HID (Xenon) ballast installation

When surfing on the BMWLT.com back in the 2005 or so I learned that the HID conversion was the way to go if you wanted more light power on the road. The facelift LT had somewhat better lights than the earlier "charcoal in the bottle" models but I decided to get the HID Xenon's to my LT.

Looks like I only took two pictures of my ballast installation...Today's Xenon ballasts are more compact in size than my early models. There was a proper shelf on top of the headlight which needed some leveling with the help of a plastic plate that I had laying around. The modern ballasts might fit on the shelf even without any extension needed.

For powering the ballasts I chose the option of using my new fuse block, relays and cabling. I have separate switch for the low beam that cuts the pilot current taken from the factory low beam wire. The high beam pilot current goes directly from the factory wire to my mini relay so the bike's original high beam switch works normally.
I could have used the bike's original low and high beam wires to feed the ballasts but those wires look quite thin so I decided to use my own new heavier cables for feeding the power to the new HIDs.

Hella Xenon Micro DE installation

At some point I figured more light for the dark Finnish autumns is needed. Especially when the moose hunting season starts, those huge (and stupid) animals cause a lot of accidents. Most of the fatal for the bikers...

So I found these Hella Xenon Micro DE HID lights that were nice and very powerful and first of all small in size. I had seen people hide their auxiliary lights behind the side panels so I decided to tackle the job as well.

This shows the final installation. Seen from this angle the lights are not 100 % in vertical position but this does not matter since they are not normally stared from this direction. 

There is a horizontal shelf in the plastic inner liner of the side fairings. I did not want to bolt the lights directly to the plastic as I thought it would probably vibrate and in the worst case break. For brackets I used the standard L-shaped steel pieces that are typically used for joining wooden structures together. These can be found in most hardware stores. I trimmed off the corner from the vertical part of the bracket and then painted it black. The LT side fairing has double walls in this place so it was easy to put three screws in the vertical side...

...and then drill a hole through the horizontal plastic shelf of the liner and install the light fastening bolt through the steel and plastic. This picture also shows the HID ballast peeking from behind the inner liner.

...like this.

The ballast is held in place by a zip tie. The power feeding cable for the ballast is also shown here and that was easy to tie in the plastic bracket that is connecting the inner liner to the outer panel.

And here is bike side connector that needs to be disconnected when the side fairing is removed.

And power feed to these was straight forward. I took the main power from my front fuse block through a 10 or 15 A fuse. Pulled this main current to one of my several mini relays and from the relay to both of the Xenon ballasts. The pilot current for the relay was "stolen" (via an extra switch)  from the bike's high beam so these new driving lights operate together with bike's own high beams.

How all the farkles were wired?

In this article I try to open up my electrical connections and how I did all of them - twice all over in fact.

I started adding things to my bike like many people do. I took power straight from the battery or found some factory connections for the navigator, for instance . After two years I ran into problems. I lost the track of the various cables. Right after you have installed your gadgets you remember that this "blue cable" is for my reversing sensors and this "green one" is for the extra power in the trunk etc.
But after couple of months or a year you don't remember any more what those cables were for.
I used a lot of in-line fuses which are easy and fast to install but can be a pain to access on the road.

So I figured that this is not a long term solution and change has to take place:

- I needed a central power supply that is connected to the battery and the connections to the bike factory electricals must be kept to minimum.
- I needed fuse blocks with at least 15 fuses that can be accessed without pulling the bike apart.
- I start using relays with all my extra gadgets.
- I needed a systematic coding of all my added cables, relays, junction points etc plus proper drawings. Some day the bike might have a second owner (which will not be in any time soon) and nobody will touch the bike with a shorter than 2 meter stick if the changes are not documented.

The power supply:

The power supply to all my added farkles is here. It is a 80 A main relay that is fed directly from the battery via 10 mm2 cable and from the relay I pulled two separate 6 mm2 cables onward. One to my front fuse block and the other for my rear fuse block.
There is a nice installation place for the relay under the "shelf" right above the rear spring.

Here is another picture of the main relay and it also shows my rear fuse block. This picture is from the beginning of my project judging from the missing second fuse block and still the rear spring preload adjuster in it's original location...

This main relay is triggered by a push button on my handlebar. I have built a separate "holding circuit" for this main relay (with a help from an other relay) and the pilot current taken from the bike's dash light positive lead. This way I can start the bike with the "factory settings" and it runs normally with the standard lights, turn signals etc and all my extras come on only after I push the button in the handlebar.

The "extra gadgets on" -button is the second one from the right. (The extra four-way button adjusts the seat up-down and backrest front-back.)

The fuse blocks:

I figured the fuse blocks needed to be compact in size and preferably use the same mini-size fuses as my facelift LT was also using. I located the fuse blocks from a "Biltema" store but some years later I realized that unfortunately they don't carry these any more.
I currently have three fuse blocks. One for ten fuses in the front under the high beam. One for six fuses under the rider's seat and one for four unswitched (directly from the battery) fuses as well under the seat.

