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Hey all, I'm trying to get an amperage draw reading on my turn signal light. I have it wired straight to the battery for testing (not through the relay) so that I don't have to try to read the amperage between flashes. My ammeter is wired in series with the turn signal. It starts somewhere around .25 amps (LED turns) and then begins to drop off rapidly eventually stopping at about .04 amps after about 10 seconds of reading. I tested the ammeter with another circuit and got the same strange reading. I can't seem to get a steady and reasonable reading.
Could be the meter's batteries are dying. Try a new set of batteries. Also, check the meter's fuse. If you've got another ammeter or have a buddy you can borrow one from, try that.
First, what are the indicators doing that make you want to know the amps reading on them? Second, what were the reading with incandescent bulbs? Why did you change them?
Is the turn signal blinker in the circuit? The light comes on (full amp draw) then the blinker relay disconnects, but even with the light off, it sends a little current through to operate....
The LED's are probably not allowing enough current through to let the blinker relay finish the cycle.
When they are drawing 0.04 A are the LEDs still lit?
Is the battery your testing with connected to a bike or just a (charged?) spare?.
I would guess two things are happening...
1. The inrush of 0.25 A is probably only happening for less then 1 second, the perceived 10s is likely the meter taking time to adjust (filtered input to stop it from jumping around).
2. Depending on the answer to the above, you may be connected to a ~12.5V source rather then a 14.5V source, with out getting too deep into the math if you increase the voltage by the 2V you will probably find the current almost doubles.
Why do you need to measure the current? Shouldn't watts divided by volts give you the current? 23 W bulb drops 12 volts with 1.92 amps of current, right?
To answer a lot of questions, I am doing a complete modification of a CB360 with a new wiring harness from the ground up. Not a single piece of original electronics other than the charging system. The tail turn happened to be what I was testing on and it happens to be an LED.
The "why are you doing this" and "can't you do that" didn't really help me very much BUT!
It turns out I'm an idiot and incorrect readings are common when measuring DC current with the AC current option turned on.
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