LED Instrument Internal lighting Problem

[Bob_Roller]

Purchased LED replacement bulbs for the instrument internal lighting from Motorrad Electric, a week ago .
Went to install them on my silver LS .
Replaced the speedometer bulb worked great .
Tachometer, as soon as I turned the key to the on position, a small bit of smoke came out of the back of the indicator .
I removed the tachometer and took it apart, the copper conductor for the internal lighting circuit was fried for the internal lighting .
I have a spare tachometer put in a different LED bulb and it did the same thing !!
Kinda pissed off to say the least, don't know if the board can be repaired, or if looking at a replacement tachometer .
Contacting Motorrad Electric on Monday and see what I can figure out them them .
Big improvement in visibility on the speedometer over the incandescent bulb .

[mrclubike]

Sometimes you can sand off the insulation over the run and solder a wire in its place

Sounds like the bulb is shorting out in the holder

[Bill Parker]

Same thing happened to me ( and I repaired it by soldering a jumper over the melted bit). Check your bulbs to see if the wires in the base are the same as the ones on the bulb you removed. My LEDs had contacts folded over that shorted out the socket. All I had to do was remove the portion causing the short and they worked fine.

[Bob_Roller]

Just checked the bulbs and they are just as you stated !!!
Damm the luck .
Thanks for the tip !!

[mrclubike]

After the repair check for shorts with a Ohm meter before powering it up

[Bob_Roller]

Pretty simple repair, I drilled two holes in the widest part of the remaining copper strip on the pc board, scraped off the plastic coating to get good contact with the copper, soldered  in a thin wire, works like it should !!!
What a bunch of work for a light bulb change .
Learned something valuable, look at replacement bulbs for this application, wedge type bulbs, for contact wires that go over the end of the bulb and onto the other side .
Really improved the illumination of both indicators, I do a lot of night riding and at 63, my vision isn't as good as it has been in the past !!!

[BPT]

I'm glad I saw this, thanks for posting it.  I bought replacements from Superbrightleds a while back and just remembered I never installed them.

Is this the way the bulb is supposed to be or are the problem ones due to sloppy quality?

[Bob_Roller]

Each lead coming out of the bulb, should not be able to contact the opposite side metal contact, the glass bulbs I removed, the lead is looped on one side and does not go over to the other side .
It's not sloppy manufacturing, just the way they are made .
The bulbs work fine in the speedometer .

[georgesgiralt]

Hello Barry,
Had the same problem and did the same repair.
You are facing another one.
The bulb in the speedometer is a little bit thinner than the glass wedge original. So on a hard bump the bulb will jump outside it's holder and fall free in the speedometer. Difficult to get at and remove. I had to open the speedo to get rid of the bulb. 
The solution ? Drill a little hole in the bulb holder and screw the bulb base on the holder. Done.
Hope this helps.

[Sejati]

I do a lot of night riding and at 63, my vision isn't as good as it has been in the past !!!

I salute you, Sir....

[Sejati]

Appreciate if anyone could share some picture of this kind of failure and repair... need to anticipate of the same case.

Thank you

[BPT]

Slightly off topic but kinda related - did you do the Gen bulb also? I bought a bulb but then realized it might need some tinkering, maybe a resistor? Since I put off that project I hadn't  looked further into that.

[Bob_Roller]

I just replaced the speedometer and tachometer internal lighting bulbs, I have no issues with the other lights in the tachometer .
If you're new to this site, the red GEN light is a very important part of the charging system, if the bulb fails, you're charging sytem pretty much won't produce any electrical power .
There is a modification to the wires for the GEN light a resistor, I think around 330 ohms is placed across these wires, if the bulb fails the charging system still works .
I make sure before I start the engine  the GEN light is illuminated .

[BPT]

I looked through my bulbs and now I understand what you all mean.  Several of the LED replacements have the wire folded over on the outsides.

Very strange - I'd think this should be standard, as far as how the wires made contact? Is this only an issue with the tach connection for some reason? Or I guess I  should trim the wires on all of the LED's, just to be safe?

[georgesgiralt]

It is the wire which holds the circuit with the LEDs. If you trim them, the circuit will become loose and fall off.
I glued the circuit to the plastic housing before cutting the wires to prevent the short. The bulb holder in the tach is different because it has to make contact to the tacho circuit and hold.
The LED are too bright to replace any of the idiot lights.
For us having auxiliary instruments (clock, voltmeter) Katdash sell a couple of small LED with the correct base to fit into the gauges. This way you will be able to read the time during the night !