Triggering a Relay with the High Beam circuit of Headlight

[Dragunslayer]

Okay so I have a set of 100 watt auxilary driving lights mounted to my crash bars but would like to be able to turn them on and off with the OEM switch when going to HIGH beams. I am sure someone has done this before so hopefully they can tell me which wire I need to tap to make it happen. I have used a meter at the headlight plug but it just does not make sense in my pea brain how to wire this with a relay so that when I turn on the HIGH beam the driving lights will come on and go off when switching back to low beam.
   Obviously I know I cannot run them straight from the OEM switch without risk of burning up the bike.

[MarkT]

The blue wire.

[Dragunslayer]

The blue wire.

Not to be a smart a$$ but I found that out and should have been more clear. So when I switch the high beam on the blue wire shows NO CURRENT according to my meter. I was under the impression that the wire needs to send power to the relay so that it will flip a switch for a lack better description to allow the lights to be powered from my alternate source??

[ridingron]

Did you put the meter, set on DC voltage, on the blue wire (+) and a ground (-) with the high beam turned on?

Is the relay mentioned all ready in use to power the aux. lights?

If yes, powering the relay by an additional feed from the blue wire might be the answer. 2 sources of power to turn the relay on. But, I'm not an electrical guy.

[hubcapsc]

I've used the blue wire to trigger my light relay for years.

I hate to splice into the OEM wiring... so I put a bladed
connector on the end of my relay trigger wire and tucked
the blade into the same slot as the blue bulb blade...



It is still that way even though I switched over to one of those
daymaker led headlights a couple of years ago...

-Mike

[h13man]

If you tap into blue wire right at the headlight bulb lead, they will work that way. I tapped into the low beam this way. I don't see why high beam shouldn't work unless you have a issue "upstream" so to speak. The relay should work regardless if the high or low beam on as it is at the head of the "stream".

[psckam]

Run a lead from battery to terminal #30, run a lead from terminal #87 to spot lights, run ground to #85, run lead from high beam leg to terminal #86. this should power your spot when high beam is activated.  I'd use 12 ga stranded, and you might want to fuse the leg from the battery

[RonW]

"I hate to splice into the OEM wiring... so I put a bladed
connector on the end of my relay trigger wire and tucked
the blade into the same slot as the blue bulb blade..."

-Mike




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Did you use a flag terminal? I've found the flag terminals sold on the internet are different than the Valk's headlight flag terminal.





An option is crimping the 86 trigger wire onto the blade terminal for the hi-beam indicator wire where it plugs into the red 9-pin connector. I think this is safer than using the hi-beam wire itself. The problem is the 9-pin connector uses mini-blades (2.8mm). 2.8's are difficult to crimp well, moreso if you're trying to crimp double wires. Guess you could tack solder the crimp for insurance.

Also, I bought mini-blades for the ignition switch and those particular mini-blades didn't fit the slot in the oem keybox p-connector so not all mini-blades are the same.

[Dragunslayer]

Thanks all, it's been a few days since I have been able to get on here. Thanks for all the feedback and I will let you know how it goes.

[hubcapsc]

Did you use a flag terminal?



I used the kind of blade that would fit into the connector in
your picture...

-Mike

[RonW]

I wasn't able to find flag terminals that fit the oem headlight socket. I got into this *triggering the relay ON with the hi-beam* when I installed dual headlights on my Shadow 600, [edit] relay powered the 'second' headlight's hi-beam.

[RonW]

"..... so I put a bladed connector on the end of my relay trigger wire

• and tucked the blade into the same slot as the blue bulb blade..."

-Mike



Ok, I see what you meant. Took me a while.

[Valkpilot]

http://www.barnettdh.com/Valkfiles/HLDLsinglerelayST.pdf

Here's a diagram that may help.  It was drawn for adding driving lights that are on with the headlight whether low or high beams are activated.

For high beam only, you should just need to tap into the blue wire instead of the blue/white wire.  Unfortunately, there's no bullet connector for the blue wire like there is for the blue/white.

If it were me, I'd cut the blue wire in the headlight bucket and install bullet connectors, then connect using pigtails as shown in the diagram.

[RonW]

You can also use the low-beam wire (white wire) to turn the lightbar on when the headlight is on hi-beam. Connect the white wire to 86 trigger pin, and wire the 87a pin to the lightbar. When the hi-beam is turned on, the low-beam goes off wired as they are to a two position toggle switch. Since the low beam wire is connected to 86 pin, 86 pin then has no electricity and goes into off mode causing 87a pin to become active and send electricity to lightbar. No hi-beam signal is used to trigger the relay. True, a bit counter intuitive.

[Valkpilot]

You can also use the low-beam wire (white wire) to turn the lightbar on when the headlight is on hi-beam. Connect the white wire to 86 trigger pin, and wire the 87a pin to the lightbar. When the hi-beam is turned on, the low-beam goes off wired as they are to a two position toggle switch. Since the low beam wire is connected to 86 pin, 86 pin then has no electricity and goes into off mode causing 87a pin to become active and send electricity to lightbar. No hi-beam signal is used to trigger the relay. True, a bit counter intuitive.

Excellent use of the 87a pin on the relay.

[RonW]

Thanks, Valkpilot. Of course nobody in his right mind would wire it like that unless they're dyslexic.


Below, hi-beam wire used to turn lightbar on with low beam on. 87a used to power lightbar instead of 87. Hi-beam wired to 86 trigger.

[The emperor has no clothes]

No, but it’s good to have this in the mindset for other possible relay uses.  (I would have never thought of using one that way)

[Valkpilot]

Thanks, Valkpilot. Of course nobody in his right mind would wire it like that unless they're dyslexic.

I was applauding the concept, paying no attention to the detail.