No lights w/ Heat-troller

[heavy_-j]

Hey folks,

Somewhat new here....lurked for some time now, but finally posting with a pretty specific question I'm pretty sure hasn't been covered before. Thanks for any help in advance....

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So, Just installed a new set of Symtec heated grips with a Heat-troller.

I've read a bit on how people power these things on FZ6's, and found it's usually done with a relay and 'switch power' from the headlights. I liked the way they advised to install the pair, so I did as they instructed. Used a relay, used the headlight circuit as the relay 'switch', ran power directly off of the battery through the realy, and tried both grounding out the relay to the front-fairing-frame, and to the neg battery terminal itself (not simultaneously).
When I say that I wired into the headlight circuit, I mean that I spliced the low power relay switch terminal (#85 of bosch style relay as seen in diagram) with the black and green low-beam wire of the wiring harness on the fairing side of the harness connector (not frame side...not that I think that matters...just being descriptive).

Both of those ground-hookups resulted in no headlight turning on.
No low-beam headlight I should say.

Yes I know that you need to have the bike running to get the lights to turn on. When the bike runs, the relay is 'switched' by that power wire I spliced and the heated grips heat (very well I might add)....all functions as it should including the high beam light on the right when the bike is running, except for the left low-beam.

Any ideas?
Dead bulb maybe? Haven't tried swapping that out for an old spare yet....
Something I'm not seeing?
I really have no idea here....not sure why splicing into this circuit just for a relay switch would kill the light.
I'm going to go out tomorrow and unhook the #85 'switch' wire from the low-beam power wire and see if the low-beams go back to working again....in the mean time, I'm wondering what ya'll think?



Hear is the schematic that Heat-troller gives you for this install....its actually really helpful. I'm very impressed by this....just simple enough for non-electrical-engineers, and just technical enough that it will scare away the layman who shouldn't be getting him/her-self into such a project! haha

http://www.warmnsafe.com/content/warmnsafefile/heated_grip_kit_instructions.pdf

 

[agf]

welcome aboard and thats a good description of your issue.
without looking at schematics it sounds like everything you did was right. My 1st thought is the globe blew, 2nd is that maybe when you spliced into the low beam wire you might have tugged it out of a connector.
If the grips heat then the circuit is valid up as far as the relay so by my reckoning it has to be around where you spliced into it.
try the simplist solutions first then work up to the tricky ones
fingers crossed for you

 

[Motogiro]

First unhook any additional wiring to your headlamp wiring and return it to the way it was. Then look for a blown fuse and replace if blown.

Per the schematic the pin 30 on the relay goes to a fuse wire to the positive battery terminal. Pin 87 goes to the red wire on the Heat-troller. Pin 86 is the relay coil ground and you can ground it to the frame or negative battery terminal. Pin 85 is going to be your positive relay coil supply. This would be the wire you should have connected to your headlamp(Black with Green tracer wire) circuit.

I don't advise using this circuit for a few reasons. One is if you were to have a switched low beam for a properly switched H4 headlamp that circuit would be switched off when you put the high beam on. Generally the FZ6 does not switch this circuit (Black with Green tracer wire) off when using the high beam.
Another reason I don't like the idea of using this circuit is your lights are a very import safety feature especially at night so any circuit added that might fail might take out your vision at the worst possible moment.

On the top of your battery is a relay assembly. Attach your #85 wire to the red with white tracer wire on that relay, on top of your battery. That red with white tracer wire is active when the key is turned on and will allow your heater grip relay to come on.

If wire this way you should be good to go.

 

[agf]

After reading Cliffs post, i see exactly where he is coming from in regard to drawing the power to trigger the relay and safety of the lighting system and I reckon he is the guru on wiring so disregard anything I suggested!!!!! or thought was right from your description, I should have had a better look at the message and opened up the schematic. My apologies if I clouded a solution.
Cliff knows his circuits, wiring and relays and which pin is which

 

[heavy_-j]

Thanks guys....

Whoops, meant to say I spliced to the 85 connector, not the 87....so don't worry about that. That is indeed what I did....I also put a fuse in between pin 30 and the battery too, forgot to mention that.


Motogiro, I definitely see where you're coming from on the headlight circuit not being the safest option due to the headlights being so vital!

I think I'll go begin to move the circuit over to the relay switch on the battery like you suggested, and in the process I'll get to see what works without any of my new circuitry hooked up to the headlight circuit....I imagine I'll find it to be a dead bulb now that I think about it more.

Attach your #86 wire to the red with white tracer wire on that relay

Did you mistype here like me too? I imagine you meant to say to attach the #85 terminal to the red with white tracer wire...since the #86 is supposed to be the ground......yeah?

 

[Motogiro]

Thanks guys....

Whoops, meant to say I spliced to the 85 connector, not the 87....so don't worry about that. That is indeed what I did....I also put a fuse in between pin 30 and the battery too, forgot to mention that.


