Relays - (pic heavy)

[the_bard]

Hey everyone,

Thought I'd share what I've been doing, I've had a lot of little electrical issues recently including a dodgy rec/reg bad battery etc. The lights/indicators have never worked well and it was getting to the point where turning any of the electrical devices on would actually cause a drop in power.
The bike has spent some time outside and I suspect that corrosion on the switch contacts has contributed to this as well as 20 years of previous owners (myself included) adding various bits to the electrical system, not to mention that the way these bikes are wired the entire electrical load goes through the key switch at some point.
I wanted to add some other electronic accessories at some point in the future and figured that the best way to sort out the issues and be able to do this was to install a relay box. I picked up a second hand one from a wreckers which came of a Hyundai "something" I got one of these as it was reasonably small and it included the fuses and the relays in the same box.

Here's some of the pics of the loom before and just after ripping it out of the bike.



















As you can see quite nasty, I've bought some proper loom tape to wrap it back up with which will be a good start anyway.

Here are some pics after doing all the rewiring, I've put it back in the bike to test everything before I wrap it up and cut and fiberglass the hole for the relay box.







The bench testing was extremely frustrating as nothing was working, that's when I discovered that I had a bad battery (again) it's showing 12.5v but dropping down to 9 as soon as you turn the bike on. So that's as far as I got for the day, I'll bring the car battery in tomorrow and finish up bench testing with that.

Thanks for looking.

[Binetta Steve]

Those pictures bring a new dimension to a rats nest of wiring!
Well done for tackling the issue and good luck with the build.

Steve

[500bernie]

Hi, have you completely rewired the loom?
Are you replacing all the connectors?
That is a massive job, will the relay unit protect/isolate sensitive components from overvoltage ?
Cheers
Bernie

[the_bard]

Thanks for the replies,

Yes it is an absolute rats nest however the hard part's done, once it's taped back up it should look neater than brand new.

No I'm not replacing all the connections, I've intercepted "vital" wires in between the switch and the component and run some "hook up" wire from the switch to the relay then some 10A back to the component.
I don't think the relays will protect from over voltage however I've added extra fuses to isolate certain systems (doing away with the old fuse box).

There are 8 relays:
Ignition - power from the key - provides power to the engine/cdi/kips etc as well as to all other relays.
Brake lights,
High beam,
Low beam,
Right indicator,
Left indicator,
Horn
and an accessory switch which I've added.

Hopefully isolating the systems will allow far better performance from the lights as well as not disturbing the existing electronics if further high amp circuits are added (heated hand grips, radiator fan, etc.)

When you say rats nest it's kind of disturbing that I know exactly what I'm looking at the moment. I think if you named a colour wire from the loom I could tell you exactly what it's for lol - this is information I could do without haha.

[500bernie]

Great work =D>
I think I would have been looking for a new wiring harness, I did the "in the washing machine " routine on mine and since it looked in good condition I just dismantled and cleaned every connection and re-wrapped it.
There is bound to be a zener barrier arrangement that could be used to protect the tacho and cdi unit from high fault voltages.
Keep the photos coming.
Cheers
Bernie

[the_bard]

I did think about a new loom but it doesn't solve the overall problem - these bikes are wired terribly from the factory. The +12V wire from the switch is 10A at most and probably closer to 7.5A and every single system comes off of that at some point. It might work alright when the bikes are brand new but years of abuse shows up. The headlights are what truly suffers I'm expecting a huge increase in performance from mine after this mod not to mention I can throw a set of up to 120W ones if I wanted to as they'll be on an isolated circuit.
That's really a good idea - my local electronics shop sells zener diodes in a variety of sizes, I might just go grab a 14V one and chuck it in the appropriate spot whilst I've got everything apart. A little extra soldering won't hurt.
I'll definitely keep the pics rolling - I want to show that I can actually put this tangled mess back together haha.

Edit: On the other hand (zener wise) I'm actually incorperating a volt meter into the new loom so whilst I won't have the overload protection I'll at least be able to see and shut off the bike if it goes too high. Hopefully this won't happen, I have just replaced the rec/reg.

[the_bard]

So I've done some more to this, I've taken the rats nest and wrapped it up nicely, first with some electrical tape where all the divergences are.











And then with proper cloth loom tape, personally I think it looks far better than it did .











