Wiring lights to the iginition

[Fazer]

One of the previous owners added fog lights and an audio amplifier to the bike and hooked them direct to the battery with a toggle switch to turn 'em on and off.  I would like to keep the switches, but would like them to only be able to be "on" when the bike is running.  Can I simply splice the wires into the red (hot) ignition wire, or can I use any hot wire without fear of overloading anything?

Greg

[Gryphon Rider]

Behind your right side cover is a pair of terminals that come from the 5A accessory fuse.  You can use these to trigger a relay which in turn switches on anything you only want on with the key.

[Willow]

There's a hot, usually empty, line behind the right sidecover that is only on with the ignition on.  You can use that in conjunction with a relay to power a box from which you can power multiple accessories that you wish to be dead when the ignition is not on.

Oh.     That Gryphon Rider is fast, isn't he?

[Fazer]

Thanks Gryphon and Willow--exactly what I wanted to know.

[Bighead]

You will need to use a power (fuse) panel PC-8 by Beaver is a good one. You can wire anything with their own fuse through it and it is only hot when the ignition is on using the 5a accessory wire.

[The emperor has no clothes]

There's a hot, usually empty, line behind the right sidecover that is only on with the ignition on.  You can use that in conjunction with a relay to power a box from which you can power multiple accessories that you wish to be dead when the ignition is not on.

Oh.    That Gryphon Rider is fast, isn't he?

He is pretty damn fast.   But I like your suggestion a little better. My standard is done GR's way and my I/S with the power box and hands down is better and easier. So in effect , being young and quick is not ALWAYS better than well.... (You get the idea) 

[Valkpilot]

One of the previous owners added fog lights and an audio amplifier to the bike and hooked them direct to the battery with a toggle switch to turn 'em on and off.  I would like to keep the switches, but would like them to only be able to be "on" when the bike is running.  Can I simply splice the wires into the red (hot) ignition wire, or can I use any hot wire without fear of overloading anything?

Greg

Here's an auxiliary fuse panel triggered using the accessory circuit Gryphon and Willow talk about.  Use any panel you want, but the trigger wires and relay setup is the same.

http://www.valkyrieforum.com/bbs/index.php/topic,63796.0.html

[Fazer]

Is the 5A accessory fuse lead beefy enough to handle the load of driving lights?  That wire appears to be in the 22 ga size range.  The lights are currently wired, with an in-line fuse, directly to the battery with a much heavier wire, maybe 12-14 ga.  I temporarily hooked up the lights to this 5A lead and they would not come on although I was showing 12v on the meter.  Any thoughts?  The bike was not running, but the key was on, of course.

[hubcapsc]

I don't think you should run anything other than relays on the acc wire...

-Mike

[The emperor has no clothes]

I don't think you should run anything other than relays on the acc wire...

-Mike

I think you are safe to run a danmarc off it. But a relay is probably better. 

[Gryphon Rider]

Is the 5A accessory fuse lead beefy enough to handle the load of driving lights?  That wire appears to be in the 22 ga size range.  The lights are currently wired, with an in-line fuse, directly to the battery with a much heavier wire, maybe 12-14 ga.  I temporarily hooked up the lights to this 5A lead and they would not come on although I was showing 12v on the meter.  Any thoughts?  The bike was not running, but the key was on, of course.

Every one of us is saying use the 5A accessory wires to turn on a relay that takes power directly from the battery.  You can then go from the relay directly to your lights, or to an aftermarket fuse block so you can have other circuits switched by the key as well.  Of course, EVERYTHING should be fused.

To answer your "beefy enough" question, we need to do some calculations and look at the specs of the driving lights.  A circuit designed to use a 5A fuse should only actually be carrying a 4A maximum current.  4A times 12V equals a 48 Watt maximum load.  So if your lights use less than 48W total, theoretically you should be okay.  Incandescent (non-LED) driving lights are usually at least 35W each, so two of them, at 70W total, would be too much for your accessory circuit.  Those two lights would draw (70W÷12V) 5.8A of current.

According to this chart, 22Ga wire is the minimum for the 5.8A that two 35W lights would draw.  Personally, I like to go a little overkill with my wiring and also consider the voltage drop, so I would likely go 16Ga for those lights.

[Fazer]

I think I have it now GR--the accessory circuit is only used to divert power from the battery to the accessory via a relay from which I can directly run the lights, or to a fuse box that will power several accessories, such as the audio amplifier and wolo horn that was also added by the PO.  I'm not a total dummy around electronics, but then not any Einstein either...

