Dashboard left indicator and high beam warning lights not working.

[spakey]

Heavy rain while on tour and the left indicator and high beam warning lights on the centre console dash stopped working, after a dry spell they worked again (Fatboy 2016). Now I've had a chance to look at it all the connectors in the console and they are dry and clean so put it back together and they stopped working again . Searching the 'tinternet it seems a common problem with the only solution to buy a new harness assembly at £160 (the dash light circuit board is hard wired to speedo/switch/pump harness p/n 72657-12)
Diagnostic mode to light all the console lights, no left indicator or high beam lights.

So I took the console apart again and managed to get the circuit board out this time. Console circuit board is inside a plastic box (centre of this pic)

I checked all the harness solder connections on the right of the board, all good. Then I switched the ignition on and tried to test the LED's for power, all good on the right (right indicator, oil and neutral) but the two on the left had no power. Then I noticed a tiny corrosion spot on the board between the R9 and the C4 components (I think that's a resistor and a capacitor)


I rubbed a fingernail over it, the two left LED's lit up for moment and then went out. The corrosion was a small redundant solder pad in the connection track that runs along the top of the board (from DS1 on the left to R12 about centre), you can just make it out in the first pic of the board. With that small solder pad corroded away there was now a break in the power connection so I've now soldered a jump wire across the break.

I soldered across the LED pads as they are a little bigger and easier to get the solder on, you can use R9 and C4 if you're very good with a soldering iron but it makes no difference. Looks like it's all working now so I'll put a good smear of electralite grease over everything, get it back together and see if it lasts


I did need to notch the plastic cover out a little to clear the new wire jump.

Notched cover


Hopefully it will last.

I did find an alternative fix on my search that might work. The earlier models (2011) have a different harness with a connector for this LED circuit board, p/n 69029-11 which you could use the board from to replace the old one on the existing harness or maybe cut off new connector and just splice it in. I found this part in the UK for £65, not cheap but better than £160.

 

[softail898]

Clever. Nice to be able to sort a fix out without paying Dick Turpin prices.
It is always worth carefully examing a Circuit Board, (with a Magnifying Glass), as it is very common for an old Soldered Joint to break or corrode. A touch of Solder on that spot, or as Spakey has done, bypass the problem with a jump lead can work.

 

[Andy from Sandy]

I have a Sportster and it has a similar board with leds. The boards are conformal coated but something is going wrong for corrosion to form on them.

I have worked in places that produce pcbs and do the coating. There is a test that shows if it has been done properly. If the board has been reworked it clearly needs conformal coating in those areas, something that may not be happening.

I have had 2 failures so far.

 

[Dazzlin]

Same happened to my 2016 Fat Boy S - https://www.facebook.com/profile/705781561/search/?q=soldered

Slightly different method to fix.

Clearly the water gets under the lacquer as this board is not sealed very well at all from the elements.

 

[spakey]

I did a bit more searching after I'd fixed it and found a post on Harley Davidson Forum. It suggests that the plastic cover supports the board in that location and over time, with vibration it wears the lacquer and eventually the copper track away. So my theory of a corroded solder pad maybe wrong, could just be the track corroding after the lacquer had worn away

 

[ss2]

Well done on the repair. A mate, who manages a company that produces circuit boards managed to fix mine on a 2010 Fat Bob (for a box of red wine, bargain). He had a hell of a job finding the correct LED's he needed to replace the ones that were buggered, so in an odd sort of way you've been lucky to find a break in the circuit. Harley waterproofing for their electrical components really is crap. Fogged up speedos, headlights etc. seem to be the norm and it's just accepted. Not good enough really, and the M8 softails with a letterbox size hole between the steel and plastic parts of the rear mudguard could have been purposely designed to fire road crap at the electrics and shocker. Designer's are nuts.