The wires coming out without connectors are for some extra accessories which I'm planning on adding at some point in the future. I just thought to keep things neat I'd wire it all up inside the loom.

Here's the "bucket" which will hold the relay box, it's cut in under the seat, I'm hoping that it will still leave enough clearance for the suspension travel but I've bounced up and down on the tail as much as I can and I couldn't get the tire to touch so fingers crossed. I have a real love hate relationship with fibreglass, it's so handy but so bloody messy. Still curing so no pics of it in the bike sorry.





I know it's pretty ugly but I'm a bit over it at this point and I'm planning on making a rear wheel hugger and I'll build a better box for it then.

Hopefully can give you some pics tomorrow of the loom in the bike and of her running

[Binetta Steve]

Well its 7:15 the following morning and no pics of her running!
Ha ha.

Hey nice job on the loom I recently wired up two spots and was bothered I would cock up the wiring. You have really been ambitious on this build. Well done.

[the_bard]

Well its 7:15 the following morning and no pics of her running!
Ha ha.

it's 7:30 at night here lol I only posted this about an hour and a half ago - I'm in Aus.

Cheers

[the_bard]

Right so I've got the loom back in the bike, hoorah, I've lost some length somewhere along the way so it's a little tighter than it was and I was having some issues getting in the reserve water tank however I got there in the end.











Mmmmm two smoke in the air.


Revs


One issue with this mod is that the flasher relay no longer works as there's now near zero load on the circuit so I've wired a ground to it and ordered an electronic flashing unit.

I'm still having some issues with the power my battery is absolutely stuffed, only getting about 7 volts when it's running, turning on the lights still kills the motor. So I'll order a new one of those and see how everything goes.

I'm sure this has made a positive difference though, I noticed even when i turned the key with the stuffed battery the neutral/oil lights are really bright even with the stuffed battery whereas before they were barely visible.

[the_bard]

Hi everyone,

Been having some issues with the electrics still . The set up with the relays seems to be working nicely, except for an amusing (now) incident where I couldn't get the horn to work after pulling everything apart and scratching my head for ages I figured it was the relay that was busted .

Anyway I can't seem to get the bike to charge and I honestly can't figure out the problem.

Battery is brand new - literally it was the first thing I replaced, load tested so it's not a dud.
Checked the stator windings all connection combinations 1.5 plus or minus .2 ohms
stator windings with the bike running - about 50-60 VAC on all connections at approx 5k RPM.

voltage at the battery is slightly down with the bike running compared to the bike off.
checked the DC voltage at the reg/rec same as the battery.

I then figured it must be the reg/rec, replaced that with a brand new one,

voltage at the battery is now the same running as off (12.7 ish) and voltage at the reg/rec is about 12.9 regardless of RPM.

However this won't be enough to charge the battery.

The new set up with the relays means that the white wire runs directly to the positive battery terminal (after a fuse, which isn't blown).

I honestly don't know where the problem is.

Any ideas? Please!!! [-o<

Tom

[500bernie]

Hi Tom
Your system is so special now that none of the common points that you would normally go through would have any relevance to your bike.
You will need to go back to basics again, one thing I would say is that plenty of guys have checked stators got acceptable reading and eventually changed them and rectified the problem.
Bite the bullet and get a new one from Wemoto.
Remember these bikes will run without a battery (battery eliminator)
Cheers
Bernie

[the_bard]

Thanks Bernie,
I did think that could be an issue, with the stator I've been doing a bit of reading and I've noticed one site where the guy suggests hooking up a 100W bulb to the stator coils to see if they'll make decent current as well as voltage?
I've got a spare donk tucked away under the house maybe I'll pull the stator off that and see if it'll work. gah!
Thanks for your help

[the_bard]

So after a long time of ignoring this issue because I couldn't be stuffed I finally decided to pull my head out of my @#$& and fix it.
I pulled the stator of the spare donk and put that in, no change, then I had a better look at the rec/reg, there was the problem, I was using an aftermarket chinese one that didn't come with the appropriate connector so I had to solder on the old one, but it didn't come with a wiring diagram either turns out I had the earth and the switched on wires swapped over, luckily i didn't screw either the rec/reg or the cdi although I'm pretty sure that's what killed the last battery.
Kicked it over and straight up to about 13.1V and going up to 13.9 at about 3 or 4k revs before stopping. Perfect.