Rich - If your signals truly cancel after 3 or 4 flashes, you have a defective cancel unit and need to get it replaced under warranty. The minimum you should get is 11 flash cycles.
The cancel time changes based on your speed. Also, if the wheels are not moving, the unit will not self cancel (like sitting at a stop light). It does not use the bank angle sensor, but instead uses a small angle sensor on the bottom of the steering head that senses handlebar movement (not lean angle). This sensor is essentially a rheostat (variable resistor) that feeds a sensing circuit. It can tell when you move the handlebars off center, and then back again. When this happens it self cancels. If no handlebar movement is sensed, it then cancels when it reaches the time out period.
http://www.gl1800riders.com/forums/view ... hp?t=12706
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I just finished doing some more research into the turn signal cancellation and here is what I found.
First of all, I timed the turn signal flashes. 10 flashes took 6.2 seconds, and 30 flashes took 18.7 seconds. This means each flash takes .62 seconds.
Next I timed when the signals shut off at various speeds by counting the signal flashes, with the bike on the centerstand and running at the indicated speeds.
Speed-----No of flashes----- Calculated time
10mph-----39-----24.18 sec
15mph-----27-----16.7 sec
20mph-----22-----13.6 sec
25mph-----18-----11.6 sec
30mph-----15-----9.3 sec
35mph-----12-----7.4 sec
All speeds above 35mph it canceled at 12 flashes at 7.4 seconds.
Sometimes the number of flashes would vary by one flash depending on where the last flash fell in the time window. For example, at 35mph sometimes I would only get 11 flashes, and sometimes I would get 12, and once I got 11 1/2 flashes when the time window cut off in the middle of a flash cycle. This tells me that the circuit is not counting flash pulses, but is either measuring time from a clock circuit or is counting pulses from the speedometer.
I suspect the circuit is not only looking at the number of pulses coming from the speedo, but is also looking at their frequency to determine speed, and has different cancel counts for different frequencies.
Further calculation from the above times shows the following:
speed (MPH)-----speed (ft/sec)----- Distance traveled until cancel
10-----14.6-----353 ft
15-----22-----367ft
20-----29-----394ft
25-----36-----417ft
30-----44-----409ft
35-----51-----377ft
40-----58-----429ft
45-----66-----488ft
Here is the cancel unit removed from the bike. It is inside the steering head.
Here is the bottom of the cancel unit, look up under the forks. The rheostat is in the center of the unit and connected to the wiper arm which is fixed to the bike. This causes the rheostat to turn when you move the bars. Many times, this wiper arm will come off the tab on the rheostat, resulting in signals not properly canceling after completing a turn.