FJRocket
Doctor Throckenstein !!!
There's nothing terribly new here, but I thought I'd throw in some observations about my Autocom install on my AE.
Man, there's a lot of stuff in the package when you get it. Seems like a veritable giant octopus of wires in there:
I bought the Super Pro Avi solo with an extra in-the-ear adapter and a cord for a Motorola compatible 2 way radio. The setup comes with a phone cord and a music cord. The main Autocom unit either has pre-hardwired leads or 3.5mm jacks.
The wires that come with the unit terminate with large rubberized round connectors that are either 7 pin or 5 pin plugs. Lots of rubber plugs. And they are BIG. Nice, though, they are tight and at least weather resistant. They aren't going to ciome apart on you in service under normal circumstances. Very good quality stuff here, throughout.
I really liked how MrWizard installed his unit back in the tail, and that was my goal. Regrettably, I didn't think any of my cords were long enough to stretch from the tailcone all the way up to the handlebar grips where most of my electrical widgets reside. The other thing is that I have a Corbin Smuggler. The unit would not go in the U-lock strap down area, I would have to either up end it and lay it sideway, or drop the fender in order to grind off a couple stiffeners in the plastic fender. Well, that may still happen when/if I get/make some extenders for the 3 main leads going to my bars. As it was, those cords weren't going to reach (especially the two way radio lead), so I put the unit under my seat next to my Blue Sea fuse block.
I crimped ring terminals to the power and ground, then screwed them down to the fuse block. I put a 3 amp fuse in the block and tested for power. Good to go.
Off with the tank and tank fairing. Time to run wires. The music lead went to the bars up the right side of the bike. Man, there is NO slack in that wire. I was able to tuck it around the frame under the heat shield and get to my XM RoadyXT, but barely. Same thing on the left side of the bike where I ran my 2 way radio lead and the phone lead. All 3 of these leads go through the large openings at the front of the frame under the triple tree.
The phone lead then ducks around the frame, behind the A panel, then to the glove box. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up putting my phone, but most of the time it's in the gb on the 12 volt outlet. So what the heck. BTW, there is a larger rubber plug in the bottom of the glove box. That thing is a relatively soft knock out and it has a drain hole in it, suitable for stuffing a 3.5mm jack and wire through. Sweet, huh? Ideally, I would like to run the lead forward from the triple tree, then inside the front fairing and then around to the glove box. Not near enough slack. In fact, not enough slack to even get through the bottom of the glove box and leave you enough length on the stock cord to be able to pull the phone out and punch buttons. So I drilled out the upper drain hole in the inboard side of the gb and stuffed the plug in through there. Not elegant by any means, but it works. No good pictures of that, sorry.
I plan on putting a Garmin Rino 530 on the bars. I've had a Rino 120 for a few years and it finally died. These aren't stellar GPS/2 Ways by any means, but adequate for my purposes. Very basic GPS, and the Rino will run on bike power and put out a whopping 5 watts of GMRS power. Now, whether or not it's comatible with the Autocom remains to be seen. Word has it that you can get some funky feedbacks with different radios, especially if the are running on the same power circuit as the SPA. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
The biggest problem here is that the 2 way radio cord with the gray plug is a COIL CORD. What a POS. I had to stretch that thing beyond belief to get the plug all the way up to my left bars. At least I was able to find a convenient place to put the connector.
Not only do I have the Corbin Smuggler, but I have the Corbin "low boy" (my term) saddle. I was wondering if I could get the big assed cord out from under the seat to where I could conveniently hook it up. No Problemo. Even found a decent place to leave the cord when I'm not using it. Seems that since these plugs are going to occasionally sit out in the weather, that Autocom would have provided some weather caps for the rider and passenger plugs. Hope they don't mind a little rain.
My AE looks kinda gay purple with the flash, don't it?
h34r:
You can barely see the black plug sitting behind the end of the tank fairing. Works for me so far. I sure as heck didn't plan on taking off the Smugger, then the seat and tucking the cord in every day.
When you get the in-the-ear headset adapter, you get an extra mess of cords that go in your jacket. It looks pretty cumbersome. Once you set it all up, and hid the stuff in your helmet, it's actually not too bad. This has to go either in your helmet or along your torso:
See how the Etymotics jack into the BOTTOM of the big square adapter? Weird. Note the extra wire near the round microphone. That's the noise cancelling microphone. It listens to the ambient noise in your helmet and compensates for it when you speak. Supposedly it works really well. I actually have to go test ride this stuff later today to find out if it all works in the real world.
I was able to put all this stuff into my Scorpion, with my HARD contoller in the back by my neck and still wear my Etymotics. The speakers will probably get cut off, but I'll wear them for a while until I give the system a good check out. The mic is supposed to start against your lips, then you find the sweet spot, which is supposedly about 1/8 inch directly in front of the pie hole. Not to the side like my aviation sets. The side tone sounds very good, and although I think the sound quality from my Zen Nano MP3 player was somewhat reduced (no XM signal in my garage), it's still very good. I notice a slight hiss in the background. I may have to move the ground to the battery as recommended by Autocom. I emailed them for suggestions about alleviating the hiss.
The plugs look rather large on the cords, but the helmet cord is no big deal. I actually zip tied it to the left strap of my helmet so that when I pull the bucket on and off, the Autocom headset guts stay put. Can't even feel the cord or the zip tie with my helmet on.
