LED lighting problems

[kilrain]

I’ll start with the basics, my bike is a 2008 FXSTB Night Train, it does not have a factory or aftermarket alarm. Up until today, it was only equipped with a HD LED headlamp and HD LED tail light. The turn signals/running light were the stock, incandescent bulbs.

So today, I installed my recently received Custom Dynamics LED turn/running light kit. The kit consisted of Custom Dynamics red LED bullet clusters for the rear, white/amber Dynamic Ringz LED bullet clusters for the front, a signal stabilizer(which is their version of a load equalizer) and their “Triple Play” brake/running/turn signal controller.

The installation was straightforward and everything worked EXCEPT my front right turn/running light. It is supposed to have the white ring brightly illuminated as a running light and when the turn signal is activated, the white LEDs turn off and the center amber LEDs flash. It works perfectly on the left front turn signal, not all on the right. On the right, the white LED ring is barely, and I mean barely, illuminated and when the right turn signal is activated, the white LED ring flashes, still barely illuminated.

I swapped the LED clusters, left to right and back, and both worked fine on the left side, but as described above on the right side. Pretty sure it ain’t the LED clusters. I also tried it with and without the signal stabilizer but no joy, all that did was cause the signal to flash faster as expected. I tried it with and without the Triple Play, no effect. I tried it with the bike running, no change. I put the stock incandescent bulbs back in, they worked fine. I left the LED in the left lamp and put the incandescent back in the right, the both worked fine. WTF?







Anybody got any ideas? I’ve already sent an email to Custom Dynamics about it but it is a weekend so…..

[mori55]

It's the socket it plugs into. Had keep screwing around with it to work sprayed some electrical cleaner in it.

[kilrain]

Originally Posted by mori55

It's the socket it plugs into. Had keep screwing around with it to work sprayed some electrical cleaner in it.

I pulled the light housing apart and messed with a bit but had no luck. Perhaps I'll try it again. Thanks for the suggestion.

[kilrain]

I figured it out! It wasn't the LED or the socket per se, it was this:



Factory wiring had the turn signal wiring running to the ground contact in the socket and the ground wire running to the turn signal contact. Apparently the incandescent bulb will work this way because it did just fine but the LED, not so much. Nice quality control HD!

Anyway, it's fixed and works great now. Thanks for the input, it helped me figure this out for sure.