This has happened to all of us. You buy some new really cool LED lights. What could be more simple, right? Just chop off the old signals, mount the new ones, connect the wires to the new lights just like your old incandescent lights were connected, and with a little solder, you're all done, right?
Wrong. Now the turn signals flash about 3 times faster than before. Just enough to be REALLY annoying.
Why? well, the simplified quick version follows...
Go to TOPThe stock flasher unit assumes you'll use incandescent bulbs, which naturally have a high current draw (about 1.5 amps for each light). When you replace them with LED's you have a much lower current draw (LED's draw only 0.02 amps of current for each bulb). The stock mechanical flasher unit will do one of two things when you don't draw enough current through it:
The reasons this happens are slightly complex, and not worth going into here. But it is helpful just to remember that most of the time the stock mechanical flasher unit is set up to blink twice as fast as usual when the current flow drops. In a way, this can be helpful because this is what would happen if one of your bulbs burned out -- the current draw would drop, and then you'd realize it because your signals now would be flashing too fast.
The bottom line is that any standard "thermal" or "mechanical" flasher NEEDS a specific current draw from the lights in order to work properly. If your lights (LEDs) don't draw enough current, then your flasher is not happy -- and it will blink too fast. The most direct way to fix this is to MAKE the lights draw more current (by adding parallel resistors to the circuit), but this isn't really the easiest, nor the least expensive way to fix the problem.
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By far the cheapest ($1.17) and easiest (5 minutes) fix is to just replace that stock flasher relay they put on the bike when they shipped it. Go all out and spend a full $1.17 at NAPA to get a NAPA #552 flasher relay. This flasher is able to tolerate the low current draw of LED lights without ever changing it's rate of flash. The 552 flasher is pretty good at maintaining a constant rate of flash even under the low current draw situation of LED lighting. For almost all GSXR riders with this problem, the 552 is a solution that costs almost nothing. Give this a try before resorting to other measures.
Now generally when you want to fix a flash-too-fast problem, you're looking for a totally "electronic flasher" as opposed to the standard "thermal flasher". Most thermal flashers NEED the large current draw of incandescent bulbs in order to properly heat up. If the flasher does not heat up, it flashes too fast, or just stays stuck ON without flashing at at all. But even though the 552 flasher is not an "electronic flasher", it has a much greater tolerance for low current draw than the cheapy flasher that comes stock on the bike. So the bottom line is - is almost alwaysworks. However, if you've already tried the 552 and it did not solve your problem, you'll want to resort to the next step - the 262 flasher.
An electronic flasher like the 262 works differently. It doesn't care how much or how little current is being drawn through it -- it will just blink away at a constant normal rate regardless. So a purist would always fix a "flash-too-fast" with a totally electronic flasher. But at least for me, the only purely electronic flasher that I am able to get is NAPA # 262, at a cost of $14.00 -- pretty expensive. If you're willing to just buy the 262, I can guarantee that you'll NEVER have to worry about how much or how little current you draw -- the flashing rate will remain rock steady. It will NEVER "flash-too-fast".
To install your flasher, you have to disconnect the old flasher. The stock flasher is built into your fuse box, and cannot be removed. So instead, you'll just cut the wires leading to it and inactivate it that way.
Look at the front of your right RAM air duct, up front just behind the fairing. There you'll find this little black box, which is your fuse box. You'll be able to give it a few tugs and pull it off it's mounting bracket. Turn it around so you can view all the wires leading into it, as shown in the photo.
Here is a closeup view. The color of the wires depends on your make and year of the bike. You can see on my '02 GSXR-1000, the two wires you want are colored
Just cut these two wires, and the stock flasher is now disconnected. Tape off the cut ends of the wires that lead into the fuse box - these are useless, and will never be needed again. They end blindly in the now defunct stock flasher. Take the OTHER two cut ends of the wires (the ends that are no longer connected to the fuse box at all) and solder some wire extensions onto them, to give you more room to work.
Now just take those two wires and connect them to the two prongs on your 552 flasher. It doesn't matter which wire goes on which prong. Now, if you've soldered enough of an extension on your wires, you'll have room to tuck your new flasher under the fairing out of the way, and secure it with a zip tie. That's it ! You're done!
The installation of the 262 (or any other flasher) is exactly the same - just cut the proper wires, and connect them to your new flasher in any order.
You will not have an O/G wire going into your fusebox/stock flasher. Instead you'll be looking for a solid BROWN wire. The second wire you need to cut is the same as in '02: it is light blue. This photo is from a rider named "Dragoon", showing the proper wires cut : Light blue and Brown wires. Use these wires to connect your new flasher. Again, you'll connect the new flasher to the cut wires that are no longer connected to the fusebox, not the cut ends shown in this photo.
Go to TOPJust for completeness, let's mention how you can correct a "flash-too-fast" with resistors. See the circuit drawing below. Remember, the main problem is that your LED turn signals do not draw enough current to make Mr. Flasher happy. So you need to draw MORE current through Mr. Flasher to settle him down and get the flash rate back to normal.
Remember the old stock turn signals? They have 21W bulbs in them. This means that when the activated turn signal is drawing 21W of power ( or 21 / 14.5 = 1.45 Amps of current ), the flasher unit is satisfied. So your goal here is to add a resistor to the circuit that will result in the same current draw as the stock light bulb did. Quite simply, you can just ignore the current draw of the LED light, because it is so small it is negligible. So the obvious answer is that you want a resistor that will draw 1.45 amps of current.
Using the regulated voltage of 14.5V that is supplied when the bike is running at 5000 rpm,
Now what power dissipation do you need? 10Watts is fine. The stock turn signal lights are 21W bulbs. That means that when they are actually ON, they are using 21W of power, and drawing 1.45 Amps of current, but the actual energy utilized over any length of time is going to be ~21 W / 2 = 10 Watts simply because the blinkers are only ON for 1/2 of the time while they are blinking.
So in fact, a 10 ohm 10-Watt resistor will do the job. Maddness has used this fix on his bike with good success, as have many other riders.
Some other riders have used 8 ohm 10W resistors. That's ok -- but you probably will not have success if you use anything MORE THAN 10 ohms.
If you do this fix, you need to attach one resistor in parallel to your front turn signal on each side of the bike, so you need two resistors.
This approach will also work if you have installed a "turn signal integrator" module on the back of your bike. Even though you still may have all stock turn signals, those modules will decrease your current draw through the flasher relay. Again, this situation can be fixed by putting a resistor in parallel to each of the front turn signal lights, even though those lights are still the stock bulbs. Though the math suggests that 10 ohms should work, I personally have not done that --- I can only tell you that 8 ohms 10W resistors have solved this problem for a large number of gixxer riders. In one case the rider had to go down to 4 ohms before his integrator worked correctly. I think the solution will vary by the type of module you use (see the web page on turn signal integration). A good place to start would be 8 ohms 10W if you're fixing a turn signal problem with an integrator.
Go to TOPWell, here's a diagram, since a picture always helps make things more clear. I've shown both possible fixes on the same picture. You can flip a coin and decide whether to replace your flasher (shown on the right side of the diagram OR to add parallel resistors to your front turn signals. Choose one or the other.
As a general rule you only need to do one OR the other, not both. There are some circumstances where you'll need to do both fixes : i.e. replace the flasher with a 262 AND add the resistors. Here are some suggestions:
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There can be some difficult situations when people add more than one thing that messes up the current draw. Here are my suggestions based on past experience:
"I just added LED turn signals (Liberteks , for example), and my turn signals either flash too fast, or they now just light up and stay on without flashing at all."Options, in this order: