Digital Gear Indicator

I was fed up with changing up or trying to to find I was already in 6th. So the solution fit a Digital Gear indicator. The device I purchased also has a voltmeter built in. In this picture the gear indicator is showing 0 for neutral. My phone camera has a problem with the brightness. At night the unit auto dims the display for you.

Here is a shot from a little further awayat a little above the riding position. Where I mounted it I can see it clearly and it does not obscure any other instruments including the clock. It is fixed the the underside of the dash mouding below the fuel guage.

Another shot from a different angle shows the mounting a little clearer.

Once wired the unit is put into learn mode. You tell it how many gears you have and then run up the road holding in gear untill the unit flashes and shows the next gear and you repeat the exercise until all 6 are done. The unit comapares the pulses from the speedo and engine sensors to determine the gear your in.

Here are the comprehensive instructions for programing or teaching the unit

Here are the instruction for wiring. Its all explained Brown to Tacho (Pink) Orange to speedo (Black White) Red to a switched live with ignition, Green to the neutral light and black to Ground.





I did have a small problem with the stability of the Voltmeter and at certain speed the gear display going from 6 to 1. I rang Acumen and they asked me to return the head unit. This plugs into a loom whitch I left soldered in place. They sent me a replacement unit with new software for the voltmeter and a voltage stabalisation kit for the Gear indicator. No charge and once fitted all is now working ast it should. The problem is not with the Acumen unit, but the bike. The messages from the sensors is eratic and the voltage is all over the place (dirty electrics). Acumen sent the unit by return and were very very helpful.

Garmin Streetpilot Mounted

I wanted to mount my Streetpilot so it would be seen easily from the riding position and yet not obscure my instruments.

I found a clip in the garage bit's which went around the bars and was secured by a bolt.

I then cut an alloy plate the same shape as the plastic garmin mount and bolted this to the clip, with a locking nut fitted to the bottom, which you can just see here.








The plastic Garmin mount was then secured to
the Alloy plate with super strong double sided tape. As the plate is the same shape as the mount you can hardly see the plate once mounted.















Here is the Garmin mounted to the mounting plate. The camera was at about ride height so as you can see all instruments are visible and the angle on the Garmin screen about right. This can be adjusted by slackening off the bolt before the mounting plate is fixed, so best to mock it up before the tape is applied. This willk get the angle right for your height and body position.











Side view shows ignition switch not obscured in any way and Garmin does not hit the tank when on lock.











View from the other side. I wired it direct via a fuse to the 12v supply I installed for my other toys.

I also run a remote attena which I had from my boating days. This is mounted on my top box lid and gives better reception.

All in all a job I was pleased with and the Garmin can be removed in 5 secs by releasing the lock and the remove button on the Garmin mounting plate, which remains as per pic 1 and 2.

Rear Footrest Lowered

She who must be Obeyed had some pain in her knees.

So

I lowered the rear footrests by the manufacture of these brackets and then bolting through the original mounting.

The original foot rest was then bolted to the bottom of the bracket.

The result is that the foot rest is now 2 inches lower than standard

Finished article.

Spot lights fitted

Thought you might like to see my latest additions. I have mounted two spotlights to my Touratech bars.These are not PIAA. They are £ 20 local purchase projector fog lights. I removed the front cover and removed the metal mask, this is the bit that provides a cut off to the beam for the fogs. This then turned them into spots.









After some trimming of the brackets supplied to tidy up the job, and some playing with the angles, I have ended up with this end product. They are wired through a relay and this is energised from the main beam. Therefore they come on with the main beam or the headlight (Pass) flash.










I have adjusted the beam angles abd they "fill in" perfectly and illuminate the side of the road and distance well.



I am very pleased with the result which was far cheaper than purchasing the "Branded" PIAA lights

Finished job which looks very neat

And below a close up of the finished job

Battery Monitor and fitting of DVM /Temp gauge

Following my bike failing to start following a flat Battery I decided to fit a voltmeter. After much research I found an article where a chap had fitted a really neat unit to an Honda ST. This unit is multi function in that it is design for fitting in a car and provides the following:

Internal or External Temperature.

Clock display or stop watch and lap timer.

Constant display of Battery condition by display of voltage.

ICE warning built in.

Led display of Battery condition with audible low warning levels.

