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Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: wijnand71 on March 05, 2017, 03:28:57 AM

Title: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: wijnand71 on March 05, 2017, 03:28:57 AM
Just wanted to share my little foglights project. Since I recently moved to a somewhat more country-ish area, I just needed more light from the bike when rideing the last 10km of my daily trip on small roads in the woods.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/s/i88zzjluegqj9yr/DS_foglight01.jpg?dl=0)

I was first thinking of the Givi's S320, but they are quite expensive and not black. I liked the oval lens very much, wich creates a nice horizontal flat beam instead of just a round column of light. But these oval's seem hard to find. The other option was a BMW copy slash China verion with oval lens:

http://www.ebay.nl/itm/2x-Cree-LED-Fog-Light-Auxiliary-Driving-Lamp-for-BMW-K1600-R1200GS-ADV-F800GS-/322218061183?hash=item4b05b16d7f:g:E4gAAOSwa~BYWf5C (http://www.ebay.nl/itm/2x-Cree-LED-Fog-Light-Auxiliary-Driving-Lamp-for-BMW-K1600-R1200GS-ADV-F800GS-/322218061183?hash=item4b05b16d7f:g:E4gAAOSwa~BYWf5C)

So I ordered the china versions and when received, hooked them up to the 12V aux. Not surprisingly the bad quality led driver caused so much HF interference that the whole bike was in error. After some experiments on the 12V line, which where not that succesfull, I decided to open the lights and have a look on the onboard driver. To my surprise it looked not that bad, but a capacitor of any serious value was clearly missing to decouple the 12V supply line. After adding a simple 10uF 50V capacitor straight behind the first diodes (protection against reverse polarity I think) all was good! How can they save a 1 cent part to increase the product quality so easily?

(https://dl.dropbox.com/s/ka366zitivd8wpt/FoglightMod.jpg?dl=0)

After having all this working I let a local metal worker make two small pipe's out of aluminium to mount the lights on. See the drawing below. The lights are mounted on this small aluminium pole which is screwed down to an existing M5 location wich is there to hold the bodywork in place.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/s/9u41sssa6gksbe7/DS_FogLightBus.jpg?dl=0)

I will post some nightly pic's when I'm on the road again and some more detailed pic's of the setup when it stops raining.. The light beam is very low, powerfull and in a nice horizontal lightpattern, wich clearly lits any sign on 50 meters ahead. Very nice. The lights are about 6000K, so I have to change the headlights also  8)

This rain brings me to another point. When removing the tank plastic I was a bit shocked by the situation of the connectors underneath. In winter they use a lot of salt on the roads here in Holland and this has a huge impact on the wiring and especially the clear exposed SAE connector wich was completely green of oxidation. :o
I disconnected all plugs, rinsed them off carefully to remove as much of the salt a possible and dried them with a hairdryer. After all this I putted all connectors into shrink tube and tied the ends with tie-wraps to make it as tight as possible. I hope this is now really european weather style proof!

EDIT: After riding for a while with these protected connectors all chassis isolation faults are gone. No flashing red triangle anymore while in moisture or heavy rain.

(https://dl.dropbox.com/s/2b25rt48agd01dk/DS_ShrinkCon.jpg?dl=0)
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: Erasmo on March 05, 2017, 03:13:09 PM
Yeah that's a bit of a let down in non-arid regions...

Do you have comparison pictures with and without the fog lights?
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: BrianTRice@gmail.com on March 06, 2017, 12:41:51 AM
Salter roads effects are a good thing to note in the manual, thanks.
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: wijnand71 on March 06, 2017, 01:58:50 AM
Do you have comparison pictures with and without the fog lights?

Sure! Although its a bit hard to capture the light, the brightness seems lower on the pic. Horizontal the spread is huge, about 160deg. And it doesnt blind any upcoming traffic. Tried this myself.

Stock:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14638644/Stocklights.jpg)

Stock and LED fog lights:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14638644/StocklightsLedfog.jpg)
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: remmie on March 10, 2017, 12:12:32 AM

This rain brings me to another point. When removing the tank plastic I was a bit shocked by the situation of the connectors underneath. In winter they use a lot of salt on the roads here in Holland and this has a huge impact on the wiring and especially the clear exposed SAE connector wich was completely green of oxidation. :o
I disconnected all plugs, rinsed them off carefully to remove as much of the salt a possible and dried them with a hairdryer. After all this I putted all connectors into shrink tube and tied the ends with tie-wraps to make it as tight as possible. I hope this is now really european weather style proof!


I've made sort of a splash guard for the spray directly from the front wheel, precisely for this reason. You can find it here

http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3867 (http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3867)

It is for a 2014 SR but likely will fit a any (D)S(R) model as well
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: BrianTRice@gmail.com on March 14, 2017, 03:05:40 PM

This rain brings me to another point. When removing the tank plastic I was a bit shocked by the situation of the connectors underneath. In winter they use a lot of salt on the roads here in Holland and this has a huge impact on the wiring and especially the clear exposed SAE connector wich was completely green of oxidation. :o
I disconnected all plugs, rinsed them off carefully to remove as much of the salt a possible and dried them with a hairdryer. After all this I putted all connectors into shrink tube and tied the ends with tie-wraps to make it as tight as possible. I hope this is now really european weather style proof!


I've made sort of a splash guard for the spray directly from the front wheel, precisely for this reason. You can find it here

http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3867 (http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=3867)

It is for a 2014 SR but likely will fit a any (D)S(R) model as well

I forgot about that project of yours. I bet I can dash off a CAD drawing to save others some time.

It'd interfere with a supercharger's airflow but that's not the problem when it's raining. In combination with a version of my neoprene cozy, the battery might retain most of its capacity in a cold rain...
Title: Re: Foglight project on my DS '14
Post by: MrDude_1 on March 14, 2017, 11:21:22 PM

This rain brings me to another point. When removing the tank plastic I was a bit shocked by the situation of the connectors underneath. In winter they use a lot of salt on the roads here in Holland and this has a huge impact on the wiring and especially the clear exposed SAE connector wich was completely green of oxidation. :o
I disconnected all plugs, rinsed them off carefully to remove as much of the salt a possible and dried them with a hairdryer. After all this I putted all connectors into shrink tube and tied the ends with tie-wraps to make it as tight as possible. I hope this is now really european weather style proof!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14638644/DS_ShrinkCon.jpg)

its a little late now, but if you put dielectric grease on it, then cap it off, it will stop all corrosion from occurring. the grease does not have to be cleaned off before use either.