Yes very confusing,,,it seems the chinese are a little weak in their wiring,,,(i'm being kind here)
I am guessing that if you're a tech, you can pop those strips loose, run a meter across them, and boom, problem found, but for me it's a nightmare. I am very weak on electrical and on diagnosing internal mechanics. I have changed the head gasket on my last scoot, and I was impressed at how I could pop the engine out with just a few bolts. I really like that part of how these scoots are designed. I really like the CVTs too, and have made some spreadsheets for doing various calculations for tuning them with weights and shims. Stuff like cheap body panels is a pain though, and my exhaust manifold pipe being an inch or less from my rear tire, and making it get hot, is stressing me out.
A friend of mine is a cop and I asked him about lights and he said you can have any kind of lighting you want as long as it doesn't make you look like a cop or blind anyone.
Good deal and thank you. We have a lot of laws on lighting, what colors we can use, which colors can be on the front or rear, etc. For instance, all red lights must be facing the rear, and no lights can flash. Blue is illegal I think. I used bright white big LEDs under the wheel well, and the smaller dimmer amber ones on the body. The big ones are too bright for direct lighting in my opinion. They blow your night vision instantly.
If that guitar bike is for real, it would look sweet with some LED strings on the guitar.
HA I just noticed your signature line. So true.
Last Edit: Apr 4, 2015 10:25:11 GMT -6 by scooter2
I second that a printed gear will not stand up to the heat of engine oil
If his machine can do it, he could try nylon with a melting point of 428F or nylon 6,6 which melts at 509F. On my 150 my oil temps read, with a cheap thermometer, around 200 degrees as I recall.
i would think if you want it to act like the front,,,both wires for each side need to be pulled to the rear so when you hit the turn signal the "running light" turns off when flashing,,,there has to be some sort of relay that is handling that
Yes. I'll have to take a closer look at it next time I open the dash. I play around with electronics but the wiring harness on this bike is confusing to me. It has a ton of wires that come out of one harness, go into a block, then come back out of the block on another strip in the block, out to other harnesses, or circuits, with all of the wires on each row in the block being connected to each other by the block. with five or six strips total. Lots of wires.
As said, now that we know the fronts are three wire, it does seem like the previous owner wanted the brighter turn signal on all the time for visibility. Which means the wiring has been tampered with. A real big issue with used motorcycles as well. People with enough "knowledge" to be dangerous. Hopefully not too much damage is done.
That's the interesting thing. Only the running filament is on until the blinker is activated, then the running light shuts off while the blinker blinks on and off. If it's hacked, it's well hacked.
Oh i forgot to mention ,,i run led turn signals on all my bikes and you will have to go with a digital flasher relay,,,cheap on ebay,,,so you don't run into no flash/super fast flash situation,,,led's don't pull enough to make a regular flasher work correctly
I ran into that issue last night. I tried to put a relay in the signal so it would be run from the tail light wire, then be shut down by the blinker wire when the blinker was activated, but the flash rate went high. I tried putting resistors in line with the relay but all I got was either no flash, or fast flash. I could get a digital flasher to make that circuit work.
I'd wager that it's stock,,,the only problem i see in this whole getting the rear lights to act like the front is the socket so you can run the aforementioned 1157 bulb and make it clean so it doesn't look like a beaver has been gnawing on it,,,the wireing is a gimme,,,and if you run led lights you wouldn't have to worry about wattage load,,,in the front and back,,,the charging systems on these scoots are marginal at best,,,,maybe you can get a couple whole front signals on ebay and just use the socket portion
That sounds like it would work fine. I can just wire the running filaments to the tail light. Thanks.
Well, now that you've said the front are three wire units, that means it is supposed to be a two filament bulb....one filament for the running or marker light (probably about 8 watts), and one filament for the turn signal (about 23 wats). It should be an 1157 type bulb, might be one of the low profile ones. If your turn signals are lit all of the time, they are using more power( 46 watts), than your headlight (35 watts), and I find it hard to believe any scooter is designed to work that way. See what bulbs you have, I still say the turn signal portion should illuminate when the switch is turned on, and the running light side should not have anything to do with it, and certainly not go out because signal is operating.
On my fashion, the running filament stays on, and the blinker filament stays off, but when the blinker is activated, the running filament goes off, and only the blinker filament blinks on and off. Interesting.
I checked another 250, a Commuter, and its running filament stays on while the blinker is blinking.
I couldn't find any laws state or federal that require running lights on any bike,,,i have seen running lights on more than a few machines,,,so it very well may be stock,,,also in my law search i did read 2 studies that stated there is a 35-40% better chance of accident avoidance with running lights,,,i don't recall if i've seen any scooters with running lights,,but i havn't been paying attention either,,i will now,,,the 3 wire front sockets make me think it's stock but it may have been modified by the previous owner,,,how do the front lights look?,,,are they real clean or are they hacked up and cobbled together?
They look clean. The 3 wire is standard for this bike.
I think my last scoot had front lights that stayed on while blinking, so it was like dim, bright, dim, bright, etc. I don't recall if the rear ones on that bike stayed on or not.
That would be illegal in my state as we can't have any strobe lights, but my cfmoto Fashion has a really neat "knight rider" like trunk light though which the police don't seem to mind.
and I put on some LEDs for more to see at night and early morning
Thanks for the reply and the link. My tachs work fine with little delay. Some have settings you can change to switch from two cycle to four cycle so you get the proper readout. On servos, you can use a winch type that can go round and round forever. Maybe we can collaborate on an arduino project some time. That would be fun.
These cheap tachs are less than $15 on ebay. Pressing the S1 button switches the tach from one fire per rev, two fires per rev, and every other rev, so it works with 2 strokes and 4 strokes. Also has an hour meter and can be set to alert you for, say, an oil change at X hours. It does not have a backlight so it's not so useful in the dark. I think the built in battery runs for two years.
Are you saying your scooter DOES NOT HAVE stand alone turn signals and that they are part of the running lights? Or did you or someone modify it. WHAT SCOOTER DO YOU HAVE and I will look it up to see what it's supposed to have. Alleyoop
It's a 2009 cfmoto Fashion 250. The front signals are three wire. They stay lit all the time except when the blinker is on, then the turning side blinks off and on. The rear amber lights are two wire and only light up when blinking for a turn. Thanks.
It's used but the wiring doesn't seem to be tampered with, although now that I think of it, a plug in the dash was high-jacked to run some marker lights. From reading online I got the impression that Honda, who made the bike this one is a clone of, left the marker lights off in the rear on motorcycles, only coming on when blinking, hence the two wire setup in the rear and three wire setup in front. People are putting diodes on them to make them stay on or buying boxes that do that. That's probably what I will do as well.
Many autos also have that feature. It takes a special flasher unit with an additional pole. One pole is always off (rear) and one is always on (front). When the flasher is activated they change from off to on and from on to off. If you figure out which pole is the always off just connect both front and back to that pole. But then you will not have the required "parking lights/side markers" up front and you will be illegal. As is the system is legal and safer, also cheaper to manufacture.
I would leave it alone.
The front ones are good. It's the rear ones that only come on when the blinker is on leaving the rear sides of my scooter dark and practically invisible at night. I put some led strips on to help with that. I'd like them to stay on until they blink. I could maybe hook the rear ones to the front unless that will mess things up, or get a unit that makes the rear lights stay on until they blink. Thanks.
