Brake Light Flasher

Wanting to have a module that works like this, Two or three flash then steady of your rear light when you press your brake to alert behind you that you are entirely braking or stopping, then you got to this site, Introducing the third brake light system module that is connected in series with your existing brake light wiring to have this kind of an add on to your brake light indicator.

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Gas Float Problem

You find yourself filling your motorcycle gas tank full and yet the fuel gauge indicate an empty tank? Why not check the fuel float bowl for the reason that the float switch is always dip into the gas corroding the contact. You already check the wiring and find no problem, check the terminal and connector but still in good condition, and you thought of checking the fuel gauge for problem but still in vain, it is time to check the FUEL FLOAT inside your gas tank for intermittent and or contact problem.

Due to the fact that the gas nowadays contain alcohol content, to which causes some problems on fuel lines especially rubber that gets harden and fuel float sensor that gets corroded.

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6 Volts Motorcycle Regulator

This circuit was modified by a friend (Tom ) for his 6 volt honda vintage bike CT90 that was needing a voltage regulator. He derived this from my previous post of 12 volt single phase motorcycle voltage regulator FULL WAVE. With only minimal changes with the values created the hard to find regulator for 6 volt charging system.





CIRCUIT CHANGES and description


Use:6 volt Regulator Rectifier for 1976 Honda CT90 (permanent magnet alternator)
Base circuit:"full wave regulator" single phase  12 volts regulator
Circuit mods:Results were collected with the following modifications to accommodate a 6 volt systems:

R2 & R4 values = 470 ohms
C1 = 22uF 50v
SCR's = S6025L 25amp 600 volt Heat sinks a must even with short testing
Bridge rectifier = purchased 35 amp 600 volt AC, 1000 volt DC


Zener diodes as shown below
R3 values as shown below

Regulation output as shown:No load & Headlight on

With zener 1N4733 (5.1v)various RPM's

R3 2.7K ohms 6.6v stable    5.9v +/- .25v load.
R3 3.3K ohms 6.9v stable    6.3v +/- .25v load
R3 3.6K ohms 7.1v stable    6.4 +/- .25v load

With zener 1N4734 (5.6v)various RPM's

R3 2.7K ohms7.3v stable   6.6v +/- .25v load*
R3 3.3K ohms7.6v stable   6.9v +/- .25v load
R3 3.6K ohms7.8v stable   7.1v +/- .25v load

Thanks to Sir Tom, cheers mate.

Picture borrowed from Sir TOM who actually made the 6 volt system 

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Aluminum Color Remover

More often when we buy motorcycle aftermarket spare parts, we come up with such like aluminum or anodized aluminum with colors, and very few are original aluminum. Anodized aluminum actually is made to just increase natural corrosion resistance from other chemical, but then when the dye color fades due to wear, looks degrade heavily. So why not remove the color and surface the real aluminum color out of it. Let us take for example the picture on left is dye with BLUE color. There are now areas with faded color, We want it to look nicer so we will take out that blue color to

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Increasing Performance (simple trick)

To increase the power of your motorcycle's engine generally requires some part of mechanical knowledge or deep pockets filled with money, on the other-side is relative easy to fake a engine power increase. The easiest, and probably the cheapest, and most effective way, is to change the final reduction ratio of your final drive. This can be done by changing your gear to race gear or simply by increasing the size of the rear sprocket, or reducing the size of the front sprocket. 

With a help of online gear sprocket combination calculator like gearing commander, simply input your desire sprocket and it will automatically generate all data from rpm againts speed, custom setup versus the oem set, you can even know the right rpm of your motorcycle in relation to speed, etc. etc. etc.

With changing your final drive reduction ratio you can give the impression that you motorcycle has more horsepower.

NOTE: The trick is not all combination will give power to your motorcycle, we are just re assigning to where we want the power to come in a desired RPM ramge of the bike, we cannot simply of course have both, the acceleration and top end, we change sprocket combination, for drive ability on street and highways. We can have acceleration but poor top end, or top end but lost acceleration, nonetheless, trying is everything. it is cheap, and yet easy to replace if you do not want the set-up and revert to stock combination.

