loud buzzing from turn signal unit, no flashing

[sphynx88]

1981 suzuki gs850. Bought this bike in pieces, putting the last finishing touches to make it legal. I wired up the turn signals and as soon as I switched the turn signal switch I got a loud buzz, no flashing just a solid dim light.

I suspected a grond issue so I replaced the ground with a direct alligator clip to the negative battery terminal. Same result. I'm getting a constant 12+ to the power and the load seems to work accordingly. Just a bad unit or something worse?

 

[Tim]

Get a new flasher to at least try - something from the corner auto parts place will work - just an off the shelf flasher relay.

But your GS850 might have some fancy signal cancelling stuff going on in the OEM module. They started making bikes overly complicated once 1980 rolled around. All the Disco finally rotted peoples' minds.

You might also have an audible buzzer on the bike - some bikes have a little beeper that goes in time with the signals, so you know they're on.

Do you have working bulbs in all the lights?

 

[Drey6]

Get a new flasher to at least try - something from the corner auto parts place will work - just an off the shelf flasher relay.

But your GS850 might have some fancy signal cancelling stuff going on in the OEM module. They started making bikes overly complicated once 1980 rolled around. All the Disco finally rotted peoples' minds.

You might also have an audible buzzer on the bike - some bikes have a little beeper that goes in time with the signals, so you know they're on.

Do you have working bulbs in all the lights?

Packed with info and humor, nice.

 

[sphynx88]

Get a new flasher to at least try - something from the corner auto parts place will work - just an off the shelf flasher relay.

But your GS850 might have some fancy signal cancelling stuff going on in the OEM module. They started making bikes overly complicated once 1980 rolled around. All the Disco finally rotted peoples' minds.

You might also have an audible buzzer on the bike - some bikes have a little beeper that goes in time with the signals, so you know they're on.

Do you have working bulbs in all the lights?

Fronts are installed, but not the rears. Worth a shot adding them to the circuit and seeing if it requires a certain amount of draw.
It definitely does have a canceling unit but I went through the entire harness and removed everything I could. It also has a distance cancel (ya... right?) that was built into the gauge. But I am not running gauges on this bike.

 

[Tim]

100% you need bulbs in all 4 corners for signals to work properly. They're like symbiotic parasites.

 

[sphynx88]

Woo! Hopefully an easy fix. Thanks

 

[TheCoffeeGuy]

Each side actually is independent of each other. So if you only have two bulbs, use them both on one side..

 

[sphynx88]

Alright so issue was solved, a little bit of a different method for my madness.

I completely stripped out my electrical system, including getting rid of my turn signal control unit (which is in addition to the relay) which controls the distance calculator and a few other things I didn't need. Turns out by bypassing that unit I was grounding the relay. Switched to a two pole, problem solved.