Electrical mods - confirmed working

[Cipher]

Yeah life isn't always phare.

 

[darrell3001]

Hello Who,

Once again, Thank You! for the detailed writeup. I absolutely cherish these types of exchanges. This is how we learn from masters like yourself. Your attention to detail cannot be more appreciated.

Regarding ammeter sensor location:

So based on your feedback, i swapped the sensor around (a few times) to see which i liked more. All have their plus'es and minus'es (no pun intended). In the end, i came back to my original requirement for installing the volt/am-meter combo in the first place; ie to detect a faulty charging system. Putting the pickup on either forward leg provides almost no "variability" in current since the electrical system is effectively static once you turn the key on. Obviously, it changes slightly when you go from high beam to low beam. Anyway, to your point, the ammeter does not tell you anything useful on that side other than what the total current draw is from the accessories. I ended up going back to the pickup on the R/R side. The readings fluctuate wildly (also as you predicted in your previous post). However, for me, this is exactly what im looking for. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when i look down and see that ammeter reading almost zero at idle and then zoom up to 16A when i accelerate. Provided that my battery is in working order, this give me peace of mind knowing that the R/R is charging the battery. Also, as you pointed out, the volt meter tells me if the battery is working based on output voltage.

When you added resistors, did you put them in-line with the light leads or across them

​I wired them across. The ones that i referenced from Amazon are specially made for hooking them up across. They have 4 separate bullet connectors; two male and two female. Basically, you just unplug both leads of the accessory you want to add load to and "shim" in the resistor.

Putting them across the leads is the correct way, but they will get HOT, so mount them carefully.

​Yes, this was exactly my experience. As i mentioned in my original post, they get HOT, HOT, HOT. The little 10W ones are mounted inside of a piece of ceramic molding with a piece of heat shrink on the outside. They get warm-ish, but not really hot. I used these on the tail light/running light. The 50w ones, on the other had, get H-O-T, hot! They have a regular heat sink. I ended up using these on the headlight. Note: i did find that the 10w work just fine on the headlight to get rid of the idiot light on the dash. w/r to mounting location, i put the 50w ones on the outside of the headlight housing, just below the headlight, I tie wrapped one each to each fork such that the heat sink get plenty of air flow when bike is moving. One down side, is that i need to simulate airflow when bike is sitting in garage idling. I keep a fan in garage anyway for running airflow over engine when im idling anyway.

I see now that the resistors for the brake/tail light are just to fool the computer, so I have to ask ... is it worth it?

​I installed one of Ed's SH 775 as an upgrade several weeks back. Therefore, im no terribly concerned about reducing load on my charging system. The main reason i did the LED upgrades was for safety and visibility. The LED headlight (i checked, its LED) is just sooooo much brighter than the incandescent bulb. Yes, the beam is a bit more scattered than the incandescent bulb, but its just so bright that its not really a problem at night. The big advantage is during the day. Its just so much more visible. Anyway, that was the rationale for doing the headlight.

Now W/R to the tail light, again, this was done strictly for visibility. I ended up installing a LED brake light that has a "strobe" feature. It basically strobes about 4 times when you pull/press the brake and then settles into a solid red. I recorded a short YouTube video and included the link in my original post in case you have not seen these mods. Ive seen this mod on several bikes and it really increases the visibility. In many ways, its like the center brake light on cars. Its just something else to get the person behind you to notice you. There are just way to many people txting and driving these days and i want to be as visible as possible.

Now, to answer your question.. Is it worth it? I can say whole-heartedly, YES! Without a doubt.


Best Regards,
​

 

[Suzukian]

I do have one query, did you wire the big wattage resistors in series or in parallel with the head light wires. In a series connection, current stays the same, you're just making a huge voltage drop to heat up a resistor. In a Parallel circuit, the current is divided according to the resistance of each route, and this lower the amperage going to the bulb. The Resistors would not have heated up so much. Proof is when you dropped the resistance, your voltage regulator stopped working so hard, ass opposed to the series which had you R/R seeing a new massive load. Parallel decreases current flow, series connection creates a voltage drop, where you could mount an accessory, but does not change the current flow.

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/te...chpt-5/what-are-series-and-parallel-circuits/

 

[darrell3001]

hi Suzukian .. I wired them in parallel. Just to be clear on my answer. The resistors came with a red and black lead from the resistor itself, then each lead split off into a male and female bullet. I unplugged the + wire on the high beam and connected the red bullets from the resistor to each end of the disconnected main leads. I did same with black bullets on the - side.

Two side notes: 1) I needed a resister for both high and low beam circuits. Only having on one circuit caused idiot light to stay on on dash. 2) the headlight only has a single - lead so the black wires from the resistors are both plugged into same wire.

My main objective in doing this was to get the idiot lights to not illuminate on the dash while still retaining their original function (ie to tell you when u have a burnt out bulb). My testing/validation of this was to use a clip on multimeter and test amps draw with incandescent bulb, then do same measurement with LEDs installed. As i recall, it was a drop of about 3.6A on each circuit (high/low beam). That comes out to be about 43w of load that i needed to simulate with resistors. I re-tested with after installing the load simulators and got (near) expected results. Originally, i installed the 50w load simulators. These were close to the 43w of load that i needed to simulate. These were made of metal and had a proper heat sink. My thinking was that i would mount these outside of the headlight case thus air flow would keep them cool. In the end i went back to the 10w load simulators. Three reasons: 1) The 50w's got HOT, HOT, HOT. 2) The 10w ones provided enough load to take care of the idiot lights and 3) it just seemed silly to force my R/R to work hard for that extra 80w (50w-10w times 2) that is just being wasted by by the load simulators.

Suzukian Is my understanding correct? Do i have them wired up correct? If my only objective is to make the idiot light perform correctly, is there an easier way to accomplish this?


Thanks for your reply and very best regards,

 

[Suzukian]

I think so, by mounting them in parallel, the parallel resistor is dumping a lot of current thought heat by a voltage drop, the lowering the current. This leaves enough for the headlight. If the headlight goes out, you don't have to worry about frying the system because nothing is dropping the voltage. It's the way I'd do it. If you wanted to mount extra lights, or a really loud obnoxious Horn, like the set of FIAMM's I have on my GS750ES, you could mount them again in parallel with the same circuit, the current will follow the path of least resistance, and the electricity would be used up, rather than just being turned into hit. Anything I mounted off of there I would mount with a relay and/or fuse.