The rear fuse blocks:

This shows the two rear fuse blocks. The smaller one with four fuses is for the few unswitched items I have on the bike, like lights in the sidecases, or lights under the seat or power feed to my Tramigo unit which tells me where my bike is located and if it would be stolen I could kill the fuel pump with a SMS. The Tramigo unit has it's own battery for three to  four days so if I leave the bike standing without a battery charger I can cut the draw from the bike battery and avoid having a starting problem due to this.
This picture also shows my seat lifting mechanism and the Baehr Capo II bike to bike PMR radio located on top of the battery.

The front fuse block:

This shows the front fuse block in place. The installation height is quite critical which is very easy to misjudge when the bike is standing on the centerstand. The steering damper comes actually very close when the bike is standing on it's wheels let alone the case when the front suspension goes down...

This shows how the fuse block was installed with the help of perforated steel band which was used as brackets. The infeed cable is the heavy one that goes in from the front side. This also shows how the 9 tabs from the infeed side of the fuse block were trimmed off. 

This shows the fuse block. The only bad thing is that it is not designed for one common infeed but instead it has the connection tabs on both sides.

...so I had to solder the infeed side of the fuse block together. After taking this picture I trimmed the infeed tabs off and left only one remaining for my 6 mm2 infeed cable. (see the one picture above)

All these fuse blocks have been hanging in place since 2006 and so far I have had only one occasion that I have needed to change a fuse due to one of my led light cables shorting in bike frame. The leds happened to be in the same circuit as the pilot current to my main 80 A relay so the bike was in "stock mode" for the couple of weeks until I had time to look for the problem.


The relays and low amp pilot cables.

Using the relays gave me the advantage of not having to run thick cables all the way to my switches which were starting to add up both in the handlebars as well as on my various dash variations. The pilot current for the relay needs just a very thin cable and those were easy to fit under the handlebar plastic covers etc. I also had to install some relays in the rear part of the bike so I found a nice way to handle the pilot current issue from front to rear...

I happened to have some old PC /  Mac printer cables with 30 to 34 wires each so once when I had the gas tank out I ran at first one and a year later second of these cables from front to rear. This way I did not need to pull the bike full apart each time I added something on the bike.

I started using relays for supplying power to my various add-on things like
- fog lights
- two sets of driving lights (one halogen and one Xenon set)
- extra set of horns
- my seat adjuster
- my Baehr intercoms and bike to bikes radio
- various chargers (cell phones, Ipods, cameras etc)
- rear wiew cameras (all three of them)
etc. etc.

At first I used the standard 12 V car relays which can be obtained at every auto parts store.
I installed the relays under the nose cover and under the seat and trunk.

This is how the front part of the bike looked before I figured this is a dead end. I run out of space and my cable and relay coding did not work...

So I decided to start my cable and relay work all over from scratch. Since I already had quite a bit of farkles installed all I had to do was to draw the schematics, decide the cable coding principle, redo all the cables and relays using the mini relays...Easy piece! A nice winter project...

The list of farkles and the schematics:

This is a partial screenshot of my Excel table which is quite large. The left column is number of the main system. (Like front fog lights, driving lights, power seat adjuster, air compressor etc.) The next column tells the drawing layer name in my CAD-drawing (I started with AutoCad but I currently use Vectorworks). The third column tells the unit code ( F= fuse, R= relay, CN=connector, S= switch). The fourth column tells the cable code. Obviously C=Cable. The rest of the table should be self explanatory.

Since I happen to be a third generation baker and I design large industrial bakery processes by profession I have used the similar principle of system coding in my everyday work so it was familiar to me. I have currently 30 main systems in my bike and the total amount of relays is closer to 50 than 40.

I used about two months of the winter 2006 to make the schematics. I am not a professional electrician let alone an engineer. I studied closely various schematics principles and to me the Harley-Davidson way of showing the connections was most logical. So I decided to use somewhat similar style in my schematics.

I have a total of 6 large sheets of schematics of my electrical connections. My CAD drawing software is optimized for architectual drawings and not for making electrical schematics. I try to learn the way BMW makes the electrical schematics and perhaps later on I will redo these in a different way...

After I had the master plan done the next task was to strip out all the old relays and wires.

Here the (1,5 years) old cables and relays were hanging before stripping them out.

Most of the stripped old relays here.

I found the nice new mini relays which occupied a lot less space than the conventional car relays.

This shows the way the mini relay sockets can easily be joined together.

Here the 8 mini relays are fitted nicely behind the instrument cluster. (The front speakers can be seen on both sides) This picture also shows my first printer cable bundle coming from the rear. Today all those wires are used and a second similar cable has only one or two spare wires left.

These pictures were taken in 2008 and today this set of 8 relays looks a bit more tight since there are now about 15 of them but I guess this shows the principle...

This shows the rear part of the new electricals. Some mini relays can be seen in the rear part in front of the bike alarm. This picture also shows my air hoses. There is one outlet in the rear and one in the front and the compressor is mounted under the plastic cover plate of the rear compartment and therefore not visible in this picture.
The spiral cable contains wires for pillion's iPhone charging and music listening in case she wants to listen to her own stuff and talk her own phone calls through her own Baehr Basic.
The good old Baehr XLintercom sits there on top of the left sidecase. We still use it and are happy with it.  

