Well, of all the easiest to install, just 2 freakin' wires, turn ignition switch on, and I got a blown LED license plate now. I probably went a little over board on the electrical connections, but it's winter and I got plenty of time.

Here's what I did:

1. Hooked up LED license plate to battery to make sure worked properly when it arrived. Tested OK.

2. Determined how I should connect LED license plate wiring (white and black) to the electrical system. I looked at the service manual, electrical diagrams for lighting (see pic3).
In pic 3, the diagrams shows 4 wires, Connector 93B. The O/W (pin 1), which I would have expected to use, is not available. The Blue wire (pin 2) is ONLY connected to the Stop/Tail bulb, and IS NOT connected to license plate bulb. I have a Gray wire connected, which is not part of the wire bundle for Connector 93B. I need to trace which wire that is in connector 7B (8 pin connector). Maybe is just a tap off from another wire from the 7B connector....

3. So, I decided to connect the LED wiring to the wires feeding the license plate bulb (white socket in pic 2).

4. I used my +12 volt tester to determine that the gray wire is +12v, and the black is ground. I tested the gray wire side of the socket. I also checked for continuity between the ground strip (in the tail lamp assembly) and common ground to make sure it is in fact grounded.

5. I connected the LED black wire to the vertical ground strip on the tail lamp assembly
(see pic 1). And, the LED white wire to the license plate bulb gray wire (using wire tap - see pic 2).

Pretty simple you would think. Turned ignition on and no LED's on nor the license plate bulb.

6. Rechecked step 4. I don't have +12V anymore at the gray wire.

Fuses look good and have tail/stop light on, and turn signals.

What in the world is going on, and what am I not understanding? What happened to my +12v from step 4? Did I short something out??? Guess I should have put an inline fuse while testing it first...

I just can;t believe that I fried the LED's with this setup!!

TOTALLY BAFFLED ON WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!
thankx for listening ...

 

Well, I traced out the gray wire that I tapped into. HD tapped of the Blue (connector 93B, pin 1). Confirmed back to Connector 7B.

Annnnd, blew 15 Amp Lights fuse!!

Sooooo, the magic question is WTF. Don't get it!!

Didn;t realize it, but never thought if the LEDs normally die, doesn;t look like the strip can be replaced. Gotta buy another license plate which BITES.

Gonna call Softbrake tommorrow and see what they say.

Meantime, still need some input and why this would happen. Don;t want to connect another until then...

thankx again...

 

Okay, no responses yet so I'll just think aloud. There's probably a good chance that the LED strip is grounded to the license plate. Would make sense since my initial testing of the LEDs was simply connecting to battery. Now that I have attached everything to the bike, maybe the LEDs grounded out... possible...

 

Well, received another LED plate. All set now. Went to the extreme and built my own 6 LED circuit mounted on metal. Used this first to test all my orginal connections. No problems. There was definitely a short on the plate.

Overall, I definitely like the look. The bad, LED only lights up top half of license plate. So, really don;t see the tag clearly.

I'm thinking of using Kuryakyn's LED tag bolts for the bottom the will light the bottom half..