Motogiro, I definitely see where you're coming from on the headlight circuit not being the safest option due to the headlights being so vital!

I think I'll go begin to move the circuit over to the relay switch on the battery like you suggested, and in the process I'll get to see what works without any of my new circuitry hooked up to the headlight circuit....I imagine I'll find it to be a dead bulb now that I think about it more.





Did you mistype here like me too? I imagine you meant to say to attach the #85 terminal to the red with white tracer wire...since the #86 is supposed to be the ground......yeah?

Yes I meany #85!

 

[FinalImpact]

I can see tapping into the Yellow Black trace taking out the low beam (its between the ECM and the relay). The circuit is pulled to ground to enable the low beam when the engine runs and it may not offer the sink current needed to run other devices.

As stated I would advise against using the brake, running, or head light circuit as a feeder as these things keep us alive. That said, there not many other choices as don't want to kill the engine either. I'd suggest placing a fuse in your leader circuit which enables your relay just in case it gets pinched or shorted in some way. Obviously the the actual power from the source to the grips needs its fuse too.

There is Blue/Black trace off the ignition switch which comes on with the key which is a option, the downside is if the grips are left on, this is taking away from start up energy and if the key is on long before actually starting, this could be a factor.

 

[Motogiro]

I can see tapping into the Yellow Black trace taking out the low beam (its between the ECM and the relay). The circuit is pulled to ground to enable the low beam when the engine runs and it may not offer the sink current needed to run other devices.

As stated I would advise against using the brake, running, or head light circuit as a feeder as these things keep us alive. That said, there not many other choices as don't want to kill the engine either. I'd suggest placing a fuse in your leader circuit which enables your relay just in case it gets pinched or shorted in some way. Obviously the the actual power from the source to the grips needs its fuse too.

There is Blue/Black trace off the ignition switch which comes on with the key which is a option, the downside is if the grips are left on, this is taking away from start up energy and if the key is on long before actually starting, this could be a factor.

Attaching to the the ECU ground path for the headlamp relay it self would be a great logical solution and I've often thought this would be a logical tie-in but as you've stated, we don't know the limit on current draw for the transistor that's being used as the gate. Probably okay but an unknown value in an expensive and probably unserviceable ECU.

I would think that if the condition of the battery is such that turning the key on and hitting the start button is at risk with the heated grips circuit active, it's time for a new battery.
In the FZ6 world it is prudent to turn that grip circuit off before you land anyway, being there isn't much headroom on the FZ6 for addition high current extras.

 

[FinalImpact]

Attaching to the the ECU ground path for the headlamp relay it self would be a great logical solution and I've often thought this would be a logical tie-in but as you've stated, we don't know the limit on current draw for the transistor that's being used as the gate. Probably okay but an unknown value in an expensive and probably unserviceable ECU.

I would think that if the condition of the battery is such that turning the key on and hitting the start button is at risk with the heated grips circuit active, it's time for a new battery.
In the FZ6 world it is prudent to turn that grip circuit off before you land anyway, being there isn't much headroom on the FZ6 for addition high current extras.

^^ True about battery health.

In my cages I shut off accessories as I reach my destination killing the major loads further out. For one is less load on the ignition switch during turn on. Although I'm sure its unnecessary.

Back on topic; Another option although more complex is to bias a FET on that same branch so we know we are not imposing a load on the ECM. It does come with risk tho.

I was tinkering with the idea of side stand and Neutral switch but both are used as grounds so having power on the other side would cause issues for the logic to the ECM/Starter circuit. That is a NO GO!

Just hook up a little plate on a switch that gravity keeps the switch normally open, but when at speed, the wind hits it closing it so your grips have power to come on! Blah

 

[Motogiro]

I really like the air flow idea! MAF sensor!

Sent from Moto's Motorola

 

[heavy_-j]

Also digging the idea of a air activated switch for certain components....thats about as fool proof as it gets!


Big thanks by the way guys.....I did end up changing over my switching circuit to the relay above the battery.
But this really was just a big bunch of bad luck for me during this mod. All within a day or so of my doing this little project my headlight had gone bust and my battery went dead (won't charge bast about 12.1V). So I was thinking that I had screwed up royally with all these problems showing themselves after patching the bike back up. But lucky enough I was a bit confident in my work, and took the bulb out....*rattle rattle*...that blew all by itself earlier without me knowing, rather than something being caused by these heated grips....and took the battery in to get load tested, and sure enough it was confirmed worthless (only three years old or so too...so thats fun). Oh well, good excuse to upgrade to a LiPo!
Fyi you can fit up to a LFX18A1 in these bikes!


Next order of business.....adapt a FJR rectifier to the FZ6 and wire up the dual low/high headlight mod. And see how many amps the stock FZ6 stator can really crank out when it's not restricted by that darn stock rectifier!
If it works out, I'll report back with some instructions in a new thread.....

Thanks dudes!