Coil Mod Gone Bad - 30 miles in at 70mph

[bwringer]

Try Parts Express. Excellent place for relays, wire, connectors, etc. Great prices and quick shipping.

Thanks,
Joe

Is there a reason to choose this particular relay over the sealed relays?

[salty_monk]

Got mine from here... https://www.allelectronics.com/

About $1.30 each. Got sockets & fuse etc too plus wire, heat shrink etc.

So far so good with about 2200 miles. Mine is mounted off a bracket off the battery box mounting screw so it has the rubber from that mounting & the flex in the bracket plus the flex in it's own plastic housing. I agree back there is better for heat cycles & for me it just made more sense.

I carry a spare relay on the bike thus hopefully insuring that I will never need it....

Dan

[rusty boltz]

This is one of those ideas that seems good on paper. In practice, and with 38 years electronics (a lot of mobile and marine), 21 years as a mechanic, I can tell you that my first thought when I started seeing this idea on here, was that there was no way I'd add more connections AND an electro-mechanical switch (your relay) to a hostile - vibrating, wet and condensing, environment - and hope it was more reliable. Not on my bike.
I'd recommend that IF a problem appears with low voltage or other issues, understand, troubleshoot and repair the problem - the original design is really not that bad. My .02 worth.

Excellent point! The correct action would be to locate and resolve the problem. But in my case there was such a voltage drop throughout the circuit (fuse box, ign switch, kill switch etc.) that this relay was an easy and reliable way to get full battery voltage to the coils every time. I know that a properly built circuit should yield very little resistance but after ohming out all the switches and wiring then adding up the resistance it made more sense to me (im special) to just make a new circuit using the old one as the control circuit. Relays are pretty tough these days (except the cheesy pilot ones at awful zone) and if automotive grade ones arent tough enough there are always industrial grade ones used on contruction equipment. They can handle way more than a motorcycle can throw at them. Im a master certified tech of 12 years (fledgling still compared to your 21 years) and work on construction equipment and tractor/trailers. These vehicles are ABUSED and subject to the harshest environments I can think of (picture a bobcat breaking concrete in rain or snow) still very rarely have any relay issues. Again I couldn't agree more that this relay mod is a shortcut to properly constructing the coil circuit but wanted to let it be known that it CAN be made reliable if constructed with quality parts and wiring and is a very easy fix for a common problem.

[82Shafty]

This is one of those ideas that seems good on paper. In practice, and with 38 years electronics (a lot of mobile and marine), 21 years as a mechanic, I can tell you that my first thought when I started seeing this idea on here, was that there was no way I'd add more connections AND an electro-mechanical switch (your relay) to a hostile - vibrating, wet and condensing, environment - and hope it was more reliable. Not on my bike.
I'd recommend that IF a problem appears with low voltage or other issues, understand, troubleshoot and repair the problem - the original design is really not that bad. My .02 worth.

I see your argument and raise the pot.

You and I certainly understand what the original intent of a relay was; to have a low amp circuit control a high amp circuit. This allowed for looms to shrink in size, then came mutliplexing, CAN and so-forth, which is irrelevant for our dinosaur electro-mechanic machines, but my point was that the relay can handle a crummy environment. With smarter technologies, Pre-Conditioning to better resist dynamic welding has been explored, but this is in the opposite direction of NVH sustainablity.

You also have to remember that not everyone has the ability to dis/reassemble a switch and lower/clean any carbon build up on the brass terminals and reapply some dielectric grease and have the switch stay together after someone has compromised its original construction.

Handlebar, clutch, and ignition switches are a bit many to be breaking up one circuit that isn't that great to begin with. 16-18 gauge wire running all over the place with three interruptions makes for a bit of a voltage drop; even when new.

If someone was super-sensitive, I you could run an SSR to ensure it would hold up at the tune of about 28 bucks, but I'm uncertain how much heat it might generate and/or a heat sink would need to be utilized.

My cheapo 4.99 relay is holding up fine, but again, I run a 40 amp, not a 30 which still shouldn't change its measured NVH tolerance.

It seems that guys who run their relays behind the side covers have greater longevity than those who mount them adjacent to the coils.


Anyone determined to use a relay and has been experiencing problems, give these guys a shout and see about a SSR.

http://www.area51esg.com/relay-switches-agastat-tyco-dunn.htm

On a side note, I was wondering if the EMF generated at and around the coils was burning out the e/m relays prematurely.

[82Shafty]

Excellent point! The correct action would be to locate and resolve the problem. But in my case there was such a voltage drop throughout the circuit (fuse box, ign switch, kill switch etc.) that this relay was an easy and reliable way to get full battery voltage to the coils every time. I know that a properly built circuit should yield very little resistance but after ohming out all the switches and wiring then adding up the resistance it made more sense to me (im special) to just make a new circuit using the old one as the control circuit. Relays are pretty tough these days (except the cheesy pilot ones at awful zone) and if automotive grade ones arent tough enough there are always industrial grade ones used on contruction equipment. They can handle way more than a motorcycle can throw at them. Im a master certified tech of 12 years (fledgling still compared to your 21 years) and work on construction equipment and tractor/trailers. These vehicles are ABUSED and subject to the harshest environments I can think of (picture a bobcat breaking concrete in rain or snow) still very rarely have any relay issues. Again I couldn't agree more that this relay mod is a shortcut to properly constructing the coil circuit but wanted to let it be known that it CAN be made reliable if constructed with quality parts and wiring and is a very easy fix for a common problem.

My Pilot one has held up fine. You also bring up a point of how reliability can be had, and to boot, the time it would take to maybe gain a 1V back. Twenty mins and your in business with a relay.

PS, did you get your L1?

[bwringer]

OK, can anyone find a source for solid state relays?

There's a web site selling tiny SSRs with a wiring harness for motorcycle headlights. I don't need the rest of the crap, but I'd love to figure out where they got the SSR. All I can find are huge industrial SSRs.

[seuadr]

http://www.willow.co.uk/HG4185.pdf

that one should do the trick.

http://www.willow.co.uk/html/automotive.html

now.. ordering them i can now see might be a problem.

jmerrill@willow.co.uk that's the email in their contact page..

[p_s]

On a DC SSR you also need a snubber diode across the output terminals.