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[hdnik]

OK, Here's one for the electrical Guru's out there.

I have a Canadian bike, which has the tail light for run and brake (as you all know). I have added the US grey smoke lamps and a smoked Kury LED tail lamp. All is fine. I have also just added a Badlands RUN/BRAKE/TURN module that was custom built for the bike. It works, however there is a small issue. The signals flicker slightly in the run mode. When in brake or turn they are bright and crisp, but in the dim or lower run intensity they go from dim to slightly dimmer and back. It,s worse when one signal is on... so what you see is one signal going from "off" to "bright" to "off" and the other goes from "dim" to "dimmer" to "dim".

In Speaking with the guys from Badlands (they really are very knowledgeable and extremely helpful) they determined that the issue was 2 fold. One the Kury Tail Lamp and two the ground for the LED signal lamps. Seems the LED lamps and the Kury LED Lamp is causing feedback and is all being tranmitting through the common ground.

They aske me to remove the kury to test and sure enough it was a night and day improvement but still a very slight flicker remains. Next they said to go under the seat and cut the ground wires from the signals before they reach the main harness and to put an eyelet on them and grond them to the fram under the seat somewhere indepedent of each other.

My question is this. If i do that, does the ground from the tail light go away at the first snip. I think not but i want to be sure. Here is a picture of the harness.

[hdnik]

Here, another pic that might help you see why i'm asking.

In the pic below you can see that the 2 wires from the signals travel as follows
•   From the signal lamps… along the side of the bike heading forward on each side zip tied to the fender behind the bags and meet under the fender.
•   The purple wire from the left LED, and the brown from the right LED then head toward the main harness toward the front of the bike.
•   The 2 black grounds join into a group of coloured wires coming from the harness heading toward the center tail lamp at the back of the bike

Why are those 2 ground wires headed to the tail lamp? Are they all grounded together at the tail light somehow? I will have to look again but I don’t see another black wire at that junction. Is the tail lamp got it’s own ground at the back of the bike?

I ask because my concern is that when I cut the 2 black wires, I’m wondering if I am messing with the tail lamp ground in any way?

[hdnik]

 
What? 2 days and no responses? No one who cares to opine? I'm looking for that one person who knows how the signal lamps and tail lamps are grounded. My guess is they all meet at the tail light and are grounding there somehow... possible through the tail light housing and the fender? I also assume that cutting the signal grounds will have no affect on the tail light's ground.

Am i correct?

[Twolanerider]

 
What? 2 days and no responses? No one who cares to opine? I'm looking for that one person who knows how the signal lamps and tail lamps are grounded.

Yeah, no one likes you so they didn't answer your question.

My guess is they all meet at the tail light and are grounding there somehow... possible through the tail light housing and the fender? I also assume that cutting the signal grounds will have no affect on the tail light's ground.

Am i correct?

Unless Harley changed the harness to the rear lights from what they'd been doing for many years prior you're incorrect.  There won't be a chassis grounding point at the rear.  Nothing is grounded through their housings.  Single ground from behind the battery to the harness distribution block at the rear fender.  Individual connectors for the t/s and brake light plug in to the distribution block and gain their grounds there.  So if you open the ground prior to the distribution block you're opening all of them.  If you open them on their short pigtails after the distribution block you're opening each light individually.

Your individual pigtails coming off the rear harness before the brake light of course didn't exist on the earlier bikes.  Still would bet there's only the single ground to the connector behind the battery and they separate to those side mounted lights at splice points part way down the rear harness.

[hdnik]

Yeah, no one likes you so they didn't answer your question.

Wow... that hurt.   It's just like when I was a kid and my mother would hand me $5 bucks and say "Here ya go son, now go out by buy yourself a friend"

[Twolanerider]

Wow... that hurt.   It's just like when I was a kid and my mother would hand me $5 bucks and say "Here ya go son, now go out by buy yourself a friend"

Damn, that's harsh. And that long ago Canadian dollars weren't worth as much either.  So it was like she was only giving you 37 cents in real money !

