Over the past few months, my dashboard lights have been going out. At first, it was just the one on the right side of my tach, then the next time I rode at night (months later), I noticed that I had NO dash lights, only the idiot lights on the right. I remembered seeing a write up on blueproof about a DIY LED fix and figured I'd give that a try.
About a week ago, I stopped by my local Radio Shack and purchased the necessary items to do the LED fix. The cost was $18 and change! I had second thoughts and figured that the light bulbs, through the stealership, would probably be much cheaper, so I pursued that path. I ordered the parts from Eastbay Motorsports (Hayward Suzuki) and returned the parts back to Radio Shack. The light bulbs were roughly half the cost of the LED project, that is, until I found out that Suzuki ordered me the wrong bulbs (of course, I didn't find that out until I was trying to shove those bulbs into the sockets)- the right ones were going to cost just about the same as the LED fix, but the LED's won't ever need to be replaced! So back to Radio Shack I went. Thank God no one bought those last three LED's that I needed!
I'm getting so good at ripping the fairing off my bike! I can get it down to the fairing stay in about ten minutes! )This is the part where I have to go to Radio Shack.) The project went well. I studied Carolyn's detailed pictures very carefully to make sure I was doing it just as she did. I figured, if she had success, then so shall I. The first thing that I realized was that polarity is important on LED's. (Carolyn forgot to mention this in her write-up, so I hope that some poor sap didn't just give up, when the bulb didn't work the first try.) Later, I got worried about which side I was soldering the resistor to- was it going to burn out my LED if I put it on the negative lead? According to Ohm's Law, it don't matter- as long as it's there, no matter which side of the LED, the current will get slowed down. Phew! that was close!!
I stitched up the bike and gave her a good wash. The project was a success. The replacement lights are a little bit dimmer and they have a bluish glow to them, but they'll do the trick. It's nice to see how fast I'm speeding, when night falls, once again.
