took my OEM rear stalks off and added after market LED stalks and wired them to + and - and they worked as they should

+1!

There are two wires connecting each stalk. Remove old stalks, place the new stalks in, try connecting them with those wires (any combination). See if they work, if not, reverse the wires.  You might getting the flash more quickly, but if you care about that, take care of that later!

[ThatOtherGuy]

when you get  these led sets, can you tell us if the 3m tape is already applied to the unit.  trying to determine if I could do a full conversion on the GS front and rear, would like to apply the tape to the back of the unit for the positioning I'm thinking of.

[Buckeye4Life]

When it comes in (hopefully friday) i will let you know, unfortunately I think you're fairly limited because of the wire that i *believe comes out of the unit from behind the led face.

[Worm]

If they flash too quickly, you'll have to replace the flasher relay with an electronic unit that is meant for LED's. Depending on who made the ones you bought, they may have adjusted the load with resistors so the standard flasher relay would work(probably not though). LED's require the polarity to be correct. So if you hook them up and they are not lighting, reverse the wires. Check a wiring diagram or use a multimeter and you should be able to get them hooked up correctly the first time. And we'll require some pictures once they are mounted! 

[Buckeye4Life]

could i just run some parallel resistors between the lights and the battery?

[jestercinti]

You could run resistors, but that kind of defeats the purpose of LED lower power consumption.  Buy an electronic flasher.

[Buckeye4Life]

where could i find one and about how much am i looking at cost wise?

[weedahoe]

where could i find one and about how much am i looking at cost wise?

This is the one I bought the other day. It hasnt been delivered yet though.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160833291992?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

[Buckeye4Life]

how many watts is a single led light?

[ThatOtherGuy]

When it comes in (hopefully friday) i will let you know, unfortunately I think you're fairly limited because of the wire that i *believe comes out of the unit from behind the led face.

that's alright as the way I want to mount it, I want to run the wire through a hole on a flat plate, easier than having to fold over the edges of the mounting plate.

[bmxr123]

I have always just run 30w 5ohm resistors..they are so cheap and the amount of difference in power consumption IS significant but not with turn signals because of the low usage...You will probably just get a faster flash without having to through the trouble of a new flasher relay or resistors..when you change the tail light as well to LED then you will undoubtedly come across issues..

[Buckeye4Life]

i'm actually going to keep the tail stock. my other option i was considering was to get an integrated tail light. the main reason i'm getting rid of the stalks is to do a massive fenderectomy and fabricate my own bracket. i don't want to keep any of the fender.

[bmxr123]

Well then maybe the flasher relay is your best bet!

[Buckeye4Life]

I think my actual plan of action is going to be that i try the led's without doing any wiring adjustments, then try resistors (battery power isn't a concern of mine) and then use the relay as a last resort. what actually affects the blinking of the turn signals by the way?

[bmxr123]

Your turn signal relay is set up to power incandescent turn signal bulbs...If you had a way to slowly increase the power given to a a turn signal(regardless of whether its LED or not) you would see it start to flash faster and faster until it went solid..When you replace traditional bulbs with LEDS they are being given the same amount of power(which is too much) and this will result in a faster flash or solid(if its way too much)

This is also why if one of your turn signals is not working the others will flash faster than normal, because the power that is normally used for all 4 signals is going to 3.

[Buckeye4Life]

FINALLY!   

Not having hit my twenties yet, i haven't spent enough time on this earth asking the right questions. I've always wondered why that happens. thank you so much, bmxr