Tail light issue

Chappy (62), hanknum (47)

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My angel Posted by ravenfox on 12 Jul 2008 in Members Rides Viewed 1234 times 640w X 480h 173092 bytes

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I just figure us up North with a snowblower could find a reason for using it the rest of the year! We could mount an alternator on it and weld!!! -- Tony (TD)

[repoman]

I bought and added hard saddle bags to my bike.  I want the lights on my saddle bags to turn on with the brake lights.  When I hook them up, then the tail light will not stay on for regular lights but will turn on along with the saddle bag lights when I hit the brakes.   If I unhook the sadddle bag lights the tail light work fine.

How do I get them to all play nice together and work??

Thanks

[Mike the Bike]

I had the same problem with some extra brake lights I put on mine. Someone suggested to take the feed directly from the brake switch. The tail light seems to need just the right amount of power fed to it and anything added to it robs it of power. (you can see I'm not an electrician ) Still haven't got around to sorting it out. 

[Icedog]

I had the same problem with some extra brake lights I put on mine. Someone suggested to take the feed directly from the brake switch. The tail light seems to need just the right amount of power fed to it and anything added to it robs it of power. (you can see I'm not an electrician ) Still haven't got around to sorting it out.  

The brake switch and the lamp assembly are connected just by a wire - either end of said wire will act the same. I don't know exactly how Hyo construct the lamp assembly so there may be some truth in Mike's comment about needing the right "power" although a couple of bulbs in parallel with the lamp assembly should not really affect it - the LED lamp assembly will have resistors in series with the LEDs to control the current which is the significant variable for LEDs, as long as the 12 volt line does not drop far in voltage then the current will be sufficient. The question, however, is whether they are playing a game to use the same LEDs for both tail and stop and boost the current when braking to make them brighter. The extra bulbs in parallel could affect such circuitry and this would explain why both tail and stop functions are altered.

Without knowing exactly what Hyo do in the assembly I'm uncertain what to suggest as a way around it - its possible that the extra bulbs are providing sufficient of a circuit when not lit that they are effectively short-circuiting the tail-lamp LEDs (an unlit bulb is effectively a piece of wire until it has enough current to get hot), then when power is applied via the stop light switch the short is essentially eliminated. A possible fix might be to add a diode (non light emitting - current rating of a couple of amps) between where the brake-switched +12v takeoff for the extra lights attaches to the stop light circuit and the LED stop lamp thus preventing any current flow back thru the extra bulbs to ground when the brake switch is open. Attached sketch shows what I'm suggesting.

[repoman]

I might try running a wire from the low beam circut of the head light to power the rear tail light.  That may allow the functionality I want and not rob power (I will disconnect the power supply in the rear for just the std tail light and the brake function should still work.  I will try it and up day this post.

Thanks for the info.

[repoman]

We'll I powered the tail light function from completely different circuit, did not use the headlight circuit and it still did not work like I want, so I wired the lights to the tail light circuit and they work.  The main tail light works with the brakes everything works hooked up that way, weird that you cannot attache the saddle bag lights to the brake light circuit.

[thafrogggg]

Are you mixing LED and regular bulbs?  Led on the tail light and regular in the saddle bags; That might be an issue if the lights are set to work at different voltages.  Just an uneducated guess on my part though.

[Lmbrguy]

Sounds like your missing a ground wire or you have single element bulbs in the saddlebag lights.

[SErider]

Have you thought about using the saddlebag lights as turn signals instead? Might give the bike a cleaner neater look.

[repoman]

I am fine with them working with just the tail light now, they must have a higher ohm resistance.  I moved my blinkers higher and back farther on the fender.  I just have to beef up the crappy stock brackets that came with the hard bags.  Other than that I feel pretty happy about them, I will take a picture of them, they are hard bags that have been talked about on here before.