front LED turn signals

[krasmu]

summer is almost here and I'm finishing up my winter upgrades. The bike has been converted to LED and working great with the exception of the (1157) front turn signals. They are bright and function properly. The issue I'm having is the brightness difference between running and flashing is not very differant. At first I thought they were wired backwards but after checking it out, this is not the case. Has anyone else who has converted had this issue? If so, was there a fix? Can a resister be wired into the running light wire to drop the voltage thus dimming that side of the flash? If so, what size resister? If you have successfully converted and had great results with these lights, what bulbs did you choose? Until I fix this issue, I'm going back to incondesant in those lights for safety sake.

[triton28]

That is exactly what I did myself; I went back to the regular 1157 bulbs as I had the same results as you did using the LEDs.
Dave

[Tonyvdb]

This is a design flaw on those particular LEDs that you bought. Many of the cheaper ones you can buy are problematic and in many cases will also fail after some time because of vibration. Superbrightleds.com is the best place to get them (there is a reason they cost more) but in the end they last and the brightness difference between running and signal is substantial.
The ones I have in my XII are Yellow when in the running mode and turn white when the signal is used. Very effective and visible.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinf ... 1915/4479/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[triton28]

Thanks for that Tony.

[Tonyvdb]

Your welcome, it was a surprise to me also how well they work. They are smart enough to know when the signal is being used and turn on and off as they should and then return to the other color when solid. It makes for a noticeable change for oncoming drivers.

[krasmu]

For those of us who already purchased some 1157 LEDs that don't have enough differance between running and flashing, I came up with a fix that makes them work great. I installed a 50 OHM resister in line with the running light wiring to dim down the running light, thus creating a larger differance between the two curcuits. After trying a few different sizes of resisters, I settled on this size because it still leaves my running light noticably brighter than an incondesant bulb,yet gives much the same brightness differance between run/flash as the incondesant bulbs do. I installed one on each of the right and left front turn/running light pigtails, on the center (blue) wire. This leaves the bike harness untouched and the pigtail can be replace easily if ever there were a desire. I will be finding a good location for a single resister in the rear on the trunk tail lights wire somewhere in or under the trunk to correct both rear tail light 1157 LEDs in the same fasion. You should only need one resister for the rear tail lights because they are a single curcuit and work together.