led turn signal question

[stang65pony]

im planning to save myself a lot of cabbage and using my stock tail light housing, mount 2 led strips against the left and right side walls of the housing to act as my turn signals. that in hand with the clear tail light lens should give me the desired integrated tail light effect im after without the outstanding price. my questions are;

can i just wire the leds into the existing turn signal wiring? i seen somewhere that you may need a flasher module or something? i would just figure that they would flash like normal on thier own.

also; i seen on asb when looking for a clear lens it mentions a red tail light bulb. does anyone know if it comes with the lens or if i need to get my own and if so where would i?

thanks

 

[dallasb]

You will need to wire in one of those flasher modules...or you can just wire in a resistor...it does the same thing. They won't flash like normal without resistance added to the circuit.

 

[stang65pony]

well ****, i have no idea how to do that. is there a diagram or something? lol i feel dumb

 

[dallasb]

All you have to do is find out how many volts is needed for the LED's...then put in a inline resistor to get said volts. I'm not an electrician by any means, so if I'm wrong someone please chime in.

 

[twistedrose]

LEDs do not draw the same power or have the same resistance, its probably going to be like my truck when i upgraded the flasher, and flash very fast ( except under load when the rest are plugged in). the resistor should simulate the other lights still being there. just pop a small resistor in line next to the led. doesnt matter which side. go to radio shack and just tell them you want to put a small resistor in a 12v system. to be honest i would try it without first. just wire the led in and see how it is. led's only have two wires....
---line from switch---resistor---led---line back to bike

 

[tasha1329]

If it helps, I just replaced the stock front and rear turn signals with LED's. I messed around with resistors also but, found out that an EP-37 flasher does the job, doesn't require extra resistors and plugs into the stock flasher. Pick one up at any auto parts store.

 

[dallasb]

Yea for ease I agree with tasha...the plug and play with the EP-37 is what I was originally going to go with...but decided I wanted to try my hand at circuits.

 

[stang65pony]

so there is a simple plug n play part. thanks guys! ima go check that out. hope i get my leds soon. i'll post up some pics after im done

 

[agfish18]

Just a couple questions, why do you need the flash module for the tail lights? So what if it flashes a bit faster, still flashes doesn't it? Is there some sort of damage done to the bike without it? or does the faster flashing just annoy people?

 

[dallasb]

Its really annoying. Its like driving in a car when it has one blinker out. I don't think that any damage is done but I doubt that its good on a flasher relay to be clicking on and off that fast.

 

[agfish18]

OK, My bike is too loud for the sound of the blinkers to bother me (not that mine are flashing rapidly as my blinkers are stock at the moment), was just wondering what the big deal was. seemed expensive for something that you dont really need.

 

[dallasb]

Its just preference...just like a loud exhaust

 

[RT Performance]

If you do all 4to led it won't flash at all will just buzz