Why do you need two flashers?

[chevynut]

I have been looking at my wiring diagrams to make sure I get everything into my console, and I noticed I have two flashers wired up. I looked at Ron Francis and Painless fuse panels and they also have two flashers. I know one is for the hazard flashers and one is for the turn signals, but can't one do the job? I noticed there are two separate inputs into the Flaming River column, one for hazard and one for turn signals. I can see if you want hazards hot all the time, and turn signals only hot when the key is on, but why else do you need two? I must be missing something. Is it just because of the way the turn signal switch is wired inside the column?

[5Clint7]

The bimetal strip in the flasher opens with different current draw. The sig flasher only lights 2 bulbs and the 4 way flasher lights 4 bulbs. That is if you only have one bulb per light. If you put a sig flasher in a 4 way, it would flash so fast you couldn't see it. Just the reverse if you switched the other way. Probably wouldn't flash at all.

[chevynut]

Thanks Clint, that makes some sense. The electronic flashers aren't load dependent. That's why you need to use one of them with LEDs, since their load is so low. Would one of those work as BOTH the turn signals and the hazard lights?

I'm still thinking that the main reason there are two is the hazards need to be powered constantly (even with key off) and turn signals only get power when the key is on. What's the downside to having turn signals powered all the time?

[Rick_L]

Both of the reasons mentioned are why they do it the way it's typically done.