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Unsolved mystery

 
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Flying Duck
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Joined: 27 Jan 2005
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Location: Bumf***, WA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:13 pm    Post subject: Unsolved mystery Reply with quote

Why does the tach faceplate always warp in the upper inner corner before the speedo faceplate does? Rolling Eyes
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86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
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flybd5
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
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Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They are too close to the heat of the bulbs. And you probably make a lot more right turns than left. Not a NASCAR fan, are ya? Laughing
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Flying Duck
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Joined: 27 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

flybd5 wrote:
They are too close to the heat of the bulbs. And you probably make a lot more right turns than left. Not a NASCAR fan, are ya? Laughing


The faceplates are equally close to heat generating bulbs. What causes the faceplates to warp is that they're black and when direct sunlight hits them on a hot day they absorb lots of heat. Which gets me to thinking that if a bike is on the side stand then the upper inner corner of the tach faceplate gets hotter than the speedo side. That might be the answer I'm looking for.
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93 LT (x2)
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86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
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Scott_Anderson
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Joined: 05 Sep 2006
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Location: Central Iowa, USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was going to say 'heat generating bulbs' shouldn't be your issue Duck as I'd imagine all your bikes are converted to LED cluster lights.
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1995 K1100LT 0302044
1997 R1100RT ZC62149
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flybd5
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 371
Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scott_Anderson wrote:
I was going to say 'heat generating bulbs' shouldn't be your issue Duck as I'd imagine all your bikes are converted to LED cluster lights.


LEDs get hot too! A 60w LED bulb can get to 200F at the glass surface.
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Grunter
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Joined: 30 Sep 2015
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Location: North East England

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:39 am    Post subject: Warped tacho and speed faceplates Reply with quote

This seems to be generally only to affect the K1100 bikes. Apart from the 3 K1100LT bikes I have owned which all had the problem, but not in the same place on the dials.

I have also owned 3 x K100LT's and 2 K75's and they have never had the same problem. My K75 bikes are 35 years old this year. So why only K1100's?
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Flying Duck
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 6:09 am    Post subject: Re: Warped tacho and speed faceplates Reply with quote

Grunter wrote:
This seems to be generally only to affect the K1100 bikes. Apart from the 3 K1100LT bikes I have owned which all had the problem, but not in the same place on the dials.

I have also owned 3 x K100LT's and 2 K75's and they have never had the same problem. My K75 bikes are 35 years old this year. So why only K1100's?


I've owned something like 30 K bikes. I've seen it happen more on K75s and K100s than K1100s. But all of the face plates are the same so it isn't really bike specific. The K75s and K100s are older though.

As for LEDs, the LEDs in my cluster kits are very low wattage and generate virtually no heat compared to a filament bulb. The warped faceplates I've seen are on the bikes when purchased and not caused by LED use.

Higher wattage LEDs can and do generate a lot of heat. That's why good LED headlight bulbs all have high speed fans built in.
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86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
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flybd5
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:12 am    Post subject: Re: Warped tacho and speed faceplates Reply with quote

Flying Duck wrote:
As for LEDs, the LEDs in my cluster kits are very low wattage and generate virtually no heat compared to a filament bulb. The warped faceplates I've seen are on the bikes when purchased and not caused by LED use. Higher wattage LEDs can and do generate a lot of heat. That's why good LED headlight bulbs all have high speed fans built in.


Sure, using a lower wattage LED does help to reduce the heat issue, but even with low heat if there isn't any place for the heat to go it will just accumulate. You can boil water at low heat, it just takes longer.
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Flying Duck
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 11:12 am    Post subject: Re: Warped tacho and speed faceplates Reply with quote

flybd5 wrote:
Flying Duck wrote:
As for LEDs, the LEDs in my cluster kits are very low wattage and generate virtually no heat compared to a filament bulb. The warped faceplates I've seen are on the bikes when purchased and not caused by LED use. Higher wattage LEDs can and do generate a lot of heat. That's why good LED headlight bulbs all have high speed fans built in.


Sure, using a lower wattage LED does help to reduce the heat issue, but even with low heat if there isn't any place for the heat to go it will just accumulate. You can boil water at low heat, it just takes longer.


