Little Bit of an Electrical Upgrade

[natemoen]

Ok, I was a little cofused because where it enters the harness it appears to go to words the rear but doesn't come out anywhere.

[3Phase]

Red wire goes from the battery/solenoid to the 30A Main fuse

30A Main fuse to the unfused junction with the Regulator/Rectifier Red output wire

R/R to the junction with the Red unfused Accessory connector in the headlight shell

Accessory junction to the Ignition switch

Color change at the switch from Red unswitched power to Brown switched power

Brown wire switched power first goes to the unfused R/R Brown Voltage-Sense and Field Coil +12V junctions

R/R to the harness splice where it's divided into 3 Brown wires for the Fuse box.

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[natemoen]

Still struggling with this relay/side marker light issue. I know the easy way to do it by just running the side marker hot from the NC side of the relay. Or is there a way to run the whole front run/turn signal through the relay?

I also remembered the fact that I need fuses on all these things I am putting in there. So now I need to figure out how and where to mount a fuse block in there.

[3Phase]

I think you're overthinking it.

The front right and left Running and Marker lights should be using the original Blue right and left connectors for the Running lights and the 10A Tail fuse so they turn On/Off with the Ignition switch.

If you have the fairing pigtail hooked up to use the spare Blue light connector in the headlight shell, those lights will use the Headlight relay with its 10A fuse and will only turn on after the engine is running.

The two new relays would only need power when signaling and should use the 20A Sig fuse.

If you want to get fancy I suppose you can tie the front Running and Marker lights together on the NC relay terminal so they both turn off when the Turn indicator goes on.

All of the lights are already fused so you don't really need separate fuses.

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[natemoen]

That's kind of what I was thinking with the running lights, but then I would need to put the relay in the ground side of the circuit and I don't think I can do that with the front run/turns because they use a shared ground. Plus I have a diode in the turn signal wires up there to prevent a back feeding issue that I had when I switched to the LED 1157 bulbs.

As for the fuses, I am not talking about fusing things that already have fuses in the main box, I am talking about fuses on new things on added hot lines that don't have any fuse at all yet.

[3Phase]

That's kind of what I was thinking with the running lights, but then I would need to put the relay in the ground side of the circuit and I don't think I can do that with the front run/turns because they use a shared ground. Plus I have a diode in the turn signal wires up there to prevent a back feeding issue that I had when I switched to the LED 1157 bulbs.

As for the fuses, I am not talking about fusing things that already have fuses in the main box, I am talking about fuses on new things on added hot lines that don't have any fuse at all yet.

Unless you've tapped straight to the battery, everything is fused.

Here are the lighting and power connections in the XS1100 headlight shell with fuse circuits.



I'm guessing that you're adding smaller fuses so a radio or GPS in the fairing isn't fused at 30A (always hot) or 20A (switched power).


The Run/Marker lights aren't on the Signal circuit so you should be able to use the Run/Marker hot (Blue) wire(s), not the shared ground. I would think that if the Run/Mark LEDs do weird things when you use the Signals then the ground is probably bad and it's 'floating'.

Relay connection with Running light always on, Marker flashes
NC - Line: Blue wire for the original front Signal/Running Light stalk
OR Blue wire from the Aux lighting connector
NC - Load: Blue wire out to the Marker light

Relay with Running light and Marker both flashing
NC - Line: Blue wire for the original front Signal/Running Light stalk
OR Blue wire from the Aux lighting connector
NC - Load: Blue wires out to the Running and Marker lights

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[natemoen]

This has gotten a little out of hand

Here is what is going to be mounted inside the left side of the fairing. After painting and making it pretty of course.



The whole thing. Still have one light left to wire in and then wrap it.



My dilemma that I have now is what to do with ground wires. I am debating putting a grounding bare in there somewhere and running the grounds all to that but it just seems messy. Just not sure what to do.

[3Phase]

It all becomes clear, that looks really nice!

If you're running all of that to the bike's electrical harness with the stock fairing pigtail and plug or something similar, the ground is sort of anemic if you're using the original lights. With LEDs you could run plenty of lights and not worry about the ground unless you decide you want a thumper stereo or something.

I guess if you still need a better ground after you get everything installed, get some new crimp connectors for the pigtail and plug and then replace the skimpy Black/Ground wire in the pigtail/harness with a larger gauge or you can drill a hole in the fairing and run one of those waterproof bulkhead electrical studs through it. Connect a ground wire from the stud to one of the fairing mount bolts and that'll work, just remember there's an extra ground wire when you have to pull the fairing instead of just unplugging the pigtail.

