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Dim oil pressure light

3K views 25 replies 6 participants last post by  DaveO430 
#1 ·
Over the winter, one of the many projects I did was to change all bulbs in dash to LED's and also put the resistors in where they said to on another forum. Today I finally got the bike back together and turned on the lights for the first time . Everything came on then off as they should so I fired the bike up. Started the bike and at first everything looked fine. I then noticed that the oil pressure light was on just enough so you could see it. If you rev the engine the light does not get any brighter or dimmer it just stays dimly lit, just enough to be annoying. I am almost 100% sure that I do not have an oil pressure problem. Tomorrow I will check that and the wiring to. I have a feeling it has something to do with the LED but what could it be and if so, how do you fix it? Thanks for the help......
 
#4 ·
Mr. Umman: Took my a while to find my notes from the LED change over, but, now I have them. It's interesting, there is no resistor on the oil pressure light. However, on the cruise on and cruise set, LED's I have 1K ohm 1/4 watt resistor mounted in parallel. Also the low fuel light has a 470 ohm 1/2 watt resistor mounted in parallel and that is it. I checked all the posts relating to this and no where can I find to mount a resistor on the oil pressure light. So what do you think is wrong?



Mr Bergen: The LED instructions are on goldwings doc's and listed under the 1500 wing. If your thinking of doing the conversion, make sure you read every post because changes and update were made over the years and the end product at least in my opinion is really good. No hot spot that I can see just nice bright light.
 
#6 ·
All of the LEDs should have a resistor that reduces the 12V to the operating voltage of the LEDs (2-3volts). These resistors are connected to the positive end of the LEDs in serial. And sometimes they are hidden inside the case, sometimes not, according to the type of the LEDs.

If you can share a picture of the LED you used, we can comment on that better.
 
#11 ·
You were asking me to take a picture of the bulb. Unfortunately for you and especially me, I do not have a smart phone. I'm old school and still have a flip phone. If you go to superbrightsleds.com and look for bulb number 194-R4-32 red narrow, that is the bulb I am using for the oil light. Boy, if you could figure out what resistor I need, that would be fantastic!!!
 
#13 ·
I visited the site and found the LED you used, however it is impossible to see the values of the resistors inside.

On the other hand, you can;

1. Use a 1Kohm potentiometer connected in series to the positive wire, to find the point where the LED goes off, then measure the resistance on the potentiometer and add that resistor.

2.Buy some resistors like 220,330,430,510,620,680 ohm, 1/4watt and try one by one connected in series to the positive wire, and find which one works best.

3.Or you may want to use the stock incandescent bulb as mentioned by Ken Bergen.
 
#14 ·
I would prefer to use the LED than to go back to the original bulb. Any one (sorry Ken) can take the easy way out and change it back to stock, but I like the challenge and so do people like Erdeniz. Things like this keep life interesting so I will forge forward and see if I can find the resistor that is needed to make it work the way it should. I find it interesting that in that whole post, no one seams to have this problem, so why on my bike?

One thing I noticed about when the light starts to glow is that when the oil is cold the light is not on. As the oil is warming up, all of a sudden the light is glowing and stays on until a cold start up again and then it repeats itself. Hummmmmm interesting.
 
#15 ·
One thing I noticed about when the light starts to glow is that when the oil is cold the light is not on. As the oil is warming up, all of a sudden the light is glowing and stays on until a cold start up again and then it repeats itself. Hummmmmm interesting.
So that gives my theory on the oil pressure switch being the cause more validity. Maybe a new switch would solve the problem, maybe not.
 
