Flitemdic Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 I have gotten attachments to put driving lights on the 'bird. I opened up the fuse box and find that what I thought was a spare circuit is just spare fuses. Nice, but not what I was looking for. So now, I have a XM roady, the driving lights, and a radar detector ready to go. What do I add to what? I saw a picture and write up of this "box" one of the european dudes put together, and my first thought was "Please, God, no." I wouldn't even know how to put one together. So, can I, say, add the roady to the clock, the driving lights to the light, and the detector to ? I've seen lots of great pix on this site with all sorts of accesories, but what I know about electrics is that you can really short the system out easily if you slip with the screwdriver. What have y'all done with yours? Any help would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXX Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 I am in the process of adding lots of electrics to my bike. I had Honda tap into a switched fuse a year or so ago and run the line up to the cowl, where I fashioned a gang line hookup to all my then current add on's (autocomm, sirius, radar detector and cell phone). Mind you, the gang was protected by a 10A in line fuse and each line coming off it was fused. I initially had problems of blowing the sirius receiver if the engine was killed and the key was not switched off prior to restart. It would cut back on if I reinitiated the procedure properly after that, but sometimes it would blow the secondary fuse. I am now rewiring everything possible to be under my seat. Some of my current projects direct me to link the power directly to the positive terminal on the battery. I am hesitant to do that, I may run a fused link off it to supply those components. My radar detector has a very handy feature.... a VOLTMETER! It is accurate and the results are predictable. Voltage varies by load & engine speed. I would use this to determine whether or not to fabricate a CUNT box. Whether or not you will have the juice to do everything you want, well, that issue has been beat to death. Honda is very reticent about much more power consumption, but I believe the issue had been resolved by 1999. (By then Honda had put a male engineer in charge of the design) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccriderXX Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 You probably could get away with the Roady sharing a curcuit, but I wouldn't do that with the lights. A place to get some ideas is Warchild's pictures of his bike: http://www.superblackbird.com/farkledass.cfm I did something similar. I got a busbar (a way to join wires cleanly) a relay and a ground strip. I got these at a marine supply house. They should not corrode. I connected the relay to a keyed circuit and also directly to the battery. Then large guage fused wire to the positive busbar. There also is a ground wire to the ground strip. The busbar is only active when the key is turned on. I run my electric vest, electric grips, and radar detector from that busbar. My Heat-troller is also fused. I used these Bluesea.com items: Busbar: http://tinyurl.com/89dbe Grounding Busbar: http://tinyurl.com/8638u There are also some cool junction boxes that LDR folks use that have fuses for each circuit. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 I did mine close to the way Dale did his... I have a fused wire from the + side of the battery, going to a relay that's controlled by the brake running light (Scotch-Locked onto the brake running light wire in the tail section) so it's only powering anything when the ignition is on... From the other side of the relay, the switched 12V power goes to a bus strip where the Datel DVM, XM, heated jacket, heated grips, and euro running lamp power sides are... Being that a bike is mostly aluminum, I don't want to count on the bike to be the ground, so I have run power AND ground wires for everything, and also have a ground strip that goes directly to the battery. If you're interested, I can take some pics tonight and maybe even could do a schematic if you need one... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted February 14, 2006 Author Share Posted February 14, 2006 If you're interested, I can take some pics tonight and maybe even could do a schematic if you need one... THAT would be fantastic. Thanks for the responses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbird Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Everything is run off a power strip. Strip itself is fused 10amps, plus appropriate individual fuses for each device wired. No relay, so I need to remember to turn stuff off, but I have an aversion to cutting into the wiring harness if it can be avoided. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red J Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 Everything... Vampire tap (Scotch-lok) off the taillight power to trigger a master relay works well. My setup is similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonox Posted February 14, 2006 Share Posted February 14, 2006 bit of a mess, but i did what barton did fused block available at any car place, powered from a relay triggered by the brake light circuit. as you can tell from the battery posts, there is a fair bit of heavy duty stuff going on, but i chose this instead of a busbar for the moment. The clear plastic lid just aft of the seat crossmember is a set of 4 fuses and there are three relays scattered around. I'm sure you can make yours neater. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted February 15, 2006 Author Share Posted February 15, 2006 This is GREAT. Thanks people! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceman_40 Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 http://www.bluesea.com/product.asp?Product...463&l1=7463&l2= I'm going with one of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganDonor Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 http://www.bluesea.com/product.asp?Product...463&l1=7463&l2= I'm going with one of these. Sweeet.. And for $35, hard to beat... has a negative bus, too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceman_40 Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 Sweeet.. And for $35, hard to beat... has a negative bus, too! I'm considering mounting it up inside the front faring, I think I can find some room up there. Most of my goodies are up front so it would make for easy troubleshooting and short wire runs. Of course it would be turned on by a relay. Ideally I'd like to have two of those in a 3 block instead of a 6 and mount one in the front and one under the seat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squareman357 Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 http://www.bluesea.com/product.asp?Product...463&l1=7463&l2= I'm