I just ordered the fuse box and a pack of relays from Amazon that were listed in the reply by Valkpilot.  Thanks for the help, and I'll let you know it turns out.

[Fazer]

Hey Valkpilot--hope you see this.  The relays I bought, linked to your earlier post have five wires.  Reading your notes, you indicate the green wire (looks blue in the photo) comes from the neg battery terminal.  OK for that one.  The red wire from the battery connects to the 12v term of the relay.  Is that the red wire from the relay?  The yellow wire I can see is connected to the fuse panel, and the black and white from the relay connect to the accessory wires.  I got all that (I think).  I have a fifth wire, blue, coming from the relay.  Is that used for anything?  Looking at the numbers near the blades of the relay, the blue and white are 87 and 87a

I assume the marked wires on top going out from the fuses are going to your lights, or whatever, and it appears there are three more unused on the bottom.  The wires on the top of the ground are associated with your lights also.

Thanks for your help.  The relays showed up today, and I expect the fuse panel tomorrow.

Greg

[hubcapsc]

This is an awesome relay demystifier:



I guess if your relays have wires on them, it is because they
have these little pigtail connectors on them, but the rattlebars
picture is still applicable...


-Mike

[Valkpilot]

Hey Valkpilot--hope you see this.  The relays I bought, linked to your earlier post have five wires.  Reading your notes, you indicate the green wire (looks blue in the photo) comes from the neg battery terminal.  OK for that one.  The red wire from the battery connects to the 12v term of the relay.  Is that the red wire from the relay?  The yellow wire I can see is connected to the fuse panel, and the black and white from the relay connect to the accessory wires.  I got all that (I think).  I have a fifth wire, blue, coming from the relay.  Is that used for anything?  Looking at the numbers near the blades of the relay, the blue and white are 87 and 87a

I assume the marked wires on top going out from the fuses are going to your lights, or whatever, and it appears there are three more unused on the bottom.  The wires on the top of the ground are associated with your lights also.

Thanks for your help.  The relays showed up today, and I expect the fuse panel tomorrow.

Greg

I'm pretty sure I dismounted the connectors from the plastic piece and rearranged the wire colors to suit me, so your relay harnesses may have the colors in different positions from what's in my picture.  But, the relay positions are what are important, not the wire harness colors.

In my picture, red is +12v in (fused) from the battery to position 30/51.  Yellow is +12v out from position 87 on the relay to the fuse panel.  White goes from position 85 to the negative wire of the accessory circuit in the boot.  Black goes from position 86 to the positive wire of the accessory circuit in the boot.  Black and white have bullet connectors on the ends to connect to the accessory circuit wires.

The center terminal of the relay (87a) is not used in this configuration.  You can cut the wire short and tape it up or remove the connector from the plastic piece.

The green wire that connects to the fuse panel ground bus comes directly from the negative battery terminal.  

The three wires connected to fused terminals on the panel are for driving lights, air horn, and a power port for my GPS.    Note that the driving lights and air horn also utilize relays and these wires are the main +12v feed to terminal 30/51 of those relays.

Between the Rattlebars explanation above and the relay notes on this diagram http://www.barnettdh.com/Valkfiles/HLDLdualrelayST.pdf there should be enough info to hook up your new fuse panel.

Hope this helps.

[Fazer]

Thanks hubcap and Valkpilot--I am sure I can get it wired with this help.

[Fazer]

Just a follow up on my project to wire the light switch thru a relay. 

Got it done after determining the accessory wires under the right cover were not working (hot) because the 5A accessory fuse was blown.  I must have shorted the wire fooling around with it earlier.  Once I got that figured out, it was easy doings to wire up the relay using the diagrams and help offered by you guys.  Now I don't have to worry about leaving the lights on and running down the battery.  And with the fuse panel, it will be easy to add other accessories--maybe heated grips?????

Thanks again!

Greg

[hubcapsc]

Just a follow up on my project to wire the light switch thru a relay. 

Got it done after determining the accessory wires under the right cover were not working (hot) because the 5A accessory fuse was blown.  I must have shorted the wire fooling around with it earlier.  Once I got that figured out, it was easy doings to wire up the relay using the diagrams and help offered by you guys.  Now I don't have to worry about leaving the lights on and running down the battery.  And with the fuse panel, it will be easy to add other accessories--maybe heated grips?????

Thanks again!

Greg

I have moto-lights (for people to see me), Cobra lights (for people to see me and to help me see at night),
BigBF horns (no more meep-meep) and a place to hook up heated gear (or the tire pump) all on
my circuit breaker...

-Mike