[Nathang]

Installed HI&LO headlight relays, 10ga direct power & ground, driving lights w/both

I am the worst about getting things done quickly, this job has taken forever, but it finally works.
That is not to say there aren't some cosmetic and reliability finalization needed.

No smoke, only blew 1 fuse getting it wired. Everything works, I can't wait for dark to really gauge the visual effect.

Even for someone who understands the basic circuitry involved, relays controlling power and ground circuits coming directly from the battery, this circuit is a bit more complex than I expected. One of several modes I want to have the option of using the outboard mounted driving and conspicuity enhancing aux lights is w/ low enough brightness to be acceptable in use all the time, with both high beam and low.

When I planned a relay for high and one for low, and driving lights attached to both, I got one shorted together mess. I had to add a pair of diodes to make part of the circuit one-way, otherwise having the driving lights across both hi and lo beam circuits made everything common without some trickery.

Trying to take pix shows the headlight is pointing into the dirt, and I've reversed the hi and low
signal wires so the controls are reversed. Just needs some debugin'

This is the 20W yellow flood light. All my other bulb choices are much brighter.

Pix and circuit diagram.

First time I saw this triangle of lights on another bike, I said WTF is THAT?
I think I just had a chance to see the "WTF is THAT?" reaction is progress.

I went out to put the bike away, it fully dark now, in turning the bike around, I got a chance to point out across some open fields. This was the first chance to see if the headlights look like they are reaching out further or better. Seems like they are a good bit brighter with better voltage.

While I'm checking how well the brighter lights light up the darkness across the field,
I saw at least a dozen pairs of eyes, looking back my way, and in their own little mouse and rat and raccoon and rabbit and fox way, saying "WTF is THAT?"

 

[EZE RIDER]

Nice work. Looks great.

 

[Nathang]

Here's the significant junk I used...

 

[Nathang]

The LowRider is finished enough to show detail pictures,
the V-Rod is just starting.

A significant detail of my mounting method is the use of a front fender attachment point, which already had a bolt at the requisite 90 degrees from the angle the lights need to shine/point, as the light mounting point. This is much more DIY'er friendly than the modified brake caliper used by SpineDoc on the V-Rod forum.

The original plan used hollow mounting bolts to conceal the exit of the wiring to behind the fender strut very close to the wheel.
This proved to be too close, and not worth the trouble. The bulk of the wires including braid and shrink wrap is bigger than expected,
so rather than try to be subtle, I just drilled the light housing.

front view, LowRider's lights are quite close inboard, V-Rod mounts will be about an inch wider om each side.

Lazer Star fixture with DIY mount, 3" 5/16x18 threaded rod, jamb nut, coupling sleeve and planned
deep well socket to fabricate custom chrome cover
The V-Rod's fender mounting bolt was M8x1.25, but the LazerStar fixture is threaded 5/16"x18, because the lights are zinc or some pot metal. I decided to re-tap the chosen lower fender mount bolt to match the light, so I ran a 3/16"x18 tap through the fender mounting hole and it's integral threaded nut on the backside. Now it's 5/16'x18 and the threaded stud is right at home.

Extra cables entering 7" headlight housing, original 18ga headlight power wires, 10ga direct power and ground wires,
plus a power and ground pair for each lower fork mounted light.

 

[Nathang]

This is the start of the V-Rod installation of the same lights mounts and relays as has been used on the LowRider.

Wider stance planned for these lights will make the cannibalized deep well socket cover more necessary.

 

[Vettster]

Nathang,
A little confused here. Why 2 relays?
I hooked up the HD auxiliary light set yesterday on my neighbors Sportster.
The light kit is designed to tap into the low beam wire on the headlight so it won't work with the hi beams.
I just took the wire from the relay that was supposed to be connected to the low beam and connected it to a hot (with ignition on wire).;
This lets the new lights work with both the low and high beams.

 

[Nathang]

The tiny factory wiring is not sufficient to run even stock headlights w/o a voltage drop that compromises light output, maybe as much as 15-20% even on stock wattage bulbs.

I wanted to run my headlights both high and low beams directly off the battery, everything on direct heavy gauge wire w/o going thru any switches. My stock LowRider lights don't use any relays, to my knowledge, nor does the V-Rod, and my stock headlights don't have any always on lights, the selector switch gets power when I turn the key on, but the low beam goes off when the high beam goes on.

My original plan was to use these auxiliary lights more for driving lights than conspicuity lights, for that intention I had 35W and 50W bulbs ready to test. I don't think I'd want to add 100w load to any stock factory wire.

I also don't feel that wiring the low beams to stay on with the high beams like some guys do is a good idea. Even on stock headlight wattage that gives a 100W hot spot for oncoming traffic, you can't always get the highs off before the oncoming driver comes over the hill, 100W total divided across 2 different lights would be bad enough, from one source it'd be rude and dangerous.

I think your neighbor ought to go see what those lights look like to oncoming traffic, most "driving lights" are an incredibly bright 55W and there's no way I'd feel safe or civil to blind oncoming drivers with always-on 55W driving lights.

Stock 5" headlights are absolutely pititful, so I can see why he's trying to make some improvement. That's why I converted to the 7" reflectors. That being said, I felt that I needed to get better light without hurting oncoming drivers night vision. I see guys all the time who don't know or don't care what they're doing to oncoming traffic, they might get hit head on for their reward.

BTW, I'll bet for someone who isn't willing to change to 7" lights, but looking for improvement, just going with relays and heavy wire with the stock bulb would be a noticeable improvement over the stock light output.

