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LED Blinker Controller for FLATZ

6K views 31 replies 10 participants last post by  Mythos 
#1 ·
Hey folks, so I"m looking for some help from those more electronically inclined folks here on the boards. My bike had switch back White/Amber LED lights in the front lollipops that would turn the white running light off when the amber was turned on. Someone must have done some aftermarket wiring as there are 2 connectors that provide 3 wires to the front blinkers (each side). One for white, one for amber and common. I recently had one of my lollipops involuntarily removed by a slow ass turkey vulture. I decided to replace them with the Flatz turn signals by Raw designs. I special ordered the ones with both the white and amber LED's. And the work great save for one thing (I knew this going in BTW). The white doesn't turn off when the amber turns on. I'm assuming the old switchbacks on my bike had that control built into the circuit on the board itself as both the Flatz and the old lights had 3 wires coming out of them, one for White, one for Amber and common. What I'm looking for is a controller or something I can wire in before the Flatz that will turn off the white when the amber comes on. I spoke to someone who indicated it would require some relays etc... Can anyone point me to some simple inline controllers that will do this, or describe how to set up the relays if that's what will be required?

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#2 · (Edited)
The trick to this is you need the white to be on anytime the ignition key is on.

Then you need the white to turn off when the amber is flashing and back on when you are done with the turn signal.

You could simply run the white running light circuit through a N/C contact of a relay and then have the flasher circuit energize the relay coil........BUT.....

Since the flasher circuit is not constant your white light will flash on and off opposite of the amber flashing. (Maybe you would not mind this though and its just that simple)

But if you want the white to remain off while the yellow is flashing then you will need to also have a latch and/or timer in the circuit.

Someone somewhere has probably already built a single IC chip to do this function which would be very compact,.........trick is finding it.

A more industrial approach would be if you could find a couple of one shot, latching, off delay relays with N/C contacts, that would work more or less to accomplish what you are trying to do.

BCS
 
#5 ·
OK guys, I did some research and think this might work, I'll likely give it a test run in the next few days to check my idea but wanted to see if anyone had any feedback on this.

I picked these relay's up on Amazon for $8.. They may be a bit big for what I need, and I may need to find some smaller ones/smaller Amperage... I've included a PDF of what I believe my current wiring looks like, and what I think I could do to wore these relay's in to create a circuit that turns off power to the white LED when the blinker is turned on. Thoughts?

Font Parallel Rectangle Paper Schematic
Rectangle Slope Font Parallel Pattern
Rectangle Slope Font Parallel Pattern


https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZY84HZL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
#7 ·
OK guys, I did some research and think this might work, I'll likely give it a test run in the next few days to check my idea but wanted to see if anyone had any feedback on this.

I picked these relay's up on Amazon for $8.. They may be a bit big for what I need, and I may need to find some smaller ones/smaller Amperage... I've included a PDF of what I believe my current wiring looks like, and what I think I could do to wore these relay's in to create a circuit that turns off power to the white LED when the blinker is turned on. Thoughts?

View attachment 385364 View attachment 385366 View attachment 385368

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZY84HZL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This is a more accurate "BEFORE" of your wiring.
Rectangle Schematic Font Slope Parallel


I will take a look at the relay circuit proposal if BCS doesn't beat me to it... ;)
At first glance, without confirming the wiring, I don't see anything holding the charge between signal pulses, meaning what BCS previously explained will happen - the white and amber will alternate during a signal - white-amber-white-amber instead of white...amber-off-amber-off-amber... white.

The relay itself is of course dramatic overkill for load handling but more is better than less and automotive relays are cheap. Not sure how reliable over time those will be, but they will work at least for awhile, if wired properly. Just be aware that relay comes with 14AWG wire in the harness which isn't sufficient to handle the rated 30A load (so don't actually use it to switch 30A), but that won't apply to you and your Flatz, which probably draws... I dunno, maybe 0.6A?
:doorag:
 
#10 ·
How much more is the special order with white? I still feel like mine are dimmer than they should be.. Plus my blinker indicators are both dimmly lit when I put the bike on ignition. Wondering if sonething is hooked up wrong. I'll probably just take a ride to raw design when I get back. Only about a 2 hour ride from me.
 
#12 ·
Not sure what BCS sent you, but probably something like this (?) which would do the trick.
What you want is a delay-off relay or programmable relay as BCS mentioned.
(https://www.qualitymobilevideo.com/bu509td.html)

You would connect your Flatz turn signal wire directly to the bike turn signal wire per normal. You would connect your Flatz white light wire to the normally-closed (NC) tab 87a of the relay, the "on when running / ignition power" wire from the bike to tab 30 of the relay, GROUND to tab 85, and the turn signal pulse to the "trigger" tab 86 of the relay, and set your delay - 2 sec would be plenty in this case.

HOW IT WOULD WORK: For this relay, the white light would always be on when the bike was on, courtesy of power naturally flowing between tab 30 through to the NC tab 87a. When the turn signal activates, it would trigger the relay, killing the power to the white light (sending it to tab 87 instead... don't let that short on anything!) and allowing the turn signal to blink naturally. After 2 seconds of no turn signal pulse (pulses are about once every 0.7 seconds), the relay would relax and turn the white led back on.

Would look like this: WHITE until turn signal activated... AMBER - OFF - AMBER - OFF ... max up to 2 second delay - WHITE comes back on.

Good luck!
TEST IT ON THE BENCH FIRST!
:bigthumbsup:
 
#14 ·
So I was thinking about this..because I'm cheap...lol I could just use one. I then realized that if you just use one, both white lights would go out when either blinker is on...then I thought...that may not actually be a bad thing...what do you all think?
 
#18 ·


Thanks to BCS for the heads up on the mini timed relays. With a bit of effort I was able to program them and get them wired into the bike, now I may be the only person in the world with FLATZ with white running lights that turn off when the blinker comes on...YAY!!!!!
 
#20 ·
Shout Out!

I just want to take this moment to give a loud shout out to BCS, NoSetFine and many more on this forum that spend their valuable time guiding those of us in need of help. I for one do not take this for granted. Just ask yourself, where in this world do you get free service. Not to many places.
 
#21 ·
I just want to take this moment to give a loud shout out to BCS, NoSetFine and many more on this forum that spend their valuable time guiding those of us in need of help. I for one do not take this for granted. Just ask yourself, where in this world do you get free service. Not to many places.
Very true, this is all in all a great community and there are definitely some stand out folks who have a wealth of knowledge and will readily share it!
 
#25 ·
Just reading this over again - you could hook up that relay as in your first idea, where it would alternate white/amber, but include a diode and capacitor across the coil so it will stay engaged for a short time between pulses. I did the same thing for my mirrors, but they were only LED's not a relay coil which may require a larger capacitor.

The way it would work, is the capacitor would charge up on the turn signal pulse which also triggers the relay.

When the pulse dies between blinks, the capacitor would discharge into coil and keep it open until the next blink pulse.
If no more blink pulses... then the cap runs out and the coil would close, reverting to white.

You would need to experiment with capacitor sizes to get the right timing, I honestly forget what I finally went with on mine and it is likely different anyway, as it will depend on the discharge rate across the coil.
:bigthumbsup:

EDIT: Didn't read far enough down... looks like you got it solved. Saw the video - looks GREAT!!
 
#27 ·
Should be taking on this project next week. Didn't realize what was needed to setup the timers and had to order them (my bad). All the notes here and the notes that have been provided via Facebook should be enough to get it done. Pics and videos to come. (Might have to get someone a beer or few for helping out)
 
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