Motorcycle – Page 38 – Not Your Average Engineer

March 26, 2012July 1, 2020

Flasher Replacement for the PC800 that can be Used with LEDs

For those who have been looking for a replacement for the stock PC800 flasher unit (P/N 38301-MF8-771), the wait is over. Behold the Tridon EP-34 LED, 2-6 lamps, 12.8V/162W max, trailering, assembled
in USA, DOT. It’s available on Amazon or at your local auto parts store. It is a three prong relay that fits into a headlight bulb harness (available at any auto parts store). The pin-out is:

B = Black/brown stripe
L = Gray
E = Blue/black

Note that the B and the E are reversed as compared to the stock flasher unit on my PC800. Gotta love Japanese turn signal wiring. Also note that this is on my 1989 PC800. I am the 5th-ish owner so it is very possible that the sub-harness was replaced with a newer model at some point.

Looking at the relay side connector pin-out (using a Hitachi connector), with the retaining tab at the top, the pin-out is:

Left = B
Middle = L
Right = E

Also note that I have bypassed the self-cancel turn signal control unit. I believe I toasted the one on my bike and am too short of money at the moment to purchase another unit for testing purposes.

In conclusion, you can do a full turn signal system LED bulb conversion with this relay without needing load balancing resistors or any fancy DIY circuitry. Everything you need should cost about $25.

March 26, 2012March 26, 2012

Two Different Self-Canceling Turn Signal Control Module Bypass Designs

While attempting to convert my PC800 from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs I managed to fry the turn signal cancel control unit. Seth on the IPCRC designed the below circuit to bypass the self-cancel unit completely.

It is a good circuit that should work as intended. I however decided that I only wanted to tap into the harness in one location and built the below circuit.

This circuit is designed to tap into the harness only at the place where the cancel control unit connects. In order to do this, you will have to cannibalize your existing cancel unit for the connector or splice a new connector into the harness. If you have a still functioning cancel unit, I would suggest splicing in a new connector to the harness and saving the cancel unit and harness connector in case a future owner of your bike or another member of the IPCRC could make use of it. Those self cancel control units are expensive and hard to come by!

Note that the “+12V or open” segment of the circuit was left “open” on my final design. I would suggest that you do the same on yours.

The circuit I designed works as anticipated. I used 1N4002 diodes from Digikey and JSM1-12V-4 relays also from Digikey. I used electrical tape to tape the two relays together with their pins facing up then I soldered the appropriate jumper wires and diodes in place, and then covered the whole thing with more electrical tape. The whole package takes up about 2x2x1 inch of space with a pigtail coming out one side that goes to the connector which plugs into the harness.

This is a picture of the relays taped together and the various bits soldered together. After this photo I added the wires that connect to the harness via the 6 pin connector cannibalized from the self-cancel control unit. For some reason I forgot to take a picture of the completed unit. Perhaps I will add a photo of that later on if I remember to take a picture…

In conclusion, either of the two above circuit designs will bypass your self-cancel control unit. If you do this, PLEASE save the cancel unit in case someone else on the IPCRC could use it. Also if you screw your electrical system up following these schematics, it’s not my fault! 🙂

March 16, 2012March 16, 2012

Motorcycles Battened Down for the Unending Storms

With all of the storms we’ve had over the last few months and my quickly dwindling spare time, I decided to put some plastic tarps over my motorcycles to better protect them. Since I did this about a week ago we’ve had a half dozen storms roll through that have produced wind, rain, snow, and hail. It was a good decision to tarp my bikes. Hopefully at this time next year I will have a garage or car port to keep these under.