I purchased from California Sport Touring Inc and paid $ 21.48 plus $ 11 shipping to the UK. The $32 in total was less than the purchase of a voltmeter module which I would need to cut the dash for. This is all in a nice neat box which I intend to mount to the top of the dash behind the screen.
All in all a great device and priced at and I sourced it from here (I have no conections with this company).

http://www.casporttouring.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=14124&Category_Code=Electronics

Here is the finished article.
I fixed it to the top of the dash using a small alloy "L"bracket, with the case screw fixing the unit to the bracket and then the bracket with a small bolt through the standard dash top.

It is connected with 3 wires. + permanent live, a switched live with the ignition and a - ground connection. The probe designed for external car temperature I pushed into a threaded lug on the top of the gearbox, to provide me with Digital Engine Temp



Here it is with the screen replaced and you can see that at idle its showing 13.8 volts as opposed to 12.6 in the shot above which was with the ignition off.

One word of caution is that it is not waterproof. Whilst well protected where it is fitted I do protect in in heavy rain buy placing a cut down plastic bag over it. Don't knock it it works well and you can still read it through the bag.

Update is that its been on the bike for 18 months and is still working well.

Bike lift modification

I have owned for some time, an "Americana" Bike lift. This was purchased when I had a Harley and worked well for maintenance and cleaning. However the Triumph Tiger will not fit as the exhust pipes and other kit get in the way. Solution Modify the bike lift.


I have seen various threads on the Tiger site about getting the bike off the ground. Here is my solution.


I started by identifying that as the lift normaly lifts on the frame tubes, that I would need to design a sub frame to fit between the bike and the lift. This is what I produced. It has two brackets at the rear which sit under the stands supports. It also hs two adjustable legs which support the bike under the crankcase.







Here is a side view of the subframe. The rear plates fit under the stand supports and are "L" shape to stop the frame sliding away from under the bike. The two front legs are adjustable to fit under the crankcase and allow the from to sit level on the lift and compensate for the profile of the crankcase.










So here is the subframe, on the lift. At present it is not secured and I do not think it needs to be. The frame needs to be placed under the bike and then the lift slid in under the sub frame and then up she goes !!!









Now the frame is in position. The lift is under the subframe so its a pump the peddle jub to lift her up.












Here she is off the ground and stable. How high do you want to go ????




















A bit higher but hard to see how high in this view.
















In this picture you can see the rear wheel has a clear 12 inches clearance, as indicated by my steel rule, which is there for clarification, not to support the bike !!!










How high is she ?, well I am 6 foot tall so from a perspective point of view you can see she is up where lots of jobs would be much easier.



Parts well scrap metal which was all to hand. My MIG welder which I allready had

It does need a coat of paint to finish.

LED Indicators

Have for a while thought about changing the indicators to LED.


Not content with changing the whole unit, I made small plastic backplates to replace the standard plastic reflector. I made this plate the same shape as the reflector. I then worked out a pattern for the layout of the LED's, to provide the desired layout. On the front this is 25 Yellow and on the rear 20 Yellow and 5 Red. The red provide a brake light illumination in both indicators.






On this picture you can just see that the LED's are wired in serial in arras of 5. It is possible as you link them in series to "join" the negative legs together thus making a circuit and reducing connections. There is therefore 1 neg (-) connection and 5 Live (+) connections via a resistor for each array. On the front this is 4 Yellow and One Red.

I then connected the standard plugs to my boards and in the rear a feed for the brake lights.






This picture shows the assembled unit with the standard lens back in place. Through the lens you can see the layout of the LED's.














Here is a shot of the assembled unit with the brake light element illuminated.












Here is a shot of the Rear with standard brake light and both indicators illuminated.

The indicator brakes are quite bright but the camera toned things down because of the intensity of the standard








This is a shot of the rear indicator illuminated. Difficult to get the timing right !!!!














This time it's the front fully assembled.











The front illuminated.










And the front with the hazard flashers on.

The only other thing I had to do was change the flasher unit to an electronic type to get the flash rate right and that it.

Job Done and much brighter flashers at all angles.
LED's purchased from Ebay Yellows were 6,000 mcb as were the reds. I did not fit standard resistors as I explained earlier they are in series on 5's and each 5 has a 27 OHM resistor.