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Z1300 Led Charging Meter Install
How do you monitor whether your stator is charging your battery? You could install a volt meter of some type, but usually they're fairly large and not easily added to a motorcycle in a way that doesn't hurt the appearance. Recently I ran across an LED meter being sold on ebay for the Harley, but in reality it goes on any bike just as easily. I saw them advertised on ebay for $30 by Tejas Thump Cycles so I bought one, but they don't seem to sell them anymore even on their website.
I went to Kuryakyn, the manufacturers website and they ask $35 - $40 for them, and they also show them as being available in chrome or black finish. Here's what the manufacturer has to say about them -
"Our LED battery gauge is an array of LEDs indicating the operating voltage of the bike's electrical system. Green LEDs represent the normal operating range of your charging system, 12.5 volt to 14.5 volt. Amber LEDs warn the rider that the bike is not charging. If the reading drops below 10 volt or exceeds 15 volt a flashing red LED will alert the rider of an impending stall or the possibility of damage to the battery and/or sensitive electronic components on the motorcycle. Simple two-wire connection, a compact size (about 2" x 3/4" x 3/16") and installation is a breeze. A daylight sensor automatically adjusts the brightness of the LEDs. They are bright during the day for visibility and dim at night so as not to blind the rider. Fits all models with 12 volt charging systems.."
I can add that the whole thing only weighs about an ounce or so. It has a
piece of mounting tape on the backside to install it with.
I placed mine as you see because it doesn't seem to interfere with anything in
that position. It has to be wired to some source of switched power,
otherwise the LED's would be lit all the time. Since the ignition switch
is right there it would be handy if we had some sort of power tap coming off the
switch rather than having to cut into a wire.
However, there is a switched circuit in a plug under the tank that
originally goes to the fuel solenoid. I imagine by now, everyone has
removed the fuel solenoid and thrown it in the trash if they've been reading this site.
It uses a 6pin
connector that comes out of the main harness alongside the fuel tank sending
unit connector. In these pictures, it's the one tie wrapped back to the
harness. I pull the wires out of the connector and run them forward and
they'll come out just next to the upper coil with just enough room to get
everything connected. It needs just 2 wires from this connector, a
switched positive + battery connection (the Brown wire) and negative connection
(the Black/Yellow stripe wire).
The other gauge mounted to the handlebars in this picture is the air pressure
indicator for the S&W rear air shocks.
Once I make the connections I tuck everything back under the frame rails and tie
wrap it into place.
With the key in the on position you should get all red and 2 yellow assuming the
battery is fully charged.
Once you start it you should get at least one green light, but you'll probably
have to pick the rev's up before it comes on. Constant over 3000 rpm
should eventually get the second green light on. Keep in mind that this
bike and probably most others are actually discharging the battery at idle or
anything under about 2000 rpm minimum. Riding in rush hour traffic for an
hour or more of just stop and go can pull enough power from the battery that
when you
cut it off to fill it up with gas, it may not restart if your battery is weak to
begin with.
I did find a few websites in the Google search engine that show these for sale -
http://www.phatperformanceparts.com
http://www.powersportsnetwork.com
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com
Also, I found other manufacturers or suppliers of a similar product -
NOTE: On these newer browsers I've noticed that they don't always display my large images in full size when you open an image from the thumbnails. Once you click the thumbnail and open the larger image, if you 'mouse over' the image you should see a " + " symbol or some other indicator like a box with arrows usually on the bottom right edge of the image. If you click on the indicator, then the image will expand to it's full size which displays full screen on computers that use a 800 x 600 resolution setting for the monitor. If you click the indicator again it will go back to the smaller image. Some people use a resolution setting of 1024 x 768 or higher on their monitors and for those users the images will appear smaller than full screen in size. You can change your monitor settings easily enough if you desire. Also, the indicator I've noticed is slow to appear even after the image appears to of completely loaded. The indicator in Netscape seems to be a lot faster to display than the one in Internet Explorer.
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