Anyone running a headlight modulator?

[AdamJ]

I've used Signal Dynamics modulators on bikes in the past and had good results, but decided to try another brand on the FJR which doesn't require cutting into the wiring harness and soldering. I'll avoid mentioning brand since I'm not sure what the source of the problem is yet, but when modulating on high beam, the headlights never seem to reach full peak power on each flash cycle -- instead of a bright white pulse, the lights are slightly yellow, as if the bulbs are not quite at full power before they start on the next flash cycling. I'm running Silverstar bulbs, which put out a very white light if I disable the modulator.

I'm contemplating swapping in a Signal Dynamics unit next time I have the bike in the garage, but would like to be sure the problem is the modulator and not some characteristic of the bike's wiring somehow limiting current transition on the pulse cycles.

...just wondering if anyone running a modulator can confirm they're getting good results on the high pulse?

 

[Woodstock]

Hmm. I have a Kisan unit. I guess I've not compared the brightest modulated w/ unmodulated, but I don't really see the issue if it's a little duller. During the day (since that's the only time they modulate) they're *plenty* noticable as they modulate. I know they've saved me a couple of times from cages doing a "double take". Plus I love the added bonus of having about a 1 in 3 chance of slower cars pulling over when I come up behind them, thinking I'm a LEO. h34r:

Now, if the night high (unmodulated) high beam was affected by having the modulator, I'd be concerned.

 

[Spedboy]

I have the Signal Dynamics Modulator. I built a custom wiring harness into it that plugs into the bike's stock harness. No need to cut your stock harness at all. It works great. Here is the link to the male/female H4 connectors. If it's real important to you, I can take some pictures of it.

Comagination H4 connectors.

BTW, IMHO you shouldn't see any dimmer light with the modulator installed. The power transistors used to modulate the light in a good quality modulator probably only have a few hundred milliohms of resistance when biased in the 'on' state. Maybe a drop of a tenth of a volt.

 

[6mmbr]

A little "How I Did It" with some pictures would be great. Thank you

 

[dgfella]

Spedboy,

Give us some pics and a write up. I'm really interested in what you did here.

dgfella

 

[AdamJ]

I have the Signal Dynamics Modulator. I built a custom wiring harness into it that plugs into the bike's stock harness. No need to cut your stock harness at all. It works great. Here is the link to the male/female H4 connectors. If it's real important to you, I can take some pictures of it.
Comagination H4 connectors.

BTW, IMHO you shouldn't see any dimmer light with the modulator installed. The power transistors used to modulate the light in a good quality modulator probably only have a few hundred milliohms of resistance when biased in the 'on' state. Maybe a drop of a tenth of a volt.

Great idea! The only wire you'd have to tap into this way would be the horn, and that's only if you wanted to enable the optional on demand modulate option. Did you also ground the SD unit through the headlight ground or through a separate wire to a frame ground ?

I have to pull the bike back in the garage for the 600 mile maint. I think I'm going to order the SD unit and go this route. I'll see if I can take a before\after of the modulated brightness just for grins. Thanks for the links to the parts!

 

[Spedboy]

I'll pull the magic harness and unit out tonight and do a little photo essay for you guys. I actually used a special blade connector that plugs inbetween the horn wire and the horn. I said no cutting, I meant no cutting. Just a double male to female that goes between the stock connector and the horn. You'll see it in the photo's. Standby.

 

[Bounce]

Kisan

 

[dgfella]

Spedboy,

We're still waiting for a write up or pics. I really hate my install and would love to clean it up using your ideas.

dgfella

 

[AdamJ]

I swapped in the SD unit while doing the 600 mile throttle body sync. A couple of pics of the harness are available here: https://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/[email protected]?.dir=/59d9scd

The new SD units don't come with the horn button activation option, or at least mine didn't. They also only modulate the high beam. Making the harness is easy and requires only two female and one male H4 connectors from the link already posted in this thread. Red wire from the male connector goes to the red input wire on the SD, and the red\white output wire from the SD connects to both red wires on the female connector leads. The blue wire from the male lead connects to the blue wires on both female leads, bypassing the SD (this is low beam). All black wires (ground) connect together. This is all from memory a couple of weeks after the fact, so you might want to double check the connections if you do this.

I'm happy with the results, but the improvement of the SD over the old unit (Kisan) wasn't as much as I'd hoped it would be.

The issue is with the FJR's headlight's -- they're too damned efficient, throwing out a wide, narrow band of illumination, with very little light above the horizontal band. Even when switched to high beam there isn't much light thrown above the horizontal cutoff, and the light pattern doesn't raise up very far vs low beam. To get the results I wanted I had to adjust the low beam JUST low enough not to blind oncoming traffic at night, which puts the band of light from the highbeam right where you want it in the daytime.