This pretty much covers the principle of  how I did my electrical connections. If the LT had the CAN bus I'm sure I would use the same principle. The main idea is to keep the extras separate from the bike electricals. However there are some points where a connection is needed. The most important connection points are:
- pilot current for the main 80 A relay, taken from the dash light
- pilot current for the auxiliary driving lights, taken from the bike high beam
- pilot current for the trailer isolation relays (turn signals, tail light and brake light). In case something goes wrong with the trailer wiring the isolation relay protects the bike wiring.
In a CAN bus bike some of the above mentioned connections might need to be done a bit otherwise but basically the biggest problem for me with the new K 1600's would be the lack of space for all the extras as well as the radically smaller alternator (840 W -> 580 W) which would most likely be dropped on it's knees with half of my gadgets 😉

If any questions arise please comment on the blog or email directly ari.ignatius@gmail.com

Organizing and improving the trunk

The trunk of the K 1200 LT has at least three points that seem to be bothering the owners by breaking down. 

Those points are the vanity mirror, the strap fixing point and the trunk latch. I have also seen one case where the hinges have been broken but I really don't know how that has happened so it is hard to offer any fixing to that issue.

Let's start from the easiest improvement.
The original length of the lid strap is too long. It allows the trunk lid to open too far towards front. If you lose your grip of the lid when opening it and it "falls open" freely, in many cases the fixing point of the strap in the trunk base breaks down. This is because the lid is rather heavy and gains momentum when falling freely open.

This is the fix! 

Simply fold the strap again and make another loop so that the strap becomes slightly shorter. If you are not comfortable with needle and thread ask your better half to assist!

So that the your lid opens slightly over 90 degrees, enough to stay open by itself but not enough for it to gain enough momentum to break the aluminum lower fixing point.

Probably the most common failure of the LT trunk is the broken vanity mirror hinge. The mirror is held up by a magnet and if you ride your bike to a bump with empty trunk and there is no support from the luggage, the mirror flips open and quite often breaks the plastic hinge. I broke mine quite early and got a replacement under warranty from the dealer. I figured that these will not be handed over to me on annual basis so something needed to be done.

I added a stretch band that my wife donated to me and fastened it with boat canvas fasteners.

Here is a better view of the canvas fastener and in the same picture you can see my one 12 V power socket with USB converter.

 

This shows what I have hidden behind the mirror cover. My bike being bought in 2004 it still had the nice leather folder for the bike documents. This you can see on the right. The gadget on the left is my power bank. This has enough power to jump start the bike in case the bike battery is dead. Here you can also see that I had to trim some plastic off of the lid since in order to fit the power bank in place.

Here is the power bank. In the bottom of the storage box I have one more 12 V outlet with USB charger to keep the power bank charged. 

Here is the bottom of the storage box with the USB charger.

In the front wall of the trunk I have a storage space for my first aid kit and the other bag holds the rain cover for my Russell leather seats.

Like this. Another donation from my wife holds these things in place....

..together with a thin aluminium L-profile that makes a bottom support for the items.

The third and most expensive problem with LT trunk is the syndrome of the broken latch. The latch can break when you have slightly overfilled your trunk and then you try to close it by applying extra force to the latch. The material of the latch is some kind of "cheap metal" which is very difficult if not impossible to fix. From the dealer the only fix is to buy the complete trunk lid assembly. Not cheap...

There were two aftermarket kits available for the LT trunk latch. One set for reinforcing the existing mechanism "Fix It Before It Breaks" and the other one to replace the already broken latch.  Unfortunately the site LT Trunk Latch.com no longer exists and the manufacturer Evan Guy sold out all his sets already back in 2017.

These were the parts for the "Fix-It-Before-It-Breaks" set.

And this is how they looked after installation. I have had this set since 2009 and it really works.

However, there is a simple pre-emptive  measure that can be done in order to make the latch breakage less probable.  

From the factory the locking mechanism has both steel pins and steel hooks to pull down the lid. You can hear the unpleasant scraping sound of the metal against metal when closing it.

What I did already years before purchasing the latch kit above was to add plastic tubes around the pins of the lid lock counter piece.

The tube that I used was the harder type pneumatic plastic pipe. Inner diameter accorsing to the pin...5 or 6 mm if I remember correct.

Since the counter piece (pin) diameter increases you must grind off 1-2 mm from the locking hooks. Otherwise locking the lid applies excessive pressure to the locking mechanism and also grinds a groove in your new plastic axle in no time. In my bike I have changed the plastic shaft covers maybe 2 times during the past 200000 km. 

While I was improving my trunk I decided to add some lighting to it. This was simple with a led strip with adhesive. 

I simply stole the 12 volts from the OEM trunk light. 

This picture shows my rain gear storage which is between the backwards relocated trunk and the passenger seat. The passenger backrest needed to be moved upwards some 20 mm in order to have access to this new space. (See it here)