Hello im having troubles with the signals on a K75 , i got 12v at the blinker module from the two fuses , got ground , also receiving grounds from my switches at the module and i been able to make both side blinkers light up by manually actuating the relays in the green box module.

Theres a resistor thats getting waaaay hot i actually burnt my finger on it , the module was getting warm. Also wondering if the capacitors are usually covered by any kind of resin or they actually overheated and leaked on the board .... could it be due to something else in the wiring of the bike or its a common failure ?

Would like to understand the problem before ordering a unit

Thanks

That definitely isn't normal.

The pic of the capacitor is typical of a blown, burst or leaking electrolytic one.

At least they didn't go bang. It's quite fun when that happens, especially if you've just leaned back from testing a faulty PSU and a large 470uF cap chooses that point to let go. Pitric acid and capacitor internals everywhere... we never did find the body. It was last seen trailing yellow smoke and heading over the top of an internal roof beam some ten yards away. Some silly bugger had soldered it to the board the wrong way round.

Crazy Frog wrote:The pic of the capacitor is typical of a blown, burst or leaking electrolytic one.

Could that be caused by the blinker fluid being low or empty?

TacKler wrote:

Crazy Frog wrote:The pic of the capacitor is typical of a blown, burst or leaking electrolytic one.

Could that be caused by the blinker fluid being low or empyy?

well okay im gonna know monday if my used parts contact has a unit for me . are these modules usually blowing up by themselves or something from the exterior could make em blow ?

Letomoto wrote:

TacKler wrote:

Crazy Frog wrote:The pic of the capacitor is typical of a blown, burst or leaking electrolytic one.

Could that be caused by the blinker fluid being low or empyy?

well okay im gonna know monday if my used parts contact has a unit for me . are these modules usually blowing up by themselves or something from the exterior could make em blow ?

Letomoto,

Tackler may be right and instead of using the blinking fluid proposed by Rick or spending money at Moto International, you should visit the SAQ as they have a good alternative to antifreeze product.

On a serious note, the state of the brushes in the starter can affect your whole electrical system and particularly the blinkers. Most of the ground connection is coming from the starter. This is odd, but it's the reality of the K bike electrical design.

As others have rightly pointed out, the caps are toast. It will be possible to replace those caps and maybe recover the circuit. The electrolyte in the capacitors leaked out due to heat and age, resulting in them short circuiting. That's why the resistor is getting hot; because it is receiving more current than what it was designed to handle. if you feel you have the skill and tools to complete the job.

robmack wrote:As others have rightly pointed out, the caps are toast. It will be possible to replace those caps and maybe recover the circuit.  The electrolyte in the capacitors leaked out due to heat and age, resulting in them short circuiting.  That's why the resistor is getting hot; because it is receiving more current than what it was designed to handle. if you feel you have the skill and tools to complete the job.

well i could but at my hourly rate of 70$/hr my customer will be happier if i replace the unit than if i spend the time fetching the parts and replacing them  if i can find a module for a good price


thanks for the answers that confirms what i thought about the caps leading to the heating res

If you are charging someone $70 per hour for getting free information from the good members of this forum then I suggest that a healthy donation towards the upkeep of the forum is in order!

well sadly  im not charging for all the research ...

This week, It has been brought to my attention That Letomoto is a professional and the question was: "How should we react to this"?
My opinion is that there is nothing wrong with a professional using our resource as long as nothing is billed to the customer for the research.
NOT every K owner is ready to tackle mechanical/electronic work on their bike and sometimes they have to rely on a good mechanic.
If educating professionals to be more efficient leads to K owners getting a better/cheaper service, we fulfill the goal of our community.
As far as I am concerned (personal opinion), we should continue to share our knowledge with everybody as long as a business is not using this site to advertise their service or charge for the knowledge acquired here.

It might be an idea to update the Terms and Conditions of the site to adopt the philosophy of Open Source Hardware, such as licensing the information present here under one of the Creative Commons licenses.  For example "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)" allows "others to copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first".  That seems appropriate and aligned with your thoughts, CF.

well , im just trying to give a good service to my customers , it'S not like im marketing someone else's ideas ive found here  , i was asking for advice to understand the problem i have to deal with . im in the beginning of my second year as a self taught motorcycle shop owner and struggling to keep it up and pay the bills hard enough already!

Forums always been a source of community shared information ,if you dont want this info to be used dont share it  , write a book and sell it instead if you want money . By the way i dont want to be rude by that comment dont get me wrong . Who knows how many people used information they found here to fix customer bikes  without telling about it !!