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Reusable Oil Filter

OIL FILTER MOD

 Been thinking of a way to minimize cost of my change oil change filter routine, that due to prices increasing on parts needed to maintain our engine..i have developed such filter that is useable and the only thing needed is the oil, that the filter may be used overtime, and not needed to replace it every routine..So why not make a reuseable Oil Filter out from stainless wire mess.

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4-stroke Engine Condition Through Exhaust Smoke

Every single cylinder motorcycle 4 stroke engine can easily be diagnose if it is healthy or not by identifying the color of the smoke emitted at the end of its muffler. Some say replace this and replace this part, but in the end, the smoke is still there. It must be identified first before getting into conclusion for the repair.


1. Colourless or slightly blue smoke from exhaust
This means that your bike is very good condition. What you can assume is your fuel/air mixture is at the right composition and everything is well burnt in 

your combustion chamber.

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Led Tail/Brake Light Evolve

Filament bulb tail brake light bulb often failed due to the vibration at the back of any motorcycle, and it is un noticeable by the rider up until they are warned that they do not have a brake light to alert motorist at the back that you are stopping. I was once caught with a busted rear end light, thus this keeps me think of "Why not replace it with LED bulbs instead of filament bulb". In this way, i can conserve battery power, more reactive light at the rear when stopping, Yes led reacts faster than filament bulbs.

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Horn Interrupter (flasher)

Motorcycle horn is basically the least seen to be modified with regards to the sound, one momentarily press of the horn switch, one sound, while as long press emits a continuous annoying sound. Why not make it lively  by just putting an interrupter (Flasher) to alternately on/off the horn to produce a machine gun like sound when the switch is press. Using a 555 timer ic that will be configured as an astable multivibrator, and a relay that can handle 10-15 amps, will do this trick. Moreover you do not even have to cut any existing wire for this to work and can revert the HORN system back to normal, in case it is not allowed in your area by the traffic law enforcers.

OVERVIEW 

Horn works very simple, the negative supply is the path that is being used on the HORN switch rather than the positive line. Why? perhaps to lessen and avoid voltage spike that may affect the ignition when the horn is activated drawing large current just to move its diaphragm to create the sound, such as the CDI and ECU of fuel injected machines, i may be wrong here,still that was my findings about the horn wiring on a motorcycle.

Photo shown is the basic motorcycle horn wiring without automotive relay. Basically an additional relay is fitted by others just to preserve the switch contact from wear since the configuration shown, the switch will always spark corroding its contact.

In this kind of setup, one momentary press of the horn switch, one sound emitted by the horns, one long press, one long annoying sound.

Here is a hint, instead of one press one sound, why not try the one press two successive sound, and one long press, will produce, a flashing or strobing sound. Any IDEA? we'll i have and you came to the right place, and the set-up will be very simple. no need to rewire, and no means of cutting your existing wire, so that in this kind of setup, once you did not appreciate the sound then unplugged the module and plug the horn, you'll basically be back to the original set-up.

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LED Signal Light Bar End (how to make)

Having a handle bar end lights is pretty cool as well as added visibility during night time riding, There are lots of aftermarket part like this and sold almost everywhere at a very reasonable price. There is only one drawback on them, all are battery operated and somehow cannot be modified to work as an additional signal lights. So why not make a customized unit that can be directly tap on your motorcycle voltage supply as well as to your signal lights path to make them flash and just lit steady when signal is deactivated.

Many article posted here actually have photos and videos showing my bar end at work, and many of you are thinking how to make one, well sorry for the late responses. This article and post will show at least an idea on how to produce your own glowing bar end lights.

