Sidecar lights with LEDs is puzzling

[Bsareg]

To check if it's rear Led itself, just disconnect the feed to the tail light. If that cures it, a 200v 4 amp diode in series with the tail light feed will permantly fix it. If you're running negative earth, the white band on diode is at tail light end. Positive earth, band will face away from tail light. Providing only Leds are used, the diode won't get warm. 

[RoyC]

Nice outfit Roger.
Every light on my combo is led, including headlight.
The only difference from yours, (that I can See) is , I have not used the frame at all for earthing. Every lights ground wire goes back to the + terminal on the battery. Including indicators & spot light.

My rear sidecar light is the same as the bike light and the back plate is earthed the same as your bike light.
What is your sidecar rear light earthed to ?

[chaterlea25]

Hi Roger,
It must be to do with the internal workings of the double LED tail light?
If the setup is as described earlier with a resistor selecting high or low output it would back feed through the resistor
and feed the other LED's
Before you go ripping out anything try this 
Connect a diode into the line to the brake light and another into the tail light line
the diodes can be very small as the current is low
(if no light reverse diode )

John

[RogerSB]

What is your sidecar rear light earthed to ?

Hi Roy, thanks, all the sidecar cables run through a flexible convoluted tubing to a superseal connector on the bike (waterproof and easy to pull apart to disconnect). The rear light earth goes from the earth connector on the metal bulb holder (see photo) to earth on the bike's frame and then through a 15 amp fuse to the + battery terminal.  Front light does the same.

[RogerSB]

Hi Roger,
It must be to do with the internal workings of the double LED tail light?
If the setup is as described earlier with a resistor selecting high or low output it would back feed through the resistor
and feed the other LED's
Before you go ripping out anything try this 
Connect a diode into the line to the brake light and another into the tail light line
the diodes can be very small as the current is low
(if no light reverse diode )
John

Thanks John, the bike's rear/stop LED is this one from Paul Goff: 12V Positive earth Pt.no. LO12ST (see photo) and the sidecar's is the one in the other photo.  I'm no electrician or mechanic but I think (by looking at the bulbs) the tail and stop lights are separate LEDs (I may well be wrong).

[RDfella]

Never ceases to amaze me how much extra time and hassle we seem to spend with modern technology compared with the old. Maybe that's why most of my vehicles are over 50 yrs old ...

[RoyC]

Thanks John, the bike's rear/stop LED is this one from Paul Goff: 12V Positive earth Pt.no. LO12ST (see photo) and the sidecar's is the one in the other photo.  I'm no electrician or mechanic but I think (by looking at the bulbs) the tail and stop lights are separate LEDs (I may well be wrong).

 

Roger, Looking at my Paul Goff: 12V Positive earth Pt.no. LO12ST tail and stop LED, I think that the whole LED just gets brighter for the stop light.

[RogerSB]

Roger, Looking at my Paul Goff: 12V Positive earth Pt.no. LO12ST tail and stop LED, I think that the whole LED just gets brighter for the stop light.

Many thanks Roy, I'm having a bit of a short break at the moment as I've been at it non stop (with my 'ever patient' wife helping me) in a cold garage just about every day for the past month attaching the sidecar, adjusting, testing, re-adjusting, testing, re-adjusting, testing, etc. and so on to get it so I'm happy with its handling. What I'm doing now is making up a dummy set of lights with some spare light units I have and using the LEDs to do some tests, that way I'll avoid having to keep messing around with the actual sidecar lights and its wiring - in the meantime when we get some sunny days  I can still go out for a spin with incandescent bulbs in the sidecar lights.

[duTch]

 I have a couple of similar LED tail lights reach from different sources but not Goffy., and fairly sure it also took me some time to figure which LEDs did what.... but they do the job, so...

...Never ceases to amaze me how much extra time and hassle we seem to spend with modern technology compared with the old. Maybe that's why most of my vehicles are over 50 yrs old .......

 Maybe so,  but I at least think of it as a learning process

[RogerSB]

Never ceases to amaze me how much extra time and hassle we seem to spend with modern technology compared with the old. Maybe that's why most of my vehicles are over 50 yrs old ...

Well, you may have a point there . . . if it's change for change sake. In this case my reason is to keep the amps down with having another two lights to power and even more importantly two 21W stop lights which are on and off constantly. I'm not a racer so the dynamo isn't permanently charging at full whack, although now pulling a sidecar with a passenger will probably get the revs higher. Happy Days!

[berger]

I would have normal lights and a BIG! battery in the side car, but that's just me

[RogerSB]

Just a bit of an update for anyone interested.

Removed the sidecar mudguard with its cabling, brought it in the warm house to redo the wiring and simplify it by splicing the live and earth cables (see my updated sidecar diagram) with Posi-Lock and Posi-Tap connectors and changed, the now unnecessary, 5 pin Superseal for a 3 pin.

Tested it all for continuity with my multi-meter and everything ok, removed the battery from my bike and brought that into the house and with test leads checked that all the lights (LEDs) worked as they should, everything ok.

Back out to the cold garage to check my bike's wiring. Apart from the Quartz Halogen headlight my A10 has all LED bulbs, including pilot and speedo bulbs, and I went through it systematically checking all the relevant wiring and connectors on the bike. I also checked the correct filament was coming on for the stop light and replaced the 3 pin Superseal connector's other half on the bike. So all the relevant wiring had been checked or redone.

Turned on the light switch - all ok. Pressed down the brake pedal - all ok.

Went into the house for the mudguard and joined the Superseal connector. Carried out the same test as I did for the bike but this time (and as previously) when the brake pedal was depressed the pilot light, speedo light and front sidecar light came on.    Ok,  change all the LEDs on bike and sidecar back to the normal incandescent bulbs and retest. The result - everything working fine.

Changed the bulbs again for LEDs - same problem. Swapped around the sidecar's and bike's stop light LEDs - no difference. 

Removed the sidecar's front LED and replaced it with a 10W incandescent bulb. Now everything works as it should. 

Now what! I'll tell you - I'm going to leave it at that, with a 10W incandescent bulb in the sidecar's front light, as it hardly gets switched on anyway.

However, if anyone can see anything wrong I'll be very happy. 

[lawnmowerman]

Beats me Roger - more or less the same as I have on my Matchless G12 outfit.

One final thing I would do is connect a long piece of cable to the battery earth terminal. Put the LED back in the chair sidelight and replicate the fault and hold the brake pedal down with a bungee. Then touch the earth cable to various points such as lamp fittings, sidecar chassis etc (which should already earthed via the loom) and see if the errant lights go out, thus indicating a poor earth via the loom.

Another check while it is rigged as above is to remove the lit LED from the speedo light and see what voltage is between the pin and headlamp earth - I would bet that it is a lot less than the battery voltage but enough to trigger the LED.

This is not meant as a criticism, but why do you have a fuse on the battery earth? I had one on my SR but when I rewired it I removed it as I could not see a reason for it.

Jim

[RogerSB]

This is not meant as a criticism, but why do you have a fuse on the battery earth? I had one on my SR but when I rewired it I removed it as I could not see a reason for it.
Jim

Er . . . laziness Jim, when replacing that earth cable a year or so ago I thought it would be handy to be able to pull a fuse holder out from under the seat to remove the fuse when working on the electrics (after blowing a fuse a few times when too lazy to remove the seat). The live side being far too short and so it was the easiest to do.

[RDfella]

Only thing I can see is the chair / bike stop/tail wiring appears to be reversed. And the bulbs appear to be different. Or am I misunderstanding the set up?