You cannot boil water at any temperature below 212 degrees. (Assuming normal atmospheric pressure.)

The heat generated in an instrument cluster does dissipate through the housing and lenses if the ambient outside temperature is less than the temperature inside the cluster. And on 90s K bikes there are also vents in the back of the housing.


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93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE
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flybd5
Flying Brick Rider


Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 371
Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:09 pm    Post subject: Re: Warped tacho and speed faceplates Reply with quote

Flying Duck wrote:
You cannot boil water at any temperature below 212 degrees. (Assuming normal atmospheric pressure.)


We can argue this all day long but you won't win this one, and especially not by using words I didn't say. Low heat on a stovetop is on average 225 degrees. And even small LED's can reach temps of around 120F. Plastic materials inside a car, for example, can warp at temperatures below that. It happened to me when the plastic on my Blaupunkt radio bezel warped because I forgot to crack a window or put a reflective cover on the dash of my Porsche 928 when I was visiting Palm Springs during a particularly memorable spring break trip. So it is entirely feasible for a thin plastic component like a faceplate to warp because of the heat from an LED bulb in an enclosed housing. It doesn't have to be a perfectly sealed enclosure, just enough so that more heat is generated by the heat source than convects out of the housing. Whether or not that is the specific reason in this case is debatable, but it is feasible for that to happen.
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Flying Duck
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LED heat output varies by LED type and wattage. For example I have a lamp with a 14W A19 LED bulb in a lamp at my house. It puts out more light than a 100W filament bulb. (I use it in my workshop to see better than I could with a 100W filament bulb.) Since the switch on the lamp is busted I turn it on and off by twisting the bulb by hand because it gets nowhere near as hot as a filament bulb does. There's no way in hell I would try that with a 100W filament bulb because it would be way too hot to touch with my bare fingers.

Same thing with the small LEDs I use in the instrument cluster .They generate less heat than a filament bulb.

Some LEDs do generate a boatload of heat though. I am aware of that.

The low setting on oven range elements varies between 200 and 250 degrees. Try boiling water at 200 degrees. You'll be waiting for a long, long time.
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93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE
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flybd5
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 371
Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like I said, you're not going to win this one. Who said anything about ovens? Smile
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Flying Duck
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 2:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oven range elements. Like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Whirlpool-KitchenAid-Replacement-540331014-Y04000033/dp/B082CY2VMK/

It is physically impossible for the LEDs I use in my instrument cluster to generate more heat than the factory filament bulbs. Here's why:

Let's start with one of the most basic laws of physics. Conservation of energy: energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Both filament bulbs and LEDs convert electrical energy into two other forms of energy: heat and light.

One of the problems from the day they were invented is that filament bulbs are incredibly inefficient at converting electricity into light. They convert roughly 5-10% of the electricity they consume into light. The rest is dissipated as heat. (This is why regular 100 watt light bulbs are so incredibly hot to the touch.)

The factory filament bulbs in the instrument cluster consume 3 watts. Even if they're really good filament bulbs 90% of that energy is converted to heat. That's 2.7 watts of heat.

The LEDs that I use in the instrument cluster consume a whopping 0.2 watts. Even if they generated absolutely no light and converted all of that energy to heat it would still take more than 13 of them to generate as much heat as the factory filament bulb.
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93 LT (x2)
94 RS
86-97 K75F(K75/100/1100 Frankenbrick)
86 K75C w/paralever, hi perf cams,TURBO!
91 & 92 K75Ss
91 K1
86 custom K100
14 WR250R
IBA #17739 (SS1K, BBG, 50CC)
Buy parts HERE
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flybd5
Flying Brick Rider


Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 371
Location: Massachusetts, USA

PostPosted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Let it go already. No one said squat about the LED's generating more heat than filament bulbs. They don't need to do that, they just need to generate enough heat to warp it. I'm unsubscribing from this pointless thread.
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Grunter
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Joined: 30 Sep 2015
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 6:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When the warp occurred with my K1100 the lights were not switched on - except the multi billion wat bulb in the sky. When it did warp, after a night in the garage it was always flat again.

When I rode long distances at night with the lights on there was never a problem.
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