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3 Phase Voltage regulator (SERIES TYPE)

CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION

The circuit is straight forward, It is not a shunt regulator, but a SERIES type of voltage regulator. D1 to D6 comprises the RECTIFIER diode which converts the AC generated by the 3 phase stator, Q1, Q2 and Q3 as the switch that controls the flow of voltage and current to charge the battery, Q1 and Q2 must be heatsink, since this type of regulator is in series mode, and no shunting will happen on all the windings, thus LOAD is particulary important on this kind of regulator.
IC2 inverting input has a two resistor in a differential way thus R4 and R5 is very critical on this design so the value must be at least 2% tolerance. When the IC2 input sense a high voltage, it switches ON Q4 and immediately allow it to control those power transistor flow via Q3, the circuit in RED is like a faucet that controls the flow of water. The circuit in GREEN are the voltage sense circuitry, and The Blue box is the source voltages with the rectifying diodes.

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Suzuki Raider Shim Table

We all know Suzuki Raider both 125cc and the 150cc version do not have adjusting nut to adjust the valve clearance, but instead a SHIM is inserted and used to vary the clearance between the valve and the cams. Shown in the photo is the table of the shim selection for the raider, satria series of suzuki.

Upper table show the intake side



Lower table is for the exhaust.

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Understanding Motorcycle Switches

Ignition  performance (trick)

Understanding Switches of your motorcycle

We all know the characteristic of every switch out there that turns on and turns off the supply of any electronic equipment. They operate in such a way that the two contacts just slide with each other, and therefore prone to corrosion, moisture and degration. This in turns lower the efficiency since the contact is not 100 percent in contact with one another. More often, if the switch handle current more than their rated characteristics, then it heats up building more corrosion and blackening, producing more contact problems. A slight increase on their resistance, produces problems to current flow.

Now let us examine all possible switches there is on a motorcycle. What are they and what they are switching?

let us start, (add more on comments if i missed something)

IGNITION SWITCH
HORN switch
TURN SIGNAL switch
BREAK LIGHT switch (front and rear)
HEADLIGHT switch
HEADLIGHT BEAM switch (HI and LOW)

Now we will analyze each and one of them, i'll start from the bottom.

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Shogun DC-CDI schematic

The picture shows an OEM dc-cdi of a Suzuki shogun 125cc that prior on my recent posting about kawasaki OEM dc-cdi, they are almost identical, parts used are almost exactly the same although in a different layout and or placement on the PCB. However, i recently found out the two dc-cdi differs on the design of their HV generator.


Digital DC-CDI by the way uses microprocessor on the pulse shaping circuit to maintain integrity and reliability of giving out right timing all the time when the spark plug will fire the combustible material inside the combustion, it is also to where the ignition map of the engine is stored for accurate timing. Many OEM uses MCU specific for their design and no available datasheet for us to understand it fully. This OEM upon analyzing the entire board has an Rx, Tx, and ground port, and if only i have the datasheet of the IC, perhaps we can be able to extract the data and dump it to a computer for further enhancement.

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Raider R150 Wiring Diagram

Making modification on raider R150 electrical is difficult without the right electrical diagram. All bikes have a color coded wire for easy tracing when doing electrical works. Prior on my post with the FL125 (shogun electrical wiring diagram), in by request, wanting to have the diagram of raider r150.

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FL125 wiring (Suzuki Shogun)

Troubleshooting wiring of any scooter or under bone type of motorcycles is easier if we have a handy schematic of the bike. When adding accessories, we need to determine what color of the wire is the right path of tapping anything to avoid electrical problems, such as blown fuse, wire heating up, etc.

Shown is the full wiring diagram of FL125 brand motorcycle by suzuki.

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KOSO speedometer panel

Koso speedometer panel for motorcycle are so cool when fitted to the bike, in replacement for those analog type. With its digital display and colorful backlight. A head turner indeed. But when it broke down..i mean get defective, it is like a disposable item.

Shown is a Koso speedometer panel for yamaha mio. A friend send it to me by parcel in request for me to look at it if there is a way to fixed the panel.