going with one of these. Sweeet.. And for $35, hard to beat... has a negative bus, too! That is trick. Got me thinking about ordering one of those myself, though right now I'm just running GPS and radar detector fused from my tank bag via Powerlet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beondwacko Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 bit of a mess, but i did what barton did fused block available at any car place, powered from a relay triggered by the brake light circuit. as you can tell from the battery posts, there is a fair bit of heavy duty stuff going on, but i chose this instead of a busbar for the moment. The clear plastic lid just aft of the seat crossmember is a set of 4 fuses and there are three relays scattered around. I'm sure you can make yours neater. Wow. It looks like NASA just Puked in there! J/K. Also, I noticed that on the side of the rear cowling you have the PGM-FI decal. That must be normal on non US models. The US models have the LBS decal there. BTW, what do you have connected on that thing? I see 2 relays ( there may be more. I only saw 2 ) that you added on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 OK, so here's what mine looks like... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted February 15, 2006 Author Share Posted February 15, 2006 So, a relay off the running light for a switch, and the power straight from the battery to the bus? Great pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted February 15, 2006 Share Posted February 15, 2006 So, a relay off the running light for a switch, and the power straight from the battery to the bus? Great pictures. Close... Power straight from the battery to the relay (used as a switch from the running light) and from the relay to the bus... That way, the bus isn't powered when the bike is off... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted February 15, 2006 Author Share Posted February 15, 2006 Got it. Sure hope I can print this when I get home. Lots of writing and notes otherwise. Thanks again to everyone who responded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted March 21, 2006 Author Share Posted March 21, 2006 Here's the end result. Thanks a million Mike, and everyone who responded. Looks like hell around the battery right now, but not everything is connected yet. This is a project box from Radio Shack to keep the relay and fuse bus in. Two holes in the undertail on either side of the ECU to hold it in place, fit perfectly. Unfortunately, my eye wasn't perfect, so now it's crooked. [shrug] With the cowl on, it almost disappears. Added a angled screwdriver to the tool kit just in case I need to get to it on the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXX Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Did any of you guys use a "quenching" diode on the relay? I am trying to get up to snuff here afore I fry any of my electrics. The relays that were used...were they fairly specific to car or boat? I will add up all the amperages for all my devices and try to get a relay that can carry at least twice that ( since I will be running vest/gloves/chaps during the cooler months) I do not know that the backflow EMF means shit to a bird. The info I am getting is off a car audio site. I just do not want to damage any expensive parts. Thanks in advance for your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sykotek-xx Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Nice pink shirt there..... Here's the end result. Thanks a million Mike, and everyone who responded. Looks like hell around the battery right now, but not everything is connected yet. This is a project box from Radio Shack to keep the relay and fuse bus in. Two holes in the undertail on either side of the ECU to hold it in place, fit perfectly. Unfortunately, my eye wasn't perfect, so now it's crooked. [shrug] With the cowl on, it almost disappears. Added a angled screwdriver to the tool kit just in case I need to get to it on the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hey_allen Posted August 29, 2007 Share Posted August 29, 2007 One benefit of using a relay in your wiring harness: If you use a battery tender, you can wire it to the other side of the relay main contacts. When the ignition is off, the battery tender wiring is connected to the battery. When you switch on, it's isolated, and no chance of possibly overdrawing the charger (as small as most of them are..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spicholy Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 I just saw these things and wondered if they would help in this instance. Add a link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flitemdic Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share Posted August 30, 2007 Nice pink shirt there..... That's deep rose. And that belly didn't just pooch out on it's own, either- took alot of work. Did any of you guys use a "quenching" diode on the relay? I am trying to get up to snuff here afore I fry any of my electrics. The relays that were used...were they fairly specific to car or boat? I will add up all the amperages for all my devices and try to get a relay that can carry at least twice that ( since I will be running vest/gloves/chaps during the cooler months) I do not know that the backflow EMF means shit to a bird. The info I am getting is off a car audio site. I just do not want to damage any expensive parts. Thanks in advance for your help! Philip: I didn't use anything fancy. I don't even know exactly what backflow EMF means. If you put in a second system, like I did, you are isolating the really expensive bits anyway. I'll tear it down so you can see it at TeXXt if you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblackbird2000 Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Philip: I didn't use anything fancy. I don't even know exactly what backflow EMF means. If you put in a second system, like I did, you are isolating the really expensive bits anyway. I'll tear it down so you can see it at TeXXt if you want. Let me preface this by saying I'm by no means an expert on the topic, but I think what Phillip is talking about is the "back flow" of current through the terminals. I read about this when I was doing my electrical, and found out a dioed acts as a one way valve to ensure that the current dosen't start flowing the wrong way, which could potentially blow up your farkles. The back flow of current can happen when the relay is turned off, the instant the contacts open. I did install one. It was pretty easy, I soilder all my connections anyway, and the thin wire of the dioed was easy to incorporate into the connection with my lead wires. Nice work btw Duane, really clean looking. Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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