 

[Nathang]

I see now that there are single relays that can do this circuit, it would be a logical OR circuit, it would only require one control, say the high beam select lead, the normal open state could be low and driving lights on, the closed state high beams and driving lights.

Live and learn. Get old and forget.

 

[Kainam]

I think what Vettster was trying to say is that you could hook a single relay to the ignition switch on terminal, that way the driving lights would come on anytime the ignition is on irregardless of high beam or low beam headlight switch position.

 

[Vettster]

I think what Vettster was trying to say is that you could hook a single relay to the ignition switch on terminal, that way the driving lights would come on anytime the ignition is on irregardless of high beam or low beam headlight switch position.

Thanks Kainam,
That's exactly what I was trying to say.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that English is my first language.

 

[Nathang]

Why 2 relays?

High / low beam control without using the wimpy stock wiring to feed any of the lights.

Works better than I expected, the same headlights seem 25% brighter on the heavy wire.

One odd visual effect of the yellow driving lights, while backing the bike into a parking place in the dark in the morning, I noticed a regular pattern of the driving lights on the pavement, at first I thought they were pulsating with the bike's vibration, but I figured out it is the other side's driving light showing thru the 10 spoke wheel and casting a pattern on the ground. It was an interesting effect, the pattern was like swirling streaks of gold light.

Synchronized swirling golden blades on both sides was the impression for a second.

 

[Nathang]

The LowRider's fender mount bolts are fore and aft of the lower fork tube,
so from the beginning I was eyeballing how much clearance I was going to have
from the edge of the light to the lower fork tube.

Now, on the V-Rod the fender mount bolts are both behind the fork tube,
one higher than the other. No big deal, right?

Think about it........

Admittedly, to increase conspicuity, I was going for a unique look, for the WTF factor,
...but one light mounted 2 inches higher than the other
is a bit more unique than I intended.

......f*kin' Murphy...

 

[KBOlsen]

My eyes! My eyes!!!

 

[Nathang]

I'm twisted, or is it warped?

 

[fastharley]

To ask a question:

Why not just run: one wire from + to the Relay than 1 wire to the 2 lamps. The other would be from (exciter circuit) ignition to interrupter switch (your toggle) to relay. The fourth wire is for ground. The end results would be once the ignition is turned on you could manually turn on the fog lights if so desired (as they are on their own circuit) in either Hi or Lo switch position. Same results. Am I missing something in the objective?

The next circuit is for the headlight running through a relay than powering both headlight fulfillments (hi or Lo). Great upgrade changing the gauge wire and only use the headlight handlebar selector switch (and wimpy 20 gauge wiring) for activating either hi or low beam. You would still use the aforementioned relay set up kit but you could in this option be able to turn off your fog lights at will.

A even simpler way would be to install my HID kit that will give you 3 X the light, uses only the handlebar switch to control the Hi/Lo function, and a dedicated separate circuit with relay, which is plug and play using only roughly 1/2 the power (35W VS 55W for stock bulb) @ start-up and dropping to 2.7 amps when bulb is fully lit. 10X the life of the bulb than stock. Look [HERE] at the Vendors classified section for $149.99 for HD kits.

If you do not wish to upgrade your lighting to HID I do fully recommend upgrading your circuitry to the posters general idea with the exception of adding fuses (30 amp) between the battery and hot (+) side before the relay. A+ to the author of this post.

 

[Nathang]

To each his own simpler, better way, I guess.

Direct feed with simplicity-
Since my absolute requirements/objectives included scrapping the wimpy stock wires for current loading purposes, that made running heavy as possible hot and ground wires direct from the battery to the headlights absolutely unavoidable. Since those are the only 2 wires I ran, I can't see any way to make it simpler than that.

Options w/o added complexity-
I still haven't decided whether I might rather use 35W or 50W narrow beam bulbs ON with brights only, which would be so rude as to need dead-simple and quick cut-off for approaching traffic. Having to turn off brights and driving lights from two different switches would be more than inconvenient, it would be dangerously busy, you can't beat the simplicity of all control being by the stock HI/LO switch.

To change the lights from their current configuration to killer bright configuration would only require changing bulbs and unplugging one wire from one relay. Done.
Change my mind, I can just change the bulbs and plug the wire back in, to be back where it is. Done.

If for some reason I want to run the auxiliary lights with low beams only, same thing, unplug one wire from the other relay. Put it back the same way.

Running the driving lights from ignition ON would require another control wire, relay, and eliminate the option to easily switch to killer bright bulbs.

Running the driving lights with their own switch would require mounting a new switch and running wires to it, IMHO, by itself a bigger job than this whole project. And unnecessary clutter.

I do fully recommend upgrading your circuitry to the posters general idea with the exception of adding fuses (30 amp) between the battery and hot (+) side before the relay.

.... really ...
I hope I don't sound too annoyed, but besides the fact that the fuse is clearly labelled in my drawing, don't you figure someone who knows enough to conceive and execute this project and submit this write-up would know enough to put in a fuse?

 

[fastharley]

I stand corrected on the fuse

To each his own simpler, better way, I guess.




.... really ...
I hope I don't sound too annoyed, but besides the fact that the fuse is clearly labelled in my drawing, don't you figure someone who knows enough to conceive and execute this project and submit this write-up would know enough to put in a fuse?

I stand corrected on the fuse You have done an excellent job executing and writing this how-to as stated before in my previous post. I did not mean to offend you. This is your post and done your way with your approach. Thanks for the write up!