Unfortunately, at the end of this page, you will see why i said its kind of a disposable panel, but if there is a way to find the right program, yes a program, a firmware for its MCU perhaps, there is a slight chance it can be revived and repaired.

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5 LED Motorcycle Headlight (review)

Led headlight for motorcycle are in the beginning of their trial and error process that many claim a thumbs up, these are those users who actually fitted it on their motorbike to name a few are yamaha mio, kawasaki fury, honda wave, and select unit with enough headroom on their headlight assembly. Variants come out in the open on three onboard high power leds, and as shown on the photo is a five led type with 5mm leds circled at the edge as to form a circle of light when main device is at the OFF position.

This article is just a review of the said led headlight for motorcycle and even for cars too but not as headlights but as an auxillary lighting.

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Wireless helmet brake light (doorbell hack)

I got an idea with the first post HERE on how to make such related gadget out from those cheap wireless doorbell assembly made by china. With some minor modification of the circuit can be configured to work as a Wireless Stoplight add on for motorcycle.

Photo shown is the donor gadget, transmitter on the left and receiver on the right side. The supply voltage of the transmitter is 12 volts, and can be directly tap on the motorcycle stoplight supply path, that when the brake is press, will enable it to transmit signal towards its receiver.If we analyze their circuit, the transmitter push button switch just enable and disable the supply, and when used on the brake light, the switch will be omitted, so no other modification is needed for it to work on this hack.

For the Receiver, the sound emitted by the module of course is not needed, and the sound chip must be disregard, and in its place, a switching transistor and a pair of 3 RED LED array is to be used. The receiver voltage supply is actually  3 volts only, Three led in series cannot be powered by that voltage so led forward voltage must be selected. In this hack, i'll be replacing the 3 volts up to 3.7 volts such as cellphone battery so that no other additional circuit that will waste battery power.

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Led Brake Light

Constant current LED brake light tail light module. Ever wonder how to make your filament bulb type tail / brake light to all leds, the solution is to use a constant current led driver with additional mosfet as switch for brake light so that the usual tail light will switch from dimmed to full brightness on the leds. More often, enthusiast uses just again the limiting resistor type of controlling the brightness of the light emitting diode installed on the bike, as i had said from all of my previous post about led, in order for them to stay consistent and works longer, a constant current driver will protect your led installed.

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Oil Drain Plug Thread fix

Been quite a while not having to share with works i've done with my shogun..until up recently i have troubles with one of my drain plug getting loose after my change oil routine. Many times, as far as i know, this area of the engine is prone to loosing thread with the removal of the bolt and during the tightening series, and other's only solution was to OVERSIZE it to the next allowable range just to have it fix, then so on and so forth..what if it get loose again, This i dont like to know.

Aluminum is so prone to this problem, especially when the engine is cold. I usually change my oil during morning after firing the engine for 5 minutes, but then i forgot this routine then this what happens.


Anyway, this is my way of fixing my loose drain plug..

The picture shows how the thread was badly worn,

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Digital Tachometer

This is my digital tachometer i made a long time ago on my suzuki shogun 125cc and still in active up to date. The tachometer incorporates a programmable shift lights, the red line can be programmed depends on where to shift at a certified RPM...watch the video to see it in action.

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Super Park light

Been thinking of using 5mm leds as park light and signal lights as well, in replacement for filament type ones to conserve battery energy and minimize discharge activity to prolong its life..and came my first revision that uses the 5mm leds as park lights.

FIRST revision LED park lights.............still i used it for almost 2 years on my bike without no problem but then since i am an enthusiast and craving for more far ideas, i might think of..came my second revision. An alternating park and signal lights in action

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Universal Battery Charger

Universal battery charger is a type of charger that can be used on almost all possible kind of battery available like SLA (sealed Lead Acid), Lithium-ion (used on laptop batteries), lithium polymer (used on cellphone and small electronic gadget, Ni-cd (nicad) and Ni-Mh (nickel Metal Hydride) batteries used on portable power and hand tools.

