I recently read a review of the "Comagination headlight modulator with solid state relay" on Webikeworld.com.
http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/headlight-modulator/dual-modulator.htm
It sounded like a very interesting product, with several benefits:
1) headlight modulator (duh!) for increased visibility (can be set to modulate either the high beam or low beam).
2) solid-state relay that provides power directly to the headlights from the battery, thus increasing bulb brightness by reducing voltage loss through the thin gauge factory wiring and theoretically increasing switch gear life.
What's not to love, right? It makes the headlights brighter, makes them go blinky-blinky, and makes the headlight switch last longer. Sign me up.
My new bike has two headlights- a low beam and separate high beam (both H7 bulbs), so I ordered the dual H7 kit. My kit arrived today, and I got it home, unpacked it, read through the instructions, looked at the bike, and became thoroughly confused. There were not two, but four female H7 bulb connectors on the harness. I shot a quick e-mail to Phil at Comagination asking what was up. He responded almost immediately, indicating that the "dual H7" kit is for bikes with two high beam bulbs, not two total bulbs. Doh! That should would have been nice to know- this is not mentioned anywhere on the website. Not to worry says Phil- I can just leave one low and one high beam connector disconnected and it will work just fine.
OK- no problem. Other than having paid an extra $20 for a more complex kit than I needed, it should still work. I was too excited to get it installed, and for $20 I wasn't going to mess with returning it and getting the other kit. So out to the garage I went. I pulled the female connector off the high beam bulb and discovered the next problem. The pin spacing on the Kawasaki connector and bulb is wider than that on the Comagination harness. Huh? How is this possible? Another e-mail to Phil, and another quick reply indicating that Kawasaki, in their infinite wisdom, use an adapter between the bulb and the harness that changes the pin spacing (this can't be seen from behind the fairing- it just looks like the back of the bulb). Phil instructed me to cut the brass spade connectors out of the black plastic carriers and just plug them individually into the pins on the bulb (but don't let them touch!). OK- no problem. A little work with the utility knife and the spade connectors were promptly liberated from the plastic.
I plugged in one set of high beam and low beam connectors, plugged in one positive L and H into the factory female connector, and temporarily ran the positive and negative leads back and connected them to the battery. I turned the key, fired up the bike, and... nothing. No lights. No high beams, no low beams, nothing. No problem, I must have connected to the negative instead of the positive terminals on the factory connectors. I switched the wiring around, and now the low beam worked but not the high beam. More fiddling... aha! the high beams are ON! and they're blinking! Hooray!!!! Wait a minute, what happened to my low beams? More monkeying around- more frustration. There did not appear to be a combination that worked correctly.
To elaborate a bit, the way the Ninja headlights work from the factory is as follows- low beam side is always on regardless of switch position (low or high beam) and the high beam side also comes on when the headlight switch is move to the high beam position.
Time to get hold of Phil for the third time today. I gave him a call, and he explained that the relay is designed so that either the low beams or the high beams can be on, but not both at once. This is supposedly a safety feature to prevent overloading the circuitry in the event that higher wattage bulbs are used. He conceded that it's rare for a bike to have the high beams and low beams on at the same time, but some bikes are set up this way. Apparently the Ninja 650R is one of those bikes. Great. After some head scratching and brainstorming, what we came up with is that the only way a headlight modulator will work on this bike while maintaining the factory functionality (high and low beams on simultaneously) is to wire only the bike's high beam circuit to the modulator/relay kit. Basically, I'd need to leave the low beam circuit alone (so it would get it's power and switching from the factory wiring) and run the high beam bulb off the relay/modulator kit. This way, the relay kit won't try to turn off the low beam when the high beam is activated.
Whew! Two e-mails and one phone call later, I've come to realize that I ordered the wrong kit (twice as many outputs as I need) and will also only be able to realize the benefit of the solid-state relay wiring on the high beam side if I want to keep the lows functional all the time (which I do).
After all this monkeying around, it was time to actually do some riding so I didn't get it installed today, but I'm confident that I now know how to get it hooked up properly. I did briefly get it to go blinky-blinky earlier, so I know the kit actually works. When do finally get it installed I'll post part II, but I wanted to document where I am so far, because there are some key things that need to be pointed out about this kit that are not mentioned ANYWHERE on the Comagination site:
1) The "single or dual H4 or H7 kits" refer to the number of high beam bulbs on the bike, not total bulbs.
2) some (all?) Kawasaki's use a bizarre adapter between the bulb and harness that will necessitate cutting the spade connectors out of their plastic carriers. Not a big deal, but this would certainly be worth mentioning in the installation instructions.
3) the kit WILL NOT work on bikes that have both high and low beams on when the switch is in the 'high beam' position. This would also have been very nice to know in advance.
All in all, if the kit modulates the high beam as it claims to do, I'll still be satisfied with it, but I'm definitely not thrilled with the thoroughness of the product description on the website, nor with the installation instructions. None of this is stuff that I should have discovered on my own and had to contact the company three separate times during installation.
