Hello:
I'm in the process of helping my sons put LED lights on their motorcycles. They both ride Honda CBR600RR's. Unfortunately the control for their riding lights-voltage/flash rate-is done by a circuit board and not a flasher. The directional and riding light circuits are fused at 10A's. The original lights are 3-wire incandescent lights (12V for directional/12V for running light/Common or Ground). The LED's we are putting on are 2-wire (12V and Common or Ground). The riding lights are powered all the time. When you put the directional signal on, the circuit board cuts the 12V to the running light leg and applies 12V to the directional leg.
I know we should be able to use a normally closed (NC) relay to make this work. I could have the riding light leg connected to the NC switch side and use the directional light leg to power the relay. This way we should be able to make the 3-wire setup work with the 2-wire LED's. We know from experimenting that we have to add some resistance across the LED's to slow their flash rate down, since their current draw is less than the incandescent lights. We found that an 8 ohm/20W resistor seemed to be adequate when just hooking the lights up temporarily with jumpers.
I wanted to use a relay that was small but allowed for soldering wires to it. The space in these bikes is minimal at best. I guess an automotive type would be durable enough and perhaps one that could be component-type (PCB-?). I've done enough odds 'n ends to understand the basics. I am at loss though to know; what type of relay to get, where to get it and how to go about wiring it up. I assume I could wire up the resistor between the relay and the LED (again across the LED's ground and 12V leads). I would have to have 2 of these set up. One would be for the right side and the other for the left.
We appreciate your assistance in this father/son(s) project.
thank you
I'm in the process of helping my sons put LED lights on their motorcycles. They both ride Honda CBR600RR's. Unfortunately the control for their riding lights-voltage/flash rate-is done by a circuit board and not a flasher. The directional and riding light circuits are fused at 10A's. The original lights are 3-wire incandescent lights (12V for directional/12V for running light/Common or Ground). The LED's we are putting on are 2-wire (12V and Common or Ground). The riding lights are powered all the time. When you put the directional signal on, the circuit board cuts the 12V to the running light leg and applies 12V to the directional leg.
I know we should be able to use a normally closed (NC) relay to make this work. I could have the riding light leg connected to the NC switch side and use the directional light leg to power the relay. This way we should be able to make the 3-wire setup work with the 2-wire LED's. We know from experimenting that we have to add some resistance across the LED's to slow their flash rate down, since their current draw is less than the incandescent lights. We found that an 8 ohm/20W resistor seemed to be adequate when just hooking the lights up temporarily with jumpers.
I wanted to use a relay that was small but allowed for soldering wires to it. The space in these bikes is minimal at best. I guess an automotive type would be durable enough and perhaps one that could be component-type (PCB-?). I've done enough odds 'n ends to understand the basics. I am at loss though to know; what type of relay to get, where to get it and how to go about wiring it up. I assume I could wire up the resistor between the relay and the LED (again across the LED's ground and 12V leads). I would have to have 2 of these set up. One would be for the right side and the other for the left.
We appreciate your assistance in this father/son(s) project.
thank you