I finally got the bike out at night to see how the lights look. I didn't go far, just out enough to find a good dark road where I pulled off to the side to snap some pictures.
I have the driving lights wired where they are on all the time. They are dimmed (10% of max) when on with the low beam. When the high beam is switched on they come to 100%.
Here is the stock low beam with the driving lights dimmed:
Here is the stock high beam with the driving lights at 100%:
As you can see they do a nice job of brightening the road. That upcoming turn isn't in the field of vision with the low beam.
As to the driving test. Short as it was I could tell this lighting is not what I am used to having. In all fairness, my K1200LT had HID replacements in the high and low beam plus I had 2 Baja Design 4" Soltek Fuego HID driving lights. When everything was lit up I was putting some serious lumens down the road.
I would have loved to have put the Fuego's on the TT but at 2.5 pounds each they were just too heavy for my mounting. Plus, you pay for those lumens. A pair runs $600, plus the options.
The Optimus lights with the dimmer were significantly less money.
I'll have a better feel for how these lights perform after the Cape Fear Rally. I have no doubt that I will be acquiring some miles on those (to quote Rally Master Jim Bain) "Tennessee mountain dark" east coast backroads.
Not long ago I posted about this expansion tank and my idea to make it externally mounted. I've completed the prototype and mounted it on my Triumph Trophy.
This tank is exactly 1/4 gallon capacity. It is mounted to the rear of the tank with 3M dual lock. While I am confident that the dual lock will hold this in place there is a niggle in the back of my mind that a big bump or chuckhole will pop it loose. For added security one or two velcro straps will be included with the tank. The zip ties you see are my "interim" safety ties since the straps I've ordered haven't arrived.
Here are some more views:
I just took it down and filled the tank to the brim, brought it home, and parked it in the sun.
With it parked in the same spot I've previously had significant overflow so I am confident that my expansion tank will fill. Once that has been achieved I'll make sure it drains and siphons off the overflow.
My recent long trip was not without some aches and pains. One thing that has bothered me before was some pain in the knees and hips.
It was time to try to lower the foot pegs on the bike before the next big trip which is coming up soon. I'll report back as to the results after this trip, look for another post early May on this topic.
The hard part of this project was the engineering. I swear there were hundreds of trips between the bike and the machinery in my shop. Ten feet doesn't sound like much but it can add up. Especially since each trip entailed stooping and/or bending and/or laying on the floor.
After the first one was made I decided that I couldn't fabricate these for sale at a reasonable price. The second one went much faster and I might even consider offering these for sale. If there is enough interest I can run a small lot in production and might be able to keep the price competitive.
These lower the pegs about 3/4" and move them out slightly. This provided a noticeable change in the position of my knee with respect to the fairing. My brief local ride tests showed no problem this positional change impacting the operation of the foot brake or the shifter.
As I have mentioned before the lighting on the TT provided no daytime visibility. I wasn't sure I needed a lot of extra nighttime lighting but I sure knew I needed some daytime running lights (DRL).
The problem was that I didn't want to drill holes in the fairing but I wanted the lights as high as was practicable.
I finally found a way to mount some lights in an appropriate place on the Trophy. As it turns out the lower plastic housing below the mirror is a sturdy piece of plastic with 3 mounting bolts. I decided this would support up to a 2 pound lamp.
The item you see is a NutSert. These are neat things that are similar to a pop rivet. They crimp in and provide a solid threaded nut. I put 2 in the housing, one at each end, so I could bolt an aluminum bar on the outside.
This bar is tapped and the lamp bracket bolt runs from the inside to the outside. This allows me to tighten the retaining nut without having access to the inside of the housing.
Here is a detail view of the finished mount.
Next up was to choose some lights. I contacted fellow LD Rider, Justin Phillipson who is in the lighting business at LED Rider. Justin is very knowledgeable and suggested I would be pleased with the Cyclops Long Range Optimus Spot so I ordered up a pair, one 10 degree beam and one 20 degree beam.
Justin also recommended the Skene dimmer so I visited their site to pick out a dimmer. I found just what I wanted with the IQ-175A Intelligent Lighting Controller. What I liked about this was that it has the alert feature that will flash the lights in an attention getting pattern (video follows).
While on the Skene site I saw their Photo Blaster DRL and decided to give them a try while I was at it. They were a bit on the pricey side, but I had already tried some cheap LEDs bar lights that were a waste of time. I figured you get what you pay for so put them in the shopping cart too.
When everything arrived I began the wiring project (previous post). I wanted to minimize the wire runs and complexity so had to choose where to mount the controller for the LED and the controller for the Photon Blasters (PB) wisely. The PBs have most of the wiring at the front so I mounted that controller inside the front fairing. You can barely see it mounted far forward on the frame.
The only rear running wires for this controller are a power circuit to the Fuzeblock.
The Skene dimmer had a bunch of wires but only two needed to run to the front so it got mounted back near the Fuzeblock. That's it just behind the label.
Both of these controllers were mounted with double sided foam tape.
Once everything was connected, and the bugs worked out of my wiring it was time to test out the lights to see how they performed. I haven't been out at night yet for a test but so far I'm pleased with the DRL aspect.
More pictures of the lighting mounts:
Here is the video. Note that the amber PB lights have a feature called Conspicuity Flicker. It looks to be about 30 cycles. In the video this frequency combines with the video rate and makes it look much slower, so what you are seeing here is not real world. The alert feature on the driving lights is activated by flashing the high beams twice within 1 second. The TT has a passing switch which flashes the high beam. This is perfect for the IQ-175A
I've been busy spending money and adding farkles to the Trophy. This is the first of a couple of posts on my endeavors.
First up was to fix the wiring. I had tapped into some circuits as a quick and dirty, get things working fast manner and wanted to clean it up. Plus I was adding some lights so the wiring was the first task.
I've made plenty of mistakes in not wiring properly and it has cost me dearly. Having learned from my previous errors this is done right.
I added a Fuzeblock. This is a great product and I highly recommend it. I found a nice place to tuck it in just behind the rider seat.
The Fuzeblock takes 3 inputs: +12v from the battery, -12v from the battery (ground), and a +12v switched lead to control the onboard relay.
I tapped into the stock GPS power cord for the switched lead. The reason being this comes on with the ignition switch.
The Trophy has 2 different accessory circuits. One comes on with the switch and the other only comes on when the engine is running. I wanted the switched circuits on the Fuzeblock to be powered with the first accessory position, switch on.
The 3 input wires run along the right side of the bike. They are dressed and zip tied.
The output circuits run on the left side of the bike. I did this to minimize the size of the wiring bundle and to keep things simple in case I have to troubleshoot a circuit.
Having had to add wiring after the fact on many bikes, I anticipated this with the Trophy and ran a "conduit" along the frame so I could pull a wire without having to remove the left side fairing.
Each circuit is either uniquely color coded and/or labeled as to it's function.
The final touch on the Fuzeblock was to label each circuit.
I've indicated what the circuit powers and whether it is switched (SW) or unswitched (USW).
More to come on the lighting powered by these circuits...