More to come...
http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/headlight-modulator/dual-modulator.htm
It sounded like a very interesting product, with several benefits:
1) headlight modulator (duh!) for increased visibility (can be set to modulate either the high beam or low beam).
2) solid-state relay that provides power directly to the headlights from the battery, thus increasing bulb brightness by reducing voltage loss through the thin gauge factory wiring and theoretically increasing switch gear life.
What's not to love, right? It makes the headlights brighter, makes them go blinky-blinky, and makes the headlight switch last longer. Sign me up.
My new bike has two headlights- a low beam and separate high beam (both H7 bulbs), so I ordered the dual H7 kit. My kit arrived today, and I got it home, unpacked it, read through the instructions, looked at the bike, and became thoroughly confused. There were not two, but four female H7 bulb connectors on the harness. I shot a quick e-mail to Phil at Comagination asking what was up. He responded almost immediately, indicating that the "dual H7" kit is for bikes with two high beam bulbs, not two total bulbs. Doh! That should would have been nice to know- this is not mentioned anywhere on the website. Not to worry says Phil- I can just leave one low and one high beam connector disconnected and it will work just fine.
OK- no problem. Other than having paid an extra $20 for a more complex kit than I needed, it should still work. I was too excited to get it installed, and for $20 I wasn't going to mess with returning it and getting the other kit. So out to the garage I went. I pulled the female connector off the high beam bulb and discovered the next problem. The pin spacing on the Kawasaki connector and bulb is wider than that on the Comagination harness. Huh? How is this possible? Another e-mail to Phil, and another quick reply indicating that Kawasaki, in their infinite wisdom, use an adapter between the bulb and the harness that changes the pin spacing (this can't be seen from behind the fairing- it just looks like the back of the bulb). Phil instructed me to cut the brass spade connectors out of the black plastic carriers and just plug them individually into the pins on the bulb (but don't let them touch!). OK- no problem. A little work with the utility knife and the spade connectors were promptly liberated from the plastic.
I plugged in one set of high beam and low beam connectors, plugged in one positive L and H into the factory female connector, and temporarily ran the positive and negative leads back and connected them to the battery. I turned the key, fired up the bike, and... nothing. No lights. No high beams, no low beams, nothing. No problem, I must have connected to the negative instead of the positive terminals on the factory connectors. I switched the wiring around, and now the low beam worked but not the high beam. More fiddling... aha! the high beams are ON! and they're blinking! Hooray!!!! Wait a minute, what happened to my low beams? More monkeying around- more frustration. There did not appear to be a combination that worked correctly.
To elaborate a bit, the way the Ninja headlights work from the factory is as follows- low beam side is always on regardless of switch position (low or high beam) and the high beam side also comes on when the headlight switch is move to the high beam position.
Time to get hold of Phil for the third time today. I gave him a call, and he explained that the relay is designed so that either the low beams or the high beams can be on, but not both at once. This is supposedly a safety feature to prevent overloading the circuitry in the event that higher wattage bulbs are used. He conceded that it's rare for a bike to have the high beams and low beams on at the same time, but some bikes are set up this way. Apparently the Ninja 650R is one of those bikes. Great. After some head scratching and brainstorming, what we came up with is that the only way a headlight modulator will work on this bike while maintaining the factory functionality (high and low beams on simultaneously) is to wire only the bike's high beam circuit to the modulator/relay kit. Basically, I'd need to leave the low beam circuit alone (so it would get it's power and switching from the factory wiring) and run the high beam bulb off the relay/modulator kit. This way, the relay kit won't try to turn off the low beam when the high beam is activated.
Whew! Two e-mails and one phone call later, I've come to realize that I ordered the wrong kit (twice as many outputs as I need) and will also only be able to realize the benefit of the solid-state relay wiring on the high beam side if I want to keep the lows functional all the time (which I do).
After all this monkeying around, it was time to actually do some riding so I didn't get it installed today, but I'm confident that I now know how to get it hooked up properly. I did briefly get it to go blinky-blinky earlier, so I know the kit actually works. When do finally get it installed I'll post part II, but I wanted to document where I am so far, because there are some key things that need to be pointed out about this kit that are not mentioned ANYWHERE on the Comagination site:
1) The "single or dual H4 or H7 kits" refer to the number of high beam bulbs on the bike, not total bulbs.
2) some (all?) Kawasaki's use a bizarre adapter between the bulb and harness that will necessitate cutting the spade connectors out of their plastic carriers. Not a big deal, but this would certainly be worth mentioning in the installation instructions.
3) the kit WILL NOT work on bikes that have both high and low beams on when the switch is in the 'high beam' position. This would also have been very nice to know in advance.
All in all, if the kit modulates the high beam as it claims to do, I'll still be satisfied with it, but I'm definitely not thrilled with the thoroughness of the product description on the website, nor with the installation instructions. None of this is stuff that I should have discovered on my own and had to contact the company three separate times during installation.
More to come...
