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[ashnazg]

My experience installing the bellypan with three DigiNow SC2.5's... this will require multiple posts on this thread due to being limited to only four pictures at a time... so please be patient, and wait to comment until *after* I've indicated "that's all folks" 

I got the original onboard removed by following Sam's instructions in his New Zeroland video:


After unboxing the DigiNows in their pan, I was at first confused by the several small brown connectors, thinking that at least one would plug into the bike's brown connector that was originally connected to the old onboard.  Only after discovering the large, lighter brown Anderson connector in the new pan did I realize the bike's Anderson AUX is wider than those darker brown connectors... and thus that smaller dark brown connector on the bike would remain unused. Since its connector pins are now exposed, I should probably protect them from moisture via dielectric grease... but I've not explored that yet.

[ashnazg]

Identifying the connectors...

The two J-plugs are fairly obvious... and once you see them both with their red and brown connectors, it becomes obvious that they match up to the same red/brown pairs of connectors coming out of the pan.

The thin communication cable acts like a Y-adapter out of the pan (two connectors) to go up to the SC box (one connector).

The larger, light brown Anderson is the one cable from the pan that goes up to the bike's AUX Anderson, which is just above the motor on my '15 SR.

The two "loop wires" run from the pan all the way up to the bike's controller that's under the seat.  The orange coverings make it less obvious that one wire is red (hot) and the other is black (ground).

[ashnazg]

HEADS UP:  let the bike sit off for at least 20 minutes before you open the cover over the controller... those terminals are extra risky while some lingering charge might remain.  See MVetter's comment on this later in the thread.

One of the very important Some Assembly Required actions is to grab a marker and add the ".5" to the SC version emblem 

The SC box can go under the seat, at least on my '15 SR, where there's some empty space behind the controller.  The controller itself is hidden under a thin black sleeve cover, held in place by a single screw in that rear open area.  Remove that screw first, and then you can nudge the cover out a bit at a time... it's tucked under the frame bars just tight enough to keep it in place, hence only needing the single screw in the back as extra holding.

To get the cable that runs to the tail lights out of the way, there's one sharp-tooth clip holding the cable on the black U-bracket, running along bike stage-left 

Once the controller cover is off, you can see the big bad monster wires attached to it.  The three plates showing M1 / M2 / M3 will distract you from seeing the info you need -- the B- and B+ that are visible on the other two, longer plates.  These will be the connection points for the two "loop wires" coming up from the pan.

[ashnazg]

HEADS UP:  let the bike sit off for at least 20 minutes before you open the cover over the controller... those terminals are extra risky while some lingering charge might remain.  See MVetter's comment on this later in the thread.

Threading the loop wires and the communication wires up to the seat area... in my pics, you'll note I did so on the left side of the bike... bad idea.  I did later correct this by rerunning them up the right side.  The first noticed problem with the left side threading was that at least one cable then proved too short.  Later on, I realized that having any cables threaded up the left side of the bike from the pan means that they're uncomfortably close to the drive belt.  When I later take my pan back off to drill holes for a drop bar install, I'll be redoing what pan wiring I still have coming up that left side.

The SC box seems almost perfectly made to fit in that open area right behind the controller... but, it really needs to NOT touch the controller itself (metal to metal contact is apparently unhelpful here). You'll note later that I restored the black controller cover, so that it forms an insulating barrier between the SC box and the controller.

Also note (not in pics because I still need to correct this) that the SC box needs to NOT touch any of the bike's metal too.  So, that black U-bracket that the tail light wire was sharp-toothed to... the SC box needs to be insulated from contact from it as well.  I *think* those two things (controller, U-brace) are the only metal pieces in this open area that are metal concerns... I *think*... I'll know for sure when I can get the seat back off and put some more insulating material in.  I've seen suggestions of using black electrical tape for this.

[ashnazg]

Loop wires are now attached to the controller.  Again, note the terminals that are used... it's the B- and B+ terminals that have the longer black plates under them (the B- and B+ labels are at the bottom end of the black plates in my first pic below), whereas we don't do anything with the three M labels (the much shorter black plates under their terminals).

Also note that the metal of the loop wires' loops are lined up to be well away from accidental touching of an adjacent M terminal.

Two cables from the SC box... one will connect to the communication wire from the pan, while the other connects to the bike's comm connector that was originally connected to the onboard charger.  That latter comm cable was another one that had to be threaded upward into the seat area.

Once both comm cables are connected, I tucked their excess under the V bars of the frame.

Back down to the pan level, I next threaded the pan's big Anderson up to plug into the bike's AUX Anderson.  This is another case of where I threaded up the bike's left side, but will be rerunning it on the right side when I take the pan back off.  You can see in the pic below that the wires aren't perilously close to the drive belt, but they're too close for me not to worry about them.

[ashnazg]

It wasn't until we were trying to actually attach the pan to the bike that I realized the issues I was causing myself by routing any of the wires up the left side of the bike.  The pics below show where I did reroute most of them up the right side of the bike.

Where I'm holding the red and brown connector wires coming up from the pan... this shows how having them threaded up the right side of the bike still allows for them to come out on the left side of the bike, above the motor. At this point, having them on this side was more for convenience in the moment, as I was working toward a wired-up-but-not-yet-bolted on state of things, so that I could do some tests of the chargers.

[ashnazg]

I could now attach the Jplug ports to their connectors from the pan.

Working in my buddy's shop meant no L2 charger available for testing... so I used my J-cable from my Volt to connect to a regular 110V outlet.

[ashnazg]

My first test was on the single-charger plug.  You can see how it slowly ramps up on my '15 SR's ZF12.5 battery.

Again, this is from a 100V wall outlet.

I have not yet tried doing any adjustments via the serial app, so the SC's settings are whatever Brandon / Morgan left them set on at the factory.

[ashnazg]

Next test was connecting the 110V to the double-charger plug... note the same ramp up visible in the remaining charge time estimates.

[ashnazg]

On a later day, without rain, I was able to try out using my L2 car charger plugged into the double-charger, with my Volt cable again using a 110V outlet to plug into the single-charger.

[ashnazg]

One thing I noted on my ride home was some intermittent red triangle *and* green charging lights flutter-flashing... they'd flash super fast for about a half second, go quiet for several seconds, rinse and repeat.  Also, this was while riding, not while charging.  I don't think it was doing that during charging.

Brandon explained that this can be a symptom of the SC box touching bike metal.  So once I get back under the seat to insulate around the box, I expect this flash behavior to cease.

[ashnazg]

That seems to be all the photos I had from the install.  The only other thing I remember that stood out to me was that the two rearmost bolts for the bellypan do not go all the way flush with the bike frame (again, on my '15 SR) because the frame starts to curve upward at that point.

So, I reckon "that's all folks"... everyone can now chime in 

[MVetter]

Nice writeup! Now while this may look daunting to a lot of people, I'm genuinely curious: how would you rate the difficulty of the install process from 1-10?

[ashnazg]

Given my novice skill level with projects like this, I'd call it an 8... but having my buddy's help (very experienced in many areas) made it more of a 6.

Now, having made it through the first one, I think doing it a second time would be 4 to 5... for someone who is already competent to jump right into something like the side cases install, this would be similar difficulty if not easier.

[MVetter]

Yeah that's how I felt when I first started. It looked overwhelming. Once I did one I was like, "oh. Yeah ok that's not bad at all. I could probably do that again in half the time". And I did. Now I talk about this stuff as I see it (straightforward) and people look at me like I looked at Brandon the first time he started babbling about it to me. I think a guide with the words, "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters would go a long way.