parking light trap

aussie Wed 18 Apr 2012, 9:56 pm

First topic message reminder :

Parked the bike at work today and as it was raining I flicked the key to lock the steering and then off inside. When I came out 5 hours later I noticed the parking lights were on and very dim. Tried to start it but no joy it would not turn over on the starter.

I had to bump start it. Two points which may be of interest for future reference:
1. Be very careful when you lock the steering head as one extra movement of the key leaves the parking lights on.

2. The bike starts very easily on the bump even with a completely flat battery. Short low incline - wet road
- 4 klm/h on the speedo - second gear, bounce on the seat as you let the clutch out and away she fires.

Hammy Sat 21 Apr 2012, 9:21 am

dhula wrote:does that mean twice as long kewwig :-P

Much longer ! Only 1 watt compared to 5 or more.

2wheelsagain Sat 21 Apr 2012, 11:14 am

BanditDave wrote:Here is my solution to parking light woes.
Obtain a waterproof fuseholder and 10amp blade fuse.
Obtain two wire taps/power takeoffs (a squeeze on connector that allows you to add an extra wire to an exixting circuit. I consider soldering a much better solution but these products will do a similar job if soldering is not an option.

Hopefully, the diagram is pretty self explanatory.

The modification is done on the cable between the ignition switch and the six pin connector just below.
For the less experienced it may be simpler to remove the ignition switch from the bike and work on the bench.
It may be necessary to remove a little of the sheath covering the six wires between the switch and the connector.

If anyone can see any flaw in these details please feel free to comment - I'm very hard to offend

Actually, there is a far better solution as suggested by others here.
1. Fit LED globes to park light, tail light and license plate light.
2. Make sure battery is less than 2 years old, otherwise replace it.
3. Use a "smart charger/battery tender" to ensure your battery is fully charged.

Fixed it. You could just concentrate on what we're doing. That's nothing more than what we expect of drivers is it?
Either will work however Very Happy

dhula Sat 21 Apr 2012, 1:09 pm

Should work.
Only drawback is that you'd defo loose park lights in the park position which some might want to keep for what ever reason
If you connect everything and seal the connections properly then you could do away with the fuze I reckon.
Having the fuze and holder in there is another point of failure that probably could be removed due to there being other fuzes protecting the circuits
Don't forget to insulate the wire (Br/B) coming out of the switch as it will become live if you leave the switch in park

Good job

BanditDave Sat 21 Apr 2012, 4:57 pm

Given the choice of modifying the bike wiring or changing the globes for LED types, I really think the latter is preferable.

The four globes, license plate, tail light and two park light LED globes should cost around $30 from Jaycar.

This will leave the bike wiring completely standard and reduce the power consumption of the above globes from 20watts to around 4-5 watts. The LED globes are also reputed to be ultra reliable so should never need replacing.

For anyone having flat battery issues before this modification I would suggest their battery is either buggered or need charging (or both Crying or Very sad

).

dhula Sat 21 Apr 2012, 5:45 pm

BanditDave wrote:For anyone having flat battery issues before this modification I would suggest their battery is either buggered or need charging (or both ).

Don't agree. It's only about an 10ah battery IIRC so it won't matter if it's a brand new battery in top notch nick
20 watts to run the lights will take less than a normal work day to burn all the smoke out of the battery leaving you dead in the water.
Take out the front park light globes and your still in strife.
Take out the front park light globes, change the rear lights to LED and you might just make it in to home base, but it'll be pretty damb tight I reckon.

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