[Lucky88]

Seems it all worked until you installed the module. Before testing all your electrical distributions, make sure your battery is up and up. Before you start cutting into the main vehicle harness, measure the ground resistance or  voltage drop.  If you did have bad grounding, electricity will go through the path of least resistance, which may or maynot be what you're experiencing. If anyway possible, make a substitute ground wire before cutting anything. Recheck all your lighting contacts for TIGHT connections. Your last test after removing the Kury is not specific...

[hdnik]

Now in hind sight I'm thinking even my mother disliked me   Devastating!!

Now back to business.

True the flicker is slightly worse when the bike is not running, ie, just with the key on. Also all the connections are tight and new and the module is a plug and play. As for the Kury tail lamp, when i unplug it completely or replace it with the Incandescent bulb from OEM lamp, the flicker is almost 90% gone, so no doubt that is part of the issue, but the feedback through the ground (according to badland) is the rest of the issue. Also they suggested adding a diode to the power side near each signal to erase all remaining feedback if any (as last resort). They didn't think i'd have to go that far though.

The connector at the harness under the seat has only 6 wires, my guess is this:

 - Orange/White - Tail Lamp Running (?)
 - Red/Yellow - Tail Lamp Brake (?)
 - Blue -Lic Plate Lamp (?)
 - Brown - Right Signal light
 - Violet - Left Signal light
 - Black - Ground

...so the blacks must all join up somewhere rear of the connector and there must be one black wire heading forward in the bunch to get to the frame near the battery through the harness?... So what I think you are saying is that the signal grounds can be cut at this point under the seat (rear or the connector) and not affect the ground at the centre???

[iski]

Now in hind sight I'm thinking even my mother disliked me   Devastating!!

Now back to business.

True the flicker is slightly worse when the bike is not running, ie, just with the key on. Also all the connections are tight and new and the module is a plug and play. As for the Kury tail lamp, when i unplug it completely or replace it with the Incandescent bulb from OEM lamp, the flicker is almost 90% gone, so no doubt that is part of the issue, but the feedback through the ground (according to badland) is the rest of the issue. Also they suggested adding a diode to the power side near each signal to erase all remaining feedback if any (as last resort). They didn't think i'd have to go that far though.

The connector at the harness under the seat has only 6 wires, my guess is this:

 - Orange/White - Tail Lamp Running (?)
 - Red/Yellow - Tail Lamp Brake (?)
 - Blue -Lic Plate Lamp (?)
 - Brown - Right Signal light
 - Violet - Left Signal light
 - Black - Ground

...so the blacks must all join up somewhere rear of the connector and there must be one black wire heading forward in the bunch to get to the frame near the battery through the harness?... So what I think you are saying is that the signal grounds can be cut at this point under the seat (rear or the connector) and not affect the ground at the centre???

Was offline since 5/27 but probably would have ignored this thread if I had seen it.   Was in Canada a few years ago & it smelled funny but doubt that caused these grounding issues.My mother liked my sister better so not sure if we have anything in common there but you never know.

You are correct on the rear lighting - wire colors - as best I remember.  I converted the LED side tour pack lights on my bike from running lights to blinker/brake lights so was mainly concerned with the black, brown & purple (my bike has no violet - mebbe a SG thing?). Anyway, the black is a common ground. Do not know why you have the flicker though.  Could be feed back - the diode deal might work if that is the case. Unrelated useless info: I had a gremlin that lived in the fairing of my last bike that was a wire eater.  But as I recall HD quit using gremlins in early/mid 08 & switched to frobbishes.

[hdnik]

OK PROBLEM SOLVED

As it turned out... no wiring changes required... it was the crappy kury LED tail Lamp causing the problem. Swapped it out with the one from Badlands and MINT MINT MINT

Thank you Rick and Dan from Badlands Motorcyle Products.

[hdnik]

For Sale - Kuryakyn 5409 Low Profile Smoked Grey LED Tail Lamp - No Licience plate light

[hdnik]

Cancel that... will not sell to anyone... would not wish that grief on anyone here... plus it makes a nice ashtray

[Trapperdog]

I just liked all of your well done diagrams with pics 

[HawgDoc]

I just liked all of your well done diagrams with pics 

i AGREE!