Waytekwire has a 3/8" 6-36V, 250A Battery Feeder Stud for ~$10, Oreilly Auto has them for ~$14:-

Cole-Hersee/Littelfuse 46211-01



3/8" is a pretty serious connector, Google has a bunch of smaller 5/16-18 connectors:-

https://www.google.com/search?&q=5%2...+bulkhead+stud

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[natemoen]

The original wiring had a single 16awg line for the ground for everything. I now have a dedcated 12 awg ground for the headlight and then I have another 12 awg ground in the plug. It is a matter of cleanly getting the minimum of 10 items with ground wires connected to that 1 ground wire.

[3Phase]

Ah Hah!

The original wiring had a single 16awg line for the ground for everything. I now have a dedcated 12 awg ground for the headlight and then I have another 12 awg ground in the plug. It is a matter of cleanly getting the minimum of 10 items with ground wires connected to that 1 ground wire.

I think they're available in 5/16-18 and smaller but for less than $10 you can get a 3/8" single pole standoff bulkhead connector instead of the pass through and stack all of the wires on one terminal:-





For ~$20 you can get something like this to not stick up and snag/rip stuff on the screws:-




They have them in black too:-




Stud Diameter: 1/4"
Screw Size x 12: #8
Max Cont. Amperage: 15A per connection
Max Voltage: 48V DC
Hardware Material: Stainless Steel
Bus Strip Material: Nickel Plated Brass
Base Material: Glass Filled Nylon
Base Size: 5-1/4" L x 1-1/8" W
Overall Height: 1.09" (without rubber cover)
Mounting Hole Size: #10 screw
Mounting Center: 4.66"
Qty: (1) Black



I may get a couple of these different styles for the rewiring job on my '80G; have to think about where and how I want the wiring to run.

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[natemoen]

I hope I have room on the current backing plate that I have everything on. I don't want to make a third one!

[natemoen]

So this project fell by the wayside for awhile lately. Finally getting back to it. So I have an ammeter in my fairing and I replaced all the wire from the starter solenoid through the ammeter and back to the main fuse with 10awg wire rather than the 16awg that is originally in the harness. I am debating whether I want to replace the wire going up to the ignition or not. I had already a year or so ago changed out the wires in the ignition with 12awg wires but it only has 16 going in. Oh well, I probably won't do it this go round.

I have most of the weather-pack connectors on both the pigtail and the bike. I have the wiring harness in the fairing done.

The most time-consuming part was fixing the cracks in the bottom of the fairing. The black part of the fairing was simple abs and the Plasti-Mend product worked amazingly well! Unfortunately, the main body of the fairing that gets painted is not a compatible with the Plasti-Mend since it is not a solvent-soluble plastic. So I had to go back to the heat welder. Got that all fixed up and then decided to also melt a sheet of stainless steel screen door mesh into the plastic as well for added strength. Man was that a pain in the but! I think overall it will be a good thing and it did work out fine but it was time-consuming! Here is what it looks like after I got the mesh melted in.



It isn't deep into the plastic obviously but it should do the trick. Got it all repainted after having to strip everything off the bottom and a couple inches up the sides. Still need to get the fairing cleaned up again and the wiring harness installed with the lights again. Maybe I will get this all finished and wrapped up before I more in December.....

[natemoen]

Also, I am looking for a different ammeter. I currently have a 2" 60 amp gauge in there and that is just too big. With our measly electrical system in these bikes I just can't really see much movement in the gauge when in use. So I would love if I could find a maybe 20 amp gauge but they just don't seem to be very common. 30 seems to be common but I think that might still be too big. If I remember correct I would usually only see maybe +6-8 amps of movement. I have found this one, but I don't really like the CASE label on it. Then I found this one and like the digital aspect of it since it would then match the rest of my gauges, but it is more than I wanted to spend. Plus that last one has a chrome bezel which doesn't match my other gauges.

So let me know if you know of any 15 or 20 amp 2" black gauges.

[3Phase]

Nate,

Here're a couple of decent articles about adding ammeters and the principle applies to analog or digital gauges:-


The Motorcycle Project | Ammeter Ethic: What to expect


The Motorcycle Project | Installing an Ammeter


The Motorcycle Project | The Parts Shop | Small Vehicle Ammeter ~$24


Have you looked at those Indian Royal Enfield ammeters? Get one of their low-amperage gauges or even better, one without the numbers and it'll do what you want without momentary mental gymnastics when you automatically try to convert the reading:-


Amazon Search: enfield+ ammeter

[natemoen]

Interesting. Doesn't even need to read as high as I thought it would.