Canbus & LED Lights

[CraigT]

I placed an LED lamp only as a direct replacement for the tungsten filament lamp for the rear light on my ST. It works a treat, but my Canbus is giving me a continual rear lamp warning.

 

Anyone else experienced this or do you have an alternate LED lamp source that I can plug in an not get the warnings?

 

Oh!, I changed the lamps with the ignition on and even when I put the old filament lamp back in it, I still get the warning staying on!

 

Thanks.

[CAD]

 

Anyone else experienced this or do you have an alternate LED lamp source that I can plug in an not get the warnings?

 

Oh!, I changed the lamps with the ignition on and even when I put the old filament lamp back in it, I still get the warning staying on!

 

Thanks.

 

The canbus interprets the low/minor amount of Amps (LED needs) as broken light and this is the reason for warning.

 

Why did you change back to the old bulb with "ignition on"? Tried turning it off in between switches?

[Ken H.]

I placed an LED lamp only as a direct replacement for the tungsten filament lamp for the rear light on my ST. It works a treat, but my Canbus is giving me a continual rear lamp warning.

 

Anyone else experienced this or do you have an alternate LED lamp source that I can plug in an not get the warnings?

 

Oh!, I changed the lamps with the ignition on and even when I put the old filament lamp back in it, I still get the warning staying on!

 

Thanks.

Standard off the shelf LED bulbs and such will not work in the BMW bikes for just the reason you have discovered.

 

There are several companies that make tail & brake light LED units and turn signal ones too designed specifically for BMW bikes that correctly load the system so ZFE module recognizes them.

 

Brake IT!, Kisan, Touratech, and Nippy Normans in the UK come to mind of the top of my head. I have the complete NN set all around on my 12GS and they work perfect with no errors.

[TonyT607]

I installed a set of Hyper Lites LED's on my ST. They can be configured to stay on or blink when the brake is applied. They're always on like running lights.

 

 

They came out with an ST specific kit a few months ago. Easy to install. You can buy them with 8 LED's per cluster or 16 per side. The website doesn't show the ST kit, they sold me the RT kit and said it would be ok for the ST, but it wasn't. I had their product engineer on the phone while I was trying to get it to work, he told me to return it and in a few weeks they shipped me an ST version of the kit. Works like a charm

Hyper Lites

 

BTW they are a lot brighter than what you see in the photo. They attach with the same 3M double sided foam tape that is used to attach the 2 reflectors on either side of the license plate bracket. I removed the reflectors and stuck the LED's directly to the metal bracket.