#16 ·
I agree with Dave. In theory the switch should be open or closed. No resistance or infinite. If RKB's theory is correct, that the light varies with oil pressure it would almost have to be the oil switch. If however the light glows as the resistor or LED warms then it is a different issue. Why not check resistance in the oil light circuit. If it is zero and infinite then it should be safe to assume the switch is OK. If the resistance varies while running and warming the switch is the likely issue. Assume the switch has passed a slight amount of current it's entire life. Not enough to light the incandescent bulb but enough to light the LED
 
#21 ·
Ok: I did some testing on the light and pressure switch. First off the pressure switch has to have less than 3 psi to turn on as per the service manual. I can't believe the pressure would be so low. I replaced the oil pressure switch with a gauge 0 - 100 psi. BTW do you know how difficult it is to find an oil pressure gauge with metric threads. If you need one, good luck. At idle cold or hot, there is about 20 psi of pressure. The service manual says at 5,000 rpm you should have 71 psi, however I'm not going to rev the bike that high, no way. As you bring the throttle up, warm or cold the pressure increases and at about 2,700 rpm plus or minus my engine is at almost 75 psi, right within specs. So I have good oil pressure.

If I disconnect the wire to the oil sensor, the light goes out like I guess it should. In the service manual it says to get a voltage reading with the wire disconnected. Between the blue with red strip wire, the one that is hooked to the sensor and ground you should have 12 volts. That's what's weird, I only have 7.49 volts even grounding direct to the battery. They say to do it with the bulb in the circuit, 12 volts, I'm only getting 7.49 volts. Is this because of the LED instead of the 194 bulb, I don't know. The book says if you don't get 12 volts, either the bulb is burnt out or the wire is shorted out or something else I don't remember what it was. I know the bulb (LED) is good and the wiring is good because the light, LED, bulb, whatever Lights up before you start the bike and goes off once it is running. So this is telling us something, but, whatever it is , it is out of my league. Anyone of you know what's going on here???
 
#22 · (Edited)
Actually in that method given, you are measuring the 12v which passes through the filament of the OEM bulb, and checking the bulb and its wire at the same time.

If you measure the resistance of an incandescent bulb, you will see how low it is when not lighting. It's resistance will increase when it starts lighting up and reach its normal value to give its wattage (for example a 3w bulb will have 6ohm resistance when not lighting, and 48ohm when it reaches its operating brightness at 12V).

In LED bulbs, however, there are constant resistors which drop the voltage for the LEDs; the number, color and type of LEDs, and how they are connected will define the value of the resistors.

In summary, because you are using a LED, that method in the service manual will not give 12v anymore.
 
#23 ·
Thank you for explaining that for me. I thought it had something to do with the LED, but didn't know what it was. So where do we go from here? How do I make this LED work the way it is suppose to. Either full on or full off. This slight glow from the light isn't going to work for me. I really don't want to change back to the 194 bulb even though that would fix the problem. Other people have done this conversion and I guess it works for them. There are no questions about this happening to other people, so it must work. What do we try next?

After this problem is resolved, I have to move on to the reserve LED. From what I have read, there seems to be a problem with that too. What it is, I don't have a clue.
 
#24 ·
You could try a new switch.
The problem on the low fuel light is the LED doesn't pass enough current to heat up the thermistor in the tank. You would have to put a resistor in parallel with the amount of resistance + that of the LED to equal the 194 bulb, possibly the same as you used for the cruise lights. That would probably also fix the oil light.
 
#25 ·
Dave: I have no problem spending the money to buy a new oil sensor but what if I check the one that is in there now with my fluke meter set to ohms? I would think that with no pressure on the sender you would get a infinite reading and then blowing it with air pressure, it would make a complete circuit and you would get 0 ohms for a reading. Does that sound about right to you?

Using the resistors I have sounds good to me also but which one do I use? If I remember correctly, the cruise lights use 470 ohms and something else uses a 1K ohm resistor. I guess I could start with one and if that doesn't work, try the other and if they both don't work, then I have a problem as to where to go next.
 
#26 ·
If you set your meter to a high ohm range yes, & do it with the engine running instead of using air pressure, and the wire disconnected. Just disconnecting the switch like I said before should tell you what you all you need to know.
 
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