New to the forum and interesting device I'm trying to repair

[cfaber]

Hi Folks,

I'm new here and have some experience in EE but I'm in no way an expert in this area. As I'm working to restore (complete restore) of an old Japanese motorcycle I found that the blinkers didn't work right. I pulled the blinker module off the bike and noticed it was considerably heaver than what I would expect out of a normal bi-metal blinker element, it was also a lot bigger than expected.

When I opened this up I found that it had a few more components than expected.
The orange / brownish wire connects to a capacitor (I have no idea what size). The coil is actually two coils (almost like a transformer) with an inner coil driving the capacitor and the entire shell being the ground for the capacitor.

The way this seems to work is the capacitor controls the cycle timing of the relay which blinks the lights (at least through observation) so a few questions:

1) Can anyone explain exactly what's going on here?
2) to get 85 blinks a minute what value capacitor does this thing need? The one in there right now isn't labelled and it's totally cooked so I can't measure it.

Thank you all in advance for your answers!

[sparkydog]

The cap is on the bottom?

You're definitely looking at a relay and what appears to be a resistor. I wonder if this is just an RC delay wired into a relay. That doesn't strike me as a desirable way to drive a relay, but it might work, and I wouldn't be too surprised if an old component went such a route.

There's a partial model number there; [Nippon] Denso 61300-174-0[?]. Unfortunately, while I can find matches for "61300" that are indeed for blinkers, I couldn't find anything more specific. Physically, there seems to be a strong resemblance to a Denso 061300-6250, so much so that I wonder if that part would be a drop-in replacement. However, those seem to be crazy expensive. Honestly, I would recommend trying to determine if you can replace that kludge with a modern blinker module that's likely to be both a lot cheaper and a lot more reliable.

It might also help if you can work out and post a schematic.

[cfaber]

Yeah the cap is on the bottom. I thought yeah it's some kind of relay, the interesting bit is the outer thicker wire is wrapped around an inner much thinner twisted wire which wraps around the metal core.

I'm not sure how to even describe what I'm seeing in a diagram. From what I can tell There's two wires, red (B) and light blue (L), The red is connected directly to +6V and the blue is connected to the load. They're both bridged together via the 800M resistor the blue connects to the inner (twisted) coil and then to the + side of the capacitor as well as connecting to switch which is actuated by the electromagnet. The supply side (red) is connected to the heaver exterior coil which then connects to the upper contact.

[cfaber]

I should also note, just tossing a 450v 160uf capacitor on this, does cause it to blink, albeit faster than desirable and without a capacitor at all it just buzz's

[Ground_Loop]

I was going to suggest experimenting with various capacitors to see if you could get it to work, but looks like you're already headed there.  Then, since newer capacitors are generally smaller than older ones, a new one might fit in the can in place of the old one.

[cfaber]

Sadly nothing seems to fit from what I can find. It would need to be > 35mm in diameter and > 25mm high. What I'm going to try is a FA0H473ZF which will fit, but I'm not sure i'll get the desired result =) We'll see I guess.

[Infraviolet]

You need a cap which is physically BIGGER than a certain size? The good news is its easy to get a PCB fabricated to adapt from whichever undersized caps you can buy to the footprint of the one you want, and you could always 3d print some shapes to increase the depth if needed for mechanical mounting. The problemmost people have is trying to find a part smaller than a certain volume, no easy ways round when you're trying to work in that direction.

[Kim Christensen]

Sadly nothing seems to fit from what I can find. It would need to be > 35mm in diameter and > 25mm high. What I'm going to try is a FA0H473ZF which will fit, but I'm not sure i'll get the desired result =) We'll see I guess.

That FA0H473ZF is way too big capacitance wise. 0.047F will mean that it's blink rate will be really slow...

I should also note, just tossing a 450v 160uf capacitor on this, does cause it to blink, albeit faster than desirable and without a capacitor at all it just buzz's

So you said "faster than desirable"... well, if it was twice as fast as you wanted, then you'll need a 330uF capacitor... 3x too fast, then triple the 160 uF to 470uF (Next closest standard value).
A 470uF 10V capacitor should fit in there easily. You don't need a super capacitor for this.

EDIT: If you have multiple 450v 160uf capacitors around, or assorted values, just keep putting them in parallel until you're happy with the blink rate. Then add up all the values and order something close to that.

[cfaber]

Thank you all, I will try the different values to see if I can get to my desired blink rate.

That said, does anyone understand the mechanics as to how this thing actually works?

[Kim Christensen]

Minus the thick coil, it probably works something like this:
When power is supplied, C1 charges via R1 and the relay's normally closed contact. When the voltage across C1, and thus the relay coil, is high enough the relay pulls in. This opens the contact and the capacitor keeps the relay pulled in until the voltage drops enough that relay turns off again. Then the cycle repeats.

[cfaber]

Thanks for all the help folks.

Here's a video of it working again. I sort of find the ramp up charming =)

[wasedadoc]

Maybe there are national regulations about the minimum and maximum blink rates.  Your video has them blinking faster than I would expect.

[radiolistener]

Maybe there are national regulations about the minimum and maximum blink rates.  Your video has them blinking faster than I would expect.

it should be 1.5 ± 0.5 Hz (90 ± 30 pulses per minute)

[Fraser]

This might help….

https://www.kawasakimotorcycle.org/threads/signal-light-flasher-relay-2200uf-capacitor.192402/