Re-wiring... What direction to go in?

[Toasty]

I have pretty much everything I need to finish the engine and I want to tackle the issue of wiring. As it sits now the majority of my harness will be redundant, and it's kind of a mess to be honest. I found a guy on Do The Ton selling the extra of his 16ga OEM color wire for a fantastic price so I picked up enough to redo my bike. I know it's not necessary but my bike is stripped to the frame right now, and I want to do it... Mostly as a learning experience and to clean up the bike.

So I plan on going kickstart only, going as minimal on the wiring as possible. Just headlight, tail light, turn signals, my Compufire and digital Acewell gauge. I have two possibilites for the direction I want to go in, and I wanna hear what you guys think.


1. Capacitor and teeny battery (would go batteryless but my Acewell needs a small amount of power to remember wheel diameter settings). Minimal wiring and relays and blade-type fuse box.


or


2. Slightly larger battery and a Motogadget M-Unit box. The m-unit replaces the separate grounds, every single relay and the fuse box. It's a solid state unit with tons of built in features (built in alarm, tail light modulators, and other programable trickery) and single wire in and out... It also allows the use of the (expensive but awesome) m-buttons. The downside... it's pretty pricey at $300. I also worry about longevity, eventually it will go bad. It could last 10 years but will Motogadget still be around? I dunno. Although $300 over a few years isn't much.

Product Link




Edit: There is also this LINK Kind of the poor mans' m-unit. I havent heard anything about that particular unit though, while Motogadget has a great rep.

 

[Steve]

If you want to go even cheaper (but still great quality), try the Eastern Beaver PC-8 Fuse Panel.

I have installed a couple of these and will be doing more, as opportunities present themselves.

EB has harnesses available, which include the relay, but I chose to do my own, so I could place the relay where it made sense on my bike. It also keeps the cost down, just the fuse panel is $60.

.

 

[SqDancerLynn1]

HOW are you planning to retro fit a kick starter ??

 

[Toasty]

The 81-82 550 engines (maybe others) share the same castings as the first gen models, the bolt holes were even still threaded. I had the cases split and was able to drop in the complete kickstart assembly from a '78 model along with the earlier clutch cover.


1981 550L bottom end with '78 kicker assembly.

Bottom end back together

It was super simple to do really, you just need to have the cases split.



Steve, that box looks really nice especially for the price. The motogadget one has so many features (I like the option to upgrade to keyless ignition too) but for the $$$ savings I could live without them. I have a tutorial bookmarked to add keyless somewhere, it just takes a couple extra relays and boxes.

 

[Steve]

If you want to see how it fits on a GS, I started a thread just over a year ago, putting it on my son's 1000G.

Click HERE to see it.

.

 

[Guest]

Don't omit a horn. That is also required by law on street vehicles.

 

[Toasty]

True, the horn is easy though.


And here are the posts from the guy on Do the Ton who made his own RFID keyless ignition, if anyone is interested.

You need:

1 DEI 611T Solid state relay, like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEI-611T-12-VOLT-ACTIVE-LATCHING-SWITCH-RELAY-TIMER-/140333447156

1 RFID reader, like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RFID-Reader...=US_Car_Keys_Transponders&hash=item3a71318566


Once you have those and have a basic understanding of wiring, you can use it for your ignition. I use mine to latch a HD 40amp relay that I have connected to a power distribution/fuse block.

The antenna for mine is inside my cafe tail. I swipe the keyfob outside of the tail and it energizes my ignition(key on).

The solid state relay takes the very weak signal pulse from the RFID and turns it into something you can latch a standard 12v relay with. I tried to have the RFID latch a standard relay but it simply doesnt have enough power. So from the battery the power goes to the RFID. You swipe the 'key' it sends a positive pulse out. The solid state relay takes this and can do a number of things depending on how you set it up(can even have timer delays etc). Mine instantly latches on which I use to trip the HD relay for my power. If I swipe again it unlatches power and the HD relay opens and turns off my bike. Ill post video soon. My bike is done, but i haven taken good photos or video of it yet.

...The RFID receiver does constantly pull a small amount of power because it is always searching for a keyfob. That said, if you are going to run your bike infrequently, install an inline toggle for the receiver. I did that on my CB. Kinda like a storage switch to keep the battery topped off.

Neevo,
I tried to have the reader/RFID trip a relay but the pulsed output while the keyfob is around is super low voltage and doesnt trip a standard 12v relay(I even tried 'high efficiency" relays but it didnt work) Thats why I used the solid state relay/switch. It can take this signal pulse and then acts like a regular relay. I then stepped that to a HD relay to act as my key on power. From there you can do what you want with the signal. I can swipe the bike off if I want, use a kill switch to cut power to the ignition or use the 'storage' switch to cut power to the relay. There might be a more elegant or simple solution than mine but this set up works well for my needs.

As far as I can tell, yes. They are pretty cool little boxes.

Heres my under tail in the testing phase:

Untitled by bailey_james62@ymail.com, on Flickr

The black box on top of the battery is the RFID reader. It also has a little red LED that lights up when you pass the key fob but I dont use it since my tail light lights up when my key fob is passed. You should note the distance from the pick up antenna(which is like 30 inches long or something) to the keyfob cant be more than 7 cm, which isnt far but it works through things like fiberglass tails, so I get to wave my hand over my bikes tail and it magically turns on. Kinda like my gf...

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=42385.10


I think that's beyond my understanding of wiring... It's also $150 cheaper then the keyless add on Motogadget offers (it's much cleaner though).

 

[Toasty]

I just bought that solid state relay and RFID system that was in the quotes. After sitting down and drawing out a diagram it really isn't all that complicated. And I'm going to go with the PC-8 that Steve recommended, it looks really nice for the price and it'll clean everything up nicely.


Plus I'm hoping to be able to have some adapters made by a fellow GS'r, and it's gonna cost me some $$.


Edit: My wire is in the mail too, so I'll be making a new harness soon. Time to dig out the soldering iron