[Robster]

After an afternon spent fiddling with the bike and my Starcom and stuff, I decided to take the plunge and fit my Spotlights that have been gathering dust for 6 months or so!

I had a cunning plan the other day of using one of the existing fairing mounting bolts and fixing the light brackets on there. I "offered them up" in a variety of places and indeed this seemed best.

So I set about the wiring, relay and all, and eventually arrived at the point of a test run. I've also bought an Autoswitch for them so I can fire the Spots up with a quick double tap of the Main beam flash button. Howevere I couldn't think where to find a feed that was purely "main beam".

I then figured I could take it off the back of the clocks, from the little and perhaps appropriately named main beam "idiot light".

I temporarily attached this wire (well, stuffed it against the + contact) and turned the key. Headlights were on, spots were not. Quick double tap of the pass/flash trigger and hey presto the spots fired up.

Marvellous I thought, and was just about to congratulate myself on being a genius when the new wiring I'd put in for the spots began smoking! SH!!!!!!!!!!!!!T!

I quickly turned everytihng off, and the wires kept smoking for a while and then settled down! Strangely it was only the one wire that connected the 2 lights together (presumed this would be ok as I used a "wiring kit"), the rest of the wires didnt seem to melt!

However, having fully crapped myself I whipped the fuse out from the relay connection, took off the melted wire and removed the lights! Ho-hum...what a waste of an afternoon!

 

[Chad]

After an afternon spent fiddling with the bike and my Starcom and stuff, I decided to take the plunge and fit my Spotlights that have been gathering dust for 6 months or so!

I had a cunning plan the other day of using one of the existing fairing mounting bolts and fixing the light brackets on there. I "offered them up" in a variety of places and indeed this seemed best.

So I set about the wiring, relay and all, and eventually arrived at the point of a test run. I've also bought an Autoswitch for them so I can fire the Spots up with a quick double tap of the Main beam flash button. Howevere I couldn't think where to find a feed that was purely "main beam".

I then figured I could take it off the back of the clocks, from the little and perhaps appropriately named main beam "idiot light".

I temporarily attached this wire (well, stuffed it against the + contact) and turned the key. Headlights were on, spots were not. Quick double tap of the pass/flash trigger and hey presto the spots fired up.

Marvellous I thought, and was just about to congratulate myself on being a genius when the new wiring I'd put in for the spots began smoking! SH!!!!!!!!!!!!!T!

I quickly turned everytihng off, and the wires kept smoking for a while and then settled down! Strangely it was only the one wire that connected the 2 lights together (presumed this would be ok as I used a "wiring kit"), the rest of the wires didnt seem to melt!

However, having fully crapped myself I whipped the fuse out from the relay connection, took off the melted wire and removed the lights! Ho-hum...what a waste of an afternoon!

SEE !!!!! you cut the wires and the lectrickery leaks everywhere....and it dont arf make a mess:teeth:

 

[Robster]

lol it really did make a mess too....there was molten elastic-trickery everywhere! <sigh> :crybaby: :angry5:

 

[anton88]

Bad luck Robster. Thats the sort of thing that happens to me as well with electrickery :banghead: .

Bloody stuff goes everywhere except where you want it.

Cant offer any advice as to how to wire up properly, but hope u get it sorted.

 

[Von Short Hausen]

I then figured I could take it off the back of the clocks, from the little and perhaps appropriately named main beam "idiot light".

I temporarily attached this wire (well, stuffed it against the + contact) and turned the key. Headlights were on, spots were not. Quick double tap of the pass/flash trigger and hey presto the spots fired up.

Marvellous I thought, and was just about to congratulate myself on being a genius when the new wiring I'd put in for the spots began smoking! SH!!!!!!!!!!!!!T!

I quickly turned everytihng off, and the wires kept smoking for a while and then settled down! Strangely it was only the one wire that connected the 2 lights together (presumed this would be ok as I used a "wiring kit"), the rest of the wires didnt seem to melt!

1) Try drawing out what you've done on a piece of paper.....you might have made a little mistake.

2) Let's see if understand this correctly. The lights are fed from the battery, switched by a relay ? The relay is activated by the feed to the 'main beam indicator' bulb ? (So far, so good :thumbup: ).

Have you wired them in series or parallel ?

Assuming you've hooked them up in parallel (so that if one bulb dies the other will still work), let's throw some numbers at this. What wattage are the lamps ? If they are, say 50W each that would be I=P/V which is 100/12 which is 8.33 Amps. Are you using chunky wires for ALL the connections to the lamps, (ie, battery to relay, relay to lamps, and earth to lamps) ?

It sounds like you may need to replace the wires with thick stuff, and then check the current through it all. And the easiest way to do that is to take the fuse out and connect an AMMETER to either side of the fuseholder.

 

[Robster]

1) Try drawing out what you've done on a piece of paper.....you might have made a little mistake.

2) Let's see if understand this correctly. The lights are fed from the battery, switched by a relay ? The relay is activated by the feed to the 'main beam indicator' bulb ? (So far, so good :thumbup: ).

Have you wired them in series or parallel ?