More later, time for breakfast!
Man, there's a lot of stuff in the package when you get it. Seems like a veritable giant octopus of wires in there:
I bought the Super Pro Avi solo with an extra in-the-ear adapter and a cord for a Motorola compatible 2 way radio. The setup comes with a phone cord and a music cord. The main Autocom unit either has pre-hardwired leads or 3.5mm jacks.
The wires that come with the unit terminate with large rubberized round connectors that are either 7 pin or 5 pin plugs. Lots of rubber plugs. And they are BIG. Nice, though, they are tight and at least weather resistant. They aren't going to ciome apart on you in service under normal circumstances. Very good quality stuff here, throughout.
I really liked how MrWizard installed his unit back in the tail, and that was my goal. Regrettably, I didn't think any of my cords were long enough to stretch from the tailcone all the way up to the handlebar grips where most of my electrical widgets reside. The other thing is that I have a Corbin Smuggler. The unit would not go in the U-lock strap down area, I would have to either up end it and lay it sideway, or drop the fender in order to grind off a couple stiffeners in the plastic fender. Well, that may still happen when/if I get/make some extenders for the 3 main leads going to my bars. As it was, those cords weren't going to reach (especially the two way radio lead), so I put the unit under my seat next to my Blue Sea fuse block.
I crimped ring terminals to the power and ground, then screwed them down to the fuse block. I put a 3 amp fuse in the block and tested for power. Good to go.
Off with the tank and tank fairing. Time to run wires. The music lead went to the bars up the right side of the bike. Man, there is NO slack in that wire. I was able to tuck it around the frame under the heat shield and get to my XM RoadyXT, but barely. Same thing on the left side of the bike where I ran my 2 way radio lead and the phone lead. All 3 of these leads go through the large openings at the front of the frame under the triple tree.
The phone lead then ducks around the frame, behind the A panel, then to the glove box. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up putting my phone, but most of the time it's in the gb on the 12 volt outlet. So what the heck. BTW, there is a larger rubber plug in the bottom of the glove box. That thing is a relatively soft knock out and it has a drain hole in it, suitable for stuffing a 3.5mm jack and wire through. Sweet, huh? Ideally, I would like to run the lead forward from the triple tree, then inside the front fairing and then around to the glove box. Not near enough slack. In fact, not enough slack to even get through the bottom of the glove box and leave you enough length on the stock cord to be able to pull the phone out and punch buttons. So I drilled out the upper drain hole in the inboard side of the gb and stuffed the plug in through there. Not elegant by any means, but it works. No good pictures of that, sorry.
I plan on putting a Garmin Rino 530 on the bars. I've had a Rino 120 for a few years and it finally died. These aren't stellar GPS/2 Ways by any means, but adequate for my purposes. Very basic GPS, and the Rino will run on bike power and put out a whopping 5 watts of GMRS power. Now, whether or not it's comatible with the Autocom remains to be seen. Word has it that you can get some funky feedbacks with different radios, especially if the are running on the same power circuit as the SPA. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
The biggest problem here is that the 2 way radio cord with the gray plug is a COIL CORD. What a POS. I had to stretch that thing beyond belief to get the plug all the way up to my left bars. At least I was able to find a convenient place to put the connector.
Not only do I have the Corbin Smuggler, but I have the Corbin "low boy" (my term) saddle. I was wondering if I could get the big assed cord out from under the seat to where I could conveniently hook it up. No Problemo. Even found a decent place to leave the cord when I'm not using it. Seems that since these plugs are going to occasionally sit out in the weather, that Autocom would have provided some weather caps for the rider and passenger plugs. Hope they don't mind a little rain.
My AE looks kinda gay purple with the flash, don't it?
h34r: You can barely see the black plug sitting behind the end of the tank fairing. Works for me so far. I sure as heck didn't plan on taking off the Smugger, then the seat and tucking the cord in every day.
When you get the in-the-ear headset adapter, you get an extra mess of cords that go in your jacket. It looks pretty cumbersome. Once you set it all up, and hid the stuff in your helmet, it's actually not too bad. This has to go either in your helmet or along your torso:
See how the Etymotics jack into the BOTTOM of the big square adapter? Weird. Note the extra wire near the round microphone. That's the noise cancelling microphone. It listens to the ambient noise in your helmet and compensates for it when you speak. Supposedly it works really well. I actually have to go test ride this stuff later today to find out if it all works in the real world.
I was able to put all this stuff into my Scorpion, with my HARD contoller in the back by my neck and still wear my Etymotics. The speakers will probably get cut off, but I'll wear them for a while until I give the system a good check out. The mic is supposed to start against your lips, then you find the sweet spot, which is supposedly about 1/8 inch directly in front of the pie hole. Not to the side like my aviation sets. The side tone sounds very good, and although I think the sound quality from my Zen Nano MP3 player was somewhat reduced (no XM signal in my garage), it's still very good. I notice a slight hiss in the background. I may have to move the ground to the battery as recommended by Autocom. I emailed them for suggestions about alleviating the hiss.
The plugs look rather large on the cords, but the helmet cord is no big deal. I actually zip tied it to the left strap of my helmet so that when I pull the bucket on and off, the Autocom headset guts stay put. Can't even feel the cord or the zip tie with my helmet on.
More later, time for breakfast!