On an electronic circuit board it's not unusual to cover parts like those electrolytic capacitors with glypt, (or as I like to call it "Gobbledegoo" this prevents parts from moving or becoming damaged from vibration.  Are the caps bad?  Maybe, although I see nothing that might suggest this, you can't always tell without removing and testing them. My suggestion is to replace them.  Watch the polarity.  Will this fix it?  Maybe.  After time electrolytic capacitors dry out and loose capacity (value) heat accentuates this.

That flasher assembly isn't too expensive from sources like eBay, WAY expensive if you buy it new, and it's still available from BMW too, if you want to say goodby to nearly $300.00 THIS is the way to go.

- John

- Edit, I was able to locate data sheets on the integrated circuits on the internet.  Most likely possible to reverse engineer it.  It's got two timers, one would appear to be a short cycle, perhaps the flasher, the other appears to have a much longer interval, my SWAG is that's the automatic turn signal cancel.  I am simply assuming this from what I see the IC's could be used for.

Letomoto wrote:Who knows how many people used information they found here to fix customer bikes  without telling about it !!

Lots of young BMW technicians are using this forum to get information on the "old" K bikes. BMW doesn't train the new techs on older models.
How do I know? Once in a while I receive a thank you Email for my contribution on the FI troubleshouting or the electrical diagrams.
In the end, the winner is the customer.

CF

I say Good on Ya Letomoto for going to the trouble of finding out what is needed to keep our old girls on the road. BMW don't know anymore, so its a good job blokes like you will.

i went to car mechanics school back in 2006 and worked on trucks for about 6 years , im now wrenching mostly on old japanese bikes  1970 thru 1984 or something . i had 2 K75 , 1 K100rs and 2 old R75 in my year and a half of running this shop. Theres nowhere other than on the web to find answers , no one is giving any kind of schooling on oldies like that . The manuals dont say much when you are shoulders deep into some weird ass problems , gotta hit the forums !

I'm sure the time will come when you will be in a position to throw ideas in on someone else's problem. Our collective knowledge is better than us all ploughing our own furrow.

Mike

Bumblebee wrote:On an electronic circuit board it's not unusual to cover parts like those electrolytic capacitors with glypt, (or as I like to call it "Gobbledegoo" this prevents parts from moving or becoming damaged from vibration.  Are the caps bad?  Maybe, although I see nothing that might suggest this, you can't always tell without removing and testing them. My suggestion is to replace them.  Watch the polarity.  Will this fix it?  Maybe.  After time electrolytic capacitors dry out and loose capacity (value) heat accentuates this.

That flasher assembly isn't too expensive from sources like eBay, WAY expensive if you buy it new, and it's still available from BMW too, if you want to say goodby to nearly $300.00 THIS is the way to go.

- John

- Edit, I was able to locate data sheets on the integrated circuits on the internet.  Most likely possible to reverse engineer it.  It's got two timers, one would appear to be a short cycle, perhaps the flasher, the other appears to have a much longer interval, my SWAG is that's the automatic turn signal cancel.  I am simply assuming this from what I see the IC's could be used for.

I think you got that right  first time
but would like to add that we have seen many cracked terminal to circuit board soldered junctions 
to me looks as if there has been a short reversal of voltage ...with ignition on .... electrolytic capacitors made back in those days never suffered the deaded leak syndrome ...they just dried out and went high value the resistor being blackened ...erm discoloured is typical of  drawing higher current than expected .
in most bmw ancillary circuits there is usually some form of protection ie a reversed biased diode or and a zenner to limit the voltage to the circuit its providing for , through a voltage dropping resistor . again I say this is typical of reverse voltage condition

Crazy Frog wrote:

Letomoto wrote:Who knows how many people used information they found here to fix customer bikes  without telling about it !!

Lots of young BMW technicians are using this forum to get information on the "old" K bikes. BMW doesn't train the new techs on older models.
How do I know? Once in a while I receive a thank you Email for my contribution on the FI troubleshouting or the electrical diagrams.
In the end, the winner is the customer.

CF

A good sentiment CF!

 In this increasingly capitalistic world in which we all live, it is surely better for everyone to share their knowledge freely and without conscience, and when asked a question to answer it truthfully, if someone somewhere uses that information and profits by it - - so what - - to bother about it is only sour grapes because as letomoto put it we could all write a book and try to sell it. Sharing knowledge, all knowledge, and doing freely is the only way that ''ordinary'' folk can retain control, secrecy and price are the tools of controllers. Anyone with a modern car ( or even BMW bike) will know that there is little they can do with the fuel, ignition, brake & electrical systems ---even mechanical work for those with the ability to do it is more likely to require 'special' tools so that work once done by any self respecting garage can now only be done at Main Dealerships. Customer loses!

 Okay, so this Forum costs money to run, but there are many 'small interest' forums  that make a very small annual membership charge to be able to read beyond the superficial 'public' pages, or to my mind the less attractive option of using advertisements to fund them.