Hi all,
After only a month, my shiny new motorcycle turn signal went dead- much to my dismay. I found out that the trace came up from the board, and must have raked across some LEDs during vibration and blew some LEDs. Here is the board:
I've soldered a JST connector so I can use an RC battery to test power. Only the LEDs between R1 and R3 come on. I've outlined everything in a crude drawing done on a tablet.
A quick explanation: Orange is the traces, Grey is what I initially assumed to be the cathode (-), and the yellow with the line is the fat blade "anode" (+). This isn't the case. There's a few resistors in there, of course.
I went through with a small 1.3v source with resistor and tested each LED, placing a green or red dot on the depending on which one fired:
As you can see, everything past R4 on the bottom row is fried, so i think that was the path of destruction. The top one that leads down to R1 (361) was my own dumb fault. Plugging it in, only 4 LEDs come on (the one past the broken one on the top row, leading to R3 (301), and down to where it terminates into the ground.
I desoldered an LED to see if there were any silkscreening behind it, and of course- yes. I've never seen an LED where the fat portion was the positive anode, running to a thin negative cathode. Curious what part I need to replace it with. It's around 6mm high, and 4mm in diameter, and amber in color for turn signals.
Any idea what replacement LEDs I need here? Ever seen a "fat" positive LED? Am I barking up the right tree assuming that if i replace the busted LEDs, the whole unit should work again?
Thanks for any help!
After only a month, my shiny new motorcycle turn signal went dead- much to my dismay. I found out that the trace came up from the board, and must have raked across some LEDs during vibration and blew some LEDs. Here is the board:
I've soldered a JST connector so I can use an RC battery to test power. Only the LEDs between R1 and R3 come on. I've outlined everything in a crude drawing done on a tablet.
A quick explanation: Orange is the traces, Grey is what I initially assumed to be the cathode (-), and the yellow with the line is the fat blade "anode" (+). This isn't the case. There's a few resistors in there, of course.
I went through with a small 1.3v source with resistor and tested each LED, placing a green or red dot on the depending on which one fired:
As you can see, everything past R4 on the bottom row is fried, so i think that was the path of destruction. The top one that leads down to R1 (361) was my own dumb fault. Plugging it in, only 4 LEDs come on (the one past the broken one on the top row, leading to R3 (301), and down to where it terminates into the ground.
I desoldered an LED to see if there were any silkscreening behind it, and of course- yes. I've never seen an LED where the fat portion was the positive anode, running to a thin negative cathode. Curious what part I need to replace it with. It's around 6mm high, and 4mm in diameter, and amber in color for turn signals.
Any idea what replacement LEDs I need here? Ever seen a "fat" positive LED? Am I barking up the right tree assuming that if i replace the busted LEDs, the whole unit should work again?
Thanks for any help!
