fog light wiring question

[gs850cafe]

well its deer season...my single 7inch headlight dont cut it to well..so i put on some foglights that light up both sides of the road now..

i wired a relay for the foglights, and mounted a toggle switch...

of course its a 4 wire relay...ground,constant 12v, switched 12v, and accessory(lights) in my case

im curious if i can wire the 12v switched wire into the high beam on wire behind the headlight..so that the foglight come on with the highbeam.

i wasnt sure if it would strain the electrical to much or not...my stator and r/r has been wired directly(doesnt go through stock harness)...it also has a 4 month old stator and r/r..and almost a year old battery(10 months old?)

 

[shinzon1]

If you use the high beam wire to energize the relay it wont put any real load on the old wiring. I definately wouldn't try to power the fog lights with the old wiring but energizing the relay wont hurt anything. Beautiful bike the way! Wish I had one!

 

[gs850cafe]

If you use the high beam wire to energize the relay it wont put any real load on the old wiring. I definately wouldn't try to power the fog lights with the old wiring but energizing the relay wont hurt anything. Beautiful bike the way! Wish I had one!

thats what i was thinking but wasnt 100% sure...the constant 12 goes right to the fusebox (had an extra fuse with new fusebox)

thanks..i get lots of lookers an talkers on it locally

 

[1_v8_merc]

How many watts are these fog lights?
I don't think our charging systems respond too great to the 55watt'ers?

 

[Remington44-77]

By the way, really nice bike.
I mounted some small 27-watt halogen road lights on the case guards.
http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s399/Remington44-77/cabe858a.jpg
They would burn out after a few uses. it turns out the halogen bulb was a unit used in 12 volt under-counter lights. I finally replaced both bulbs with LED ones (same light out-put) at a cost of about $22 each. I no longer have bulb burnout due to vibration and they only draw 6 watts each.

 

[Richsuz]

By the way, really nice bike.
I mounted some small 27-watt halogen road lights on the case guards.
http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s399/Remington44-77/cabe858a.jpg
They would burn out after a few uses. it turns out the halogen bulb was a unit used in 12 volt under-counter lights. I finally replaced both bulbs with LED ones (same light out-put) at a cost of about $22 each. I no longer have bulb burnout due to vibration and they only draw 6 watts each.

Can you post the LED bulb source? BTW, I have been running two 55 watt fog lights on my 650L. No voltage drop at all. But I do have a 40 amp compufire.

 

[Normk]

In case it is not too late to add to this thread:

You will be well advised as shinzon1 stated, to use a relay to power the driving lights. As he stated, this will not add load to the original wiring which will be a double advantage because the added load will increase the voltage drop (line loss if you prefer the term) to the bike's high beam and so make it less bright.

If not up on wiring relays, there has been much posted or simply ask or PM and can walk you through the task. I recommend Bosch type relays and that you also purchase a mounting socket because this makes replacement and troubleshooting much easier.

As for connecting the relay:

1) Run the power wire for the relay through a fuse connected to the battery cable side of the starter relay rather than to the battery. The connection to the starter relay will not have to be disturbed when dealing with the battery in future and is less prone to corrosion.

2) Consider how you would like the driving lights to operate. There are two main strategies from which you might choose: driving lights always on with hight beams; or, driving lights switched from high beams.

In the first case, the driving lights will operate with the high beams. This is more than desireable because it is a PITA to have to operate a separate switch to dim high beams and to shut off driving lights. Come around an abrupt corner when a bit tired and meet an oncoming transport truck with a grumpy driver. Be a bit slow in dimming both lights and your may be flashed with all he has to offer. In many jourisdictions it is required that the driving lights be on only with high beams so there could be insurance fault or ticket issues.

In the second, preferred, case a switch is added between the headlight high beam circuit and the relay's "turn on" circuit. This allows the high beams to be turned off when conditions prefer high beam only. Sometimes a bit of fog or mist allows high beams but adding driving lights causes too much illumination of the fog.

2) You may wish to consider whether it is preferable to power the bike's high beam from the same relay. This will remove the high beam from the bike's small guage wiring and so make it brighter. This would only require placing the driving light switch into the wire between the relay and driving lights rather than into the relay. In this case, simply disconnect the high beam wire (bike's right hand side of the headlight plug) and use that wire to switch the relay. Connect a new, heavier, wire from that headlight plug terminal to the relay's switched circuit and branch a wire through the driving light switch to the driving lights.

3) While you are in there, pop the headlight ground wire out of the headlight plug (bike's left side of the plug) and solder a second heavier wire to the plug terminal beside the original ground wire. Run this new ground wire back to a frame bolt. You may also wish to connect another wire from the same frame bolt to a bolt on the forks.

Adding the second ground wire to the headlight plug will accomplish two things:
1) The load from the headlight will no longer be routed through the small sized original harness common ground wire which will reduce the voltage drop to the headlight = brighter.

2) The extra ground will improve the grounding of the other components using the common harness ground by both removing the headlight load and by providing an extra ground path for the other loads.

Adding the extra ground wire from the forks/steering head will avoid passing ground circuit current through the steering head bearings when using the driving lights. Some bikes lack an effective ground to the steering head.

One more option to consider: the relay's turn on circuit (magnetic winding) will need to be grounded in this scenario in order for the relay to operate. You could use the common practice of simply connecting the relay to a common ground point such as a frame bolt but consider a better option:

Connecting the relay's ground to the starter cable side of the starter relay will provide an effective ground for the relay but this ground will switch off when the starter is operating because the voltage drop during starter operation will cause that connection to become battery +.

The effect will be to automatically turn off the headlight high beam and driving lights while starting which is not a bad thing for small motorcycle batteries. I recommend grounding relays for other components such as bar heaters in the same manner. A main power relay for ignition/starting circuit must not be grounded in this manner for obvious reasons.

HIH

Norm