I noticed last week that my tail light was not working. The brake light was still fine. I called the dealer and they said it was the second one in a week on a new 1200s DVT. They said that it's not a wiring problem but a failure within the tail light assembly. Duly replaced under warranty but I thought I would raise this as it's not the most obvious thing to spot and might be a common fault. So now the days are a little shorter, I recommend you have a look at yours just in case.
Ducatis Tail sections are a bad design on there MS and Monster Range at least, Being V Twins as well they bounce around so much somethings going to fail at some point or fall off
Haven't they fixed this yet? My '10 rear light was changed a couple of years back as the internals had disintegrated, putting white powder all inside the unit.
Yes, the 2010-14 tail lamps are prone to this. Mine did it twice. The row of LEDs for the brake light are fine, but the single LED for the tail lamp overheats and eventually disintegrates. Since the DVT has a different design I hoped the problem would not recur. It's disappointing to hear of problems with the DVT one.
Currently on my 3rd Tail light for my multi but this is the 1st ive paid for...... if this one goes again in the next 2 years i'll be getting in touch with trading standards
There are actually 6 LEDs for the tail light and a further 10 for the stop light. A friend's packed up on the way to WDW2012 and he managed to get it changed under warranty while he was there. They let him keep the old one so when we go home I took it to bits and fixed it. Several of the surface mount LEDs for the tail light had packed up. I sourced replacements and soldered them in so now he has a spare. Here is the insides The fogging is caused by dust from the clear plastic light guide which comes loose and creates white plastic dust. The top of the circuit board with the tail light LEDS on. And the bottom As you can see, some of the LEDs aren't lighting up. Here it is with the Stop light LEDs on too.
That's very illuminating @Derek so many thanks. I too took a non-functioning tail lamp assembly to pieces, but I am far less competent than you to understand its workings. If you offered a re-conditioning service for tail lamps I suspect you would attract many customers.
Yes please, count me in as a potential customer (also have my old light still in box replaced with LED light)
Mines misted up with the dust, tried to clean it by drilling access hole, but not totally clear, not sure some of the LEDs have packed in
Sounds to me like there's possibly a failure of a seal and ingress of moisture which then causes failure of the LED circuit board? If anyone's brave enough to open up a functioning DVT rear 'halo' tail light and have a look-see, then inspect the seal /circuit board photograph and reassemble with a smear of silicon grease on the seal?? No.....me neither :-(
Hi Derek, My tail light is working sometimes but goes out when tapped, typical bad connection. I wouldn't mind having a crack at fixing it as I have one of these LED-Rücklicht/Heckleuchte schwarz Ducati Multistrada 1200 smoked tail light/lamp | eBay on order if I bollox up the repair. My question is, how did you get the unit apart? Thought I'd ask before I start prising!!
Very carefully! With a sharp Stanley knife. The main body of the lamp has a rectangular panel along the back which the cables go through. You can see that on the left of the top picture, it has the cables and circuit board attached to it. It wasn't hard to pry it way from the case. Once it is free the circuit board will just slide out the back of the lamp assembly. If you just need to fix the circuit no other disassembly is needed but if you want to clear out the fogging and stop it happening again you will need to prise the lens off, again carefully with a sharp blade. I had no difficulty. You can then clean it out to get rid of the dust, then glue the light guide in place when you reassemble the lamp. A hot glue gun is good for this as the glue remains resilient and wont crack with vibration. On final reassembly I used polystyrene cement to stick the lens and rear panel back on. The stuff you use to stick Airfix models with. Good luck.
Following see in this I've taken light apart, if it's just a misting problem, just take lens off, you can then see if the led's have gone, then go on to take the back off to get to the circuit board, I found this bit a right pain to get off neatly.
