I'll only ever be doing a 13 mile commute in light traffic so I'm not sure I'm in any danger of stressing the battery out too much.Would I need a relay for a pair of 10w led spotlights as used by others on here? If I install a new loom for them do I pick up a feed from inside the fuse box similar to installing heated grips?
The easiest way would be add a new length of wire straight from the battery to a fuse, then to a switch on the handlebar, then to the spotlight, then to ground. That will work and is the easiest way to do it and has no connection to the bike's loom but doing it that way means the lights can be left on even when the keys are removed so if you forget to turn the lights off they will drain the battery.
Maybe using a relay is overkill for only 20W someone else who's fitted spot lights could advise on that. I think it's safer using the relay rather than taking power straight from a circuit in the bike's wiring
I'm happy to wire them so they come on with the current lights and not have a switch. Where I take my bike for MOT they aren't too fussy about stuff like that so I can't imagine it'll fail.
Quote from: His Dudeness on 25 January 2019, 12:37:40 amThe easiest way would be add a new length of wire straight from the battery to a fuse, then to a switch on the handlebar, then to the spotlight, then to ground. That will work and is the easiest way to do it and has no connection to the bike's loom but doing it that way means the lights can be left on even when the keys are removed so if you forget to turn the lights off they will drain the battery. This is how I did it, with an in-line fuse on the positive and then earthing direct to frame. As His Dudeness says, the only problem with this is that it's possible to leave the lights on (which I did about 10 minutes ago, but someone pointed it out).My main bit of advice would be not to go too cheap on the switch as the super-cheap one I fitted means that the lights sometimes still get a trickle feed with the switch turned off.
Do you have them mounted on the side of the radiator? I’ve seen someone on here with them mounted on a pole that attaches into a hole in the frame right behind the radiator. I really liked this set up as it doubled up as extra crash protection but I couldn’t find where to buy the poles from.
I've mounted mine on the higher of the two bolts on the side of the radiator. They're on but yet to be connected as I'm awaiting a switch which I've ordered as I've decided to have the option of turning them off.I'm hoping to get everything done including the heated grips over the weekend.Obligatory photo's will be posted.Next challenge is a gear indicator as I seem to like 7th gear.
Apparently 20w (2 x 10w spots) pulls about 1.7 volts from a 12v battery when running, which is sod all.I thought i'd give my battery a little booster charge last week seeing as the weather was getting very nippy, but when i first took it off the bike and tested the voltage straight away on my bench it was showing as 12.97v (which would be slowly dropping), and once connected to a charger it showed as fully charged in less than 30 seconds, so it was good to know that the electrical circuit and battery was all fine and was coping very well with the spots, headlights and heated grips on a high setting in very cold conditions.
Looks good. Did you take the 12V from the Brown/Blue wire? Did you go for the relay option or just a wire? That Brown/Blue is the switched side of the ignition. It goes from the switched side of the ignition to the fuse box and gives switched 12V to all the fuses except the backup fuse. The brown/blue wire is protected by the main 30A fuse in the starter relay. That wire size is rated for 38A but the fuse blows at 30A to protect the wire. If you wanted you could work out roughly how many amps are flowing through the wire. You could do a worst case scenario as if you had everything turned on that gets power through that wire so high beams, low beams, indicators, horn, rear light, brake light, fuel pump, fan plus your Led's and grips and see if all that adds up to near 30A. You can get the power consumption values in Watts for all those things in the specifications part of the workshop manual then add in your leds and grips and divide the total Watts by 12 to give you amps. If it comes near 30A you could think about using a relay.On a side note I've had a look at the loom. I was wondering how Yamaha does a splice connection and they use this style connector https://kojaycat.co.uk/15mm-1mm-U-Joint-Auto-Cable-Crimp I think I'll invest in some of those style crimps and a proper crimping tool. There's always a bit of a question about what's the best way to make your connection to power aftermarket accessories. If Yamaha uses those crimps I will too