Instrument Panel Backlight

[mbopp]

On my '05 Monster 620 the backlight appears to have quit working.  Perhaps a loose connection or something, because it came back on briefly only to go off again.  Has anyone had experience with fixing or replacing the backlight on instrument panel? 

While I'm asking... is there somewhere that controls whether the instrument panel is on or off based on light conditions?  Maybe that is the culprit?

[Speeddog]

Instrument panel lighting is always on when key is on.

It does not sense ambient lighting.

Pushing the right-side button on the panel shortly after key-on will toggle it through the three dimness settings ("dim", "really dim", and "is it on?")

It may be repairable, your '05 cluster is very likely disassembly-friendly.

[mbopp]

Hmm, I wonder if I accidentally turned it off?  I use the 'right button' to change it to the clock after starting the bike regularly, are you saying this button shares functionality with the dimmer setting? 

I have disassembled the cluster a little in the past to wire in a heated grip switch.  So I know it is at least somewhat fixit friendly.  Though it's been a while so I can't remember what I could access when I was in there.

[Speeddog]

Yes, immediately after key-on, the right button is dimmer control.

After some short time, it's then temp-clock toggle.

You may have it on the lowest setting, which is quite dim.

[mbopp]

So, possibly by coincidence pressing the right button just after turning the key to the on position did initially cause the backlight to come on... however it then went out again, and subsequent attempts have failed as well, though every once in a while it does work for a little while.  I would almost rather have it work not at all than just sometimes as it makes it hard to debug.   

Guess I'm still unsure what my next step should be... perhaps I'll open it up, though I don't know what I'll be able to do once its open.  Perhaps if I'm lucky, there will be a noticeable broken or loose connection. 

My running tail light is also not working (break light functionality is), So I need to check the wiring to find that problem as well.  Don't know if it's possible at all that these problems are related. 

I did install heated grips a while back, I believe I tapped into the small running head lamp wires for that.  I wonder if I did harm to something else?

[thorn14]

Is it the backlight for the LCD screens or the gauges and needles? There are multiple SMD LED's that light up the cluster. So you need to take the lens covers off, then turn it on to confirm what is/isn't happening. I had 3 SMDs out on my old cluster, so half the panel would light up. Each LCD has I believe a dedicated SMD, while the gauge faces have multiple.

I'd say if it's the whole panel, wiring connection somewhere. Also if you end up having to take it down to the computer board, check for corrosion if there's ever been water inside the cluster. (I had this and you could see corrosion on a lot of the pins.)

I'd start with the wiring diagram and check if there is a wire that supplies lighting to the cluster.

Here's what you have to deal with inside if it's not a simple wire.

[mbopp]

Thanks, it seems to be all or nothing, so I'm going to have to just check on the wiring.

[mbopp]

FIXED
here is the skinny...

I observed that both the tail light and the cluster backlight went out and back on together, so whatever the reason, it was affecting both.  Last year I added heated grips, and tapped into the wiring underneath the cluster.  So I thought.. maybe I nicked something or did something to cause this. 

So I dug in to the wiring removing some of the wire sleeves and whenever I touched the huge mess of wiring behind the headlight, the light would flicker.  So something was loose or broken.  It wasn't related to my heated grips. 

After pouring over my wiring diagram I determined that a likely culprit was the 'orange' wire, which according to the diagram attached to the light control (or something like that).  Or something like that.  So I found the wire, and after digging down a ways, I found the spot.  While the plastic casing wasn't broken, I could feel with my fingers the wire within was cleanly broken.  So that was the issue.  Opened it up, and crimped a new connecter on there, and all is well.  Thankfully the broken wire wasn't too far down and out of reach and I didn't have to dismantle much more of the wiring.

I suppose at some point when this sort of thing happens you just have to replace the harness in it's entirety.  It's really strange to me that there was this protected wire that had a clean break in it.  If it happened there, seems like it could have happened anywhere.

Thanks for the help!

[SpikeC]

 Congrats on a successful resolution! Good slewthing!

[thorn14]

Definitely glad it was a wire. Much simpler to fix than circuit board wizardry.

[suzyj]

I suppose at some point when this sort of thing happens you just have to replace the harness in it's entirety.  It's really strange to me that there was this protected wire that had a clean break in it.  If it happened there, seems like it could have happened anywhere.

I did that on my bike. I was having trouble with starting - sometimes it would just refuse to engage the starter. I did this:



It was a bigger job than I anticipated. It starts reliably now though, and the loom weighs a few hundred grams less than it used to.