LED headlight

[greybeard]

I put in a LED headlight today and when I hit my brake they go to brite and headlight out indicator comes on any ideas?

[Barry]

The headlight out sensor does more than put a warning light on the dash. When the low beam fails, it turns on the high beam, but also puts a resistor in series with it so it continues to look like low beam to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. I suspect that the new LED bulb has very little current and is confusing the headlight out sensor. I don't know how to bypass this to see if it would cure your problem. Hopefully someone here with more experience has a quick fix.
Good luck.

[SgtSlag]

Most likely the new LED headlight is not drawing enough current, which tricks the headlight failure circuit into thinking it has failed. A load equalizer will help, by drawing more current to trick the circuit, but this defeats the purpose of using an LED! LED's draw a fraction of the amperage of a filament light. However, the headlight failure circuit detects the "open" circuit (low amperage draw) of the headlight, it activates the failure circuit.

Aside from using a load equalizer, I would say the headlight failure circuit would need to be removed/disabled/bypassed. I don't know how to do that. Sorry. Cheers!

[Tonyvdb]

I had the same issue and to get around it I reversed the high and low beam, so it now works in High when the low switch is on and Low beam when its in the high position. no big deal for me as I mostly drive during daylight hrs as we have daylight up here till well after 10pm right now.

[chevyman1]

If you pull the ground pin out of the plug that goes to the reserve lighting device it will disable it and the LED bulb should work normal.
The ground pin has the black with yellow tracer wire.

[Mr Jensee]

Interesting but I am still confused about that sensor circuit. I replaced a the headlight bulb after my dash light said I had a bad bulb. When I pulled the bulb and checked it it was good. Bought a new Silverstar bulb and replaced it but the light won't go out. The bulb was the same wattage as original. It also produces a slight squeal somewhere in the dash when on dim. The headlight otherwise seems fine.

[greybeard]

thanks will do that tomorrow ...spent the day working on a trailer to pull behind it starting to take shape

[Barry]

If you pull the ground pin out of the plug that goes to the reserve lighting device it will disable it and the LED bulb should work normal.
The ground pin has the black with yellow tracer wire.

I looked in my shop manual on page 15-27 to see what it looks like. I don't remember seeing this device anywhere. Is it under the fairing? If so, which side?

[Barry]

I had the same issue and to get around it I reversed the high and low beam, so it now works in High when the low switch is on and Low beam when its in the high position. no big deal for me as I mostly drive during daylight hrs as we have daylight up here till well after 10pm right now.

So when your switch is on low beam, the bulb hi beam is lit, and when you switch to hi the low beam comes on? I noticed the bulb you listed on another topic doesn't say how many lumens it puts out. So the question is: when the low beam is lit, is it brighter than the stock bulb?

[chevyman1]

If you pull the ground pin out of the plug that goes to the reserve lighting device it will disable it and the LED bulb should work normal.
The ground pin has the black with yellow tracer wire.

I looked in my shop manual on page 15-27 to see what it looks like. I don't remember seeing this device anywhere. Is it under the fairing? If so, which side?

It's under the left fearing, there are 2 units together reserve lighting and turn signal cancel control.
They are both marked.

[Tonyvdb]

I had the same issue and to get around it I reversed the high and low beam, so it now works in High when the low switch is on and Low beam when its in the high position. no big deal for me as I mostly drive during daylight hrs as we have daylight up here till well after 10pm right now.

So when your switch is on low beam, the bulb hi beam is lit, and when you switch to hi the low beam comes on? I noticed the bulb you listed on another topic doesn't say how many lumens it puts out. So the question is: when the low beam is lit, is it brighter than the stock bulb?

Yes, I reversed how the wires hook up to the bulb. That gets rid of the bulb out indicator staying on.
The low beam seems about the same brightness as the original high beam was from the incandescent bulb.