Assuming you've hooked them up in parallel (so that if one bulb dies the other will still work), let's throw some numbers at this. What wattage are the lamps ? If they are, say 50W each that would be I=P/V which is 100/12 which is 8.33 Amps. Are you using chunky wires for ALL the connections to the lamps, (ie, battery to relay, relay to lamps, and earth to lamps) ?

It sounds like you may need to replace the wires with thick stuff, and then check the current through it all. And the easiest way to do that is to take the fuse out and connect an AMMETER to either side of the fuseholder.

Urrrrrm ok here's a wiring plan as best as I can remember.

It could well be that my problem is of my own causing in that I replaced the standard bulbs in the lamps with higher powered bluer ones (possibly even 100w if I remember rightly ). If this is the case then would I just need to use chunkier wires all round?

The little earth wires coming out of the lamps (H3 bulbs with wires already attached) are quite weedy...what could I do about this?

It appears that the only wire that melted was the wire linking Spot 1 to Spot 2. At least during my 10 second test run anyway!

 

[Von Short Hausen]

It could well be that my problem is of my own causing in that I replaced the standard bulbs in the lamps with higher powered bluer ones (possibly even 100w if I remember rightly ). If this is the case then would I just need to use chunkier wires all round?

So you have 2 x 100 bulbs ? That means you're drawing 16.5 Amps ! :shock: I wonder how that affects your charging system. At least the lamps only come on with the Hi-beam, and presumably when your revs are fairly high. It would be interesting to see what voltage your system can manage to maintain with this "Hiroshima Headlight" arrangement.

Anyway, if it were me I'd replace all the lamp cables with heavy duty type....ie, on your diagram (a) the RED wire with the fuse which runs from the batt to the relay (b) the yellow wires from the relay to the bulbs, (c) the earth wires. Just out of interest, how exactly are you earthing the bulbs ?

Having done that I'd fire it all up again, and see if anything smokes or is too hot to touch. Then I'd look at the current by taking out the fuse - and then if everything is still alright I'd look at the voltage of the system to make sure that the alternator is coping alright.

TBH I'm not familiar with the workings of the autoswitch, and purely out of curiousity I wonder why you have used one. This is not a criticism and I'm sure you have a good reason, but I would probably have just used the 'idiot beam' current to fire the relay directly .....or is it not that simple ? Maybe the autoswitch enables you to choose whether the 'Hiroshima Spots' come on with the Main Beam or not.

Anyway HTH, shorty

 

[Robster]

Yeah the autoswitch is in there simply to allow me to switch the Spots on or off independantly of the main beam, but without having to fumble around for a separate switch – as they'll be used mostly for melting the eyes of Cagers who wont move out of my way when I'm filtering! When hooked up to the pass/flash trigger, a quick double tap of the trigger will activate the lights and a second double tap will turn them off again.

I might replace my "Hiroshima" bulbs with the standard ones that came with the spots for now, and do as suggested, replace the load carrying wiring with some "fat cable". The Fused live is already quite chunky so this should be ok I guess.

I earthed the spots to the subframe that holds the clocks/lights/nosecone...dunno whether this is the right thing to do or not? Or would they be better fed right back to the battery?

I have
no idea
what I'm doing!

 

[Von Short Hausen]

Yeah the autoswitch is in there simply to allow me to switch the Spots on or off independantly of the main beam, but without having to fumble around for a separate switch – as they'll be used mostly for melting the eyes of Cagers who wont move out of my way when I'm filtering!

Yep makes sense, and I deffo approve. I'd use it for the muppets who come at you across the centreline

I earthed the spots to the subframe that holds the clocks/lights/nosecone...dunno whether this is the right thing to do or not? Or would they be better fed right back to the battery?

Well so long as you've got a good strong clean connection it should be fine. Bad earths are a cause of many vehicle nightmares, in fact they're the cause of most non vehicle nightmares as well but that's another story.

If you're really curious you could measure the resistance between either of the spotlamp holder earth tags and the battery negative with a test meter set to the lowest Ohms range. It should be negligible. Make sure you do this with the ignition switched off though !!!!

 

[Robster]

Cool, well thanks muchly for all the advice :salute:

I shall have another go with some fat wires (and a fire extinguisher within reach) at some point in the near future!

 

[Von Short Hausen]

No sweat.....and good luck :thumbup:

Despite the self-deprecating title to this thread it sounds like you're doing everything right, so hopefully it'll all be fine.

 

[Robster]

No sweat.....and good luck :thumbup:

Despite the self-deprecating title to this thread it sounds like you're doing everything right, so hopefully it'll all be fine.

I used to have high hopes for myself as a self-deprecating comedian...but I found I wasn't very good at it.

 

[Dee Dub]

Personally I'd refit the original bulbs. Poor earths etc are red herrings: they'd reduce the current, not cause wires to melt.

Your generator is designed to produce enough to maintain current for standard lights, say (55x2)+15+15+25+(25x4)=210w?, plus a bit to spare for heated grips/ satnav etc.; you are adding another 200w! It may cope but you are asking a lot.

Tackle the simple stuff first, get it working, then think about "upgrades".

 

[Robster]

Sooooooooo... If I was re-wiring the lights with my fat cable in "Parallel", would that mean 2 + feeds coming from the relay? ie on my wiring diagram, 2 yellow cables, one for each light, rather than one that splits halfway up? Is this the best plan?