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Spark Plug Cap Resistor

I recently encountered another problem with my suzuki ignition, that even if i am kicking the hell on the kick starter wont even nudge or start my bike. Ever since i added this ignition-wire-ground-strap , it became a tester of some sort due to the spark jumping on that shield ground, that from there it is telling me, the PLUG CAP resistor is too corroded to accept even an arc to feed the spark plug GAP. It has been three times i replaced my plug cap. so in the end, instead of buying the same crap, i made a minor modification using that plug cap and a resistor of 2.2k used in every electronic circuits.

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Suzuki SHOOTER 115 FI

Follow up post about axelo 125 FI, unfortunately, suzuki ph will be introducing this commuter bike soon. Suzuki Shooter 115 FI, a 115cc underbone motorcycle equipped with fuel injected ignition, and will be first by suzuki to be introduced in the philippines. With the body i think derive from axelo 125, the engine is entirely different design fron their predecessor, smash titan 115cc.

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Shogun Axelo FI 2013

Suzuki Ph is introducing a new model soon and will be called SHOGUN AXELO. This model was been released all over asia-pacific such as indonesia, vietnam, malaysia and thailand, and long overdue to enter the market.

Equipped with a 125cc engine alike its predecessor, the shogun tulisan, This variant will have the first FUEL INJECTED underbone commuter bike that will be released by suzuki ph.

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Max16820att high power led string driver

Led headlights are beginning to emerged from the open although there is still no true led headlight available in the market, they are still on the experimental stages for beam, focus, reliability, and if there was, it will be expensive.So why not experiment with leds and come up with your own. Using one Ic and some discrete components, you can do so.

 In this page, tried using max16820at+t by maxim

The MAX16819/MAX16820, step-down constant-current high-brightness LED (HB LED) drivers provide a cost-effective solution for automotive interior/exterior lighting, architectural and ambient lighting, LED bulbs such as MR16 and other LED illumination applications.

The MAX16819/MAX16820 operate from a 4.5V to 28V input voltage range and feature a 5V/10mA on-board regulator. A high-side current-sense resistor adjusts the output current and a dedicated PWM input (DIM) enables a wide range of pulsed dimming.

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Battery Voltage Indicator

Many enthusiast and motorcycle rider ride their bike, using electric starter to start the engine undoubtly knowing the battery gone flat, charging system might have gone down but no visual indicator that the system indeed is not charging or have problems...so in the first place why not build one to visualize you anything bout  battery voltage on board the bike.

Using pic microcontroller and little components, you can create one like as shown.

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Programmable DC-CDI test

I was inspired to make and test a programmable cdi on my bench to see how it works realtime. By creating a simulator that will produce both a pulse and the speed of the output, to vary the spark at a certain RPM, we can determine if the cdi under test do have a LIMIT.

(thanks to sir thierry of france with this, he inspired me more to fully understand everything.)

Photo shown is a homemade DC-CDI,  got it from a site, more on that later.

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7 segment gear indicator

Having a gear indicator like this one is a very handy visual partner to alert us to what gear we are driving our motorcycle. Some think its un necessary, but sometimes the mind gets blank and forgotten that we are driving at the wrong gear position.

The photo shown with separate gear indicator is very common nowadays with cheap bikes, A designated number on the panel tell us the gear position, (think outside the box here)....

Why not put a seven segment display to show the current gear position.

CIRCUIT

I derived the circuit from this seven segment gear indicator. I had built the unit, but not yet incorporate it inside my panel, it is under on my project plan.

This is the circuit i'll be using on this modification and eliminate the old indicator on my panel, consisting of very cheap and few parts readily available at any electronic part store, The heart of the circuit is based on the mighty 4511 , is a BCD to 7-Segment latch/decoder/driver, that will drive the seven segment display. 

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Inside E27 5 Watts Led

I know many of you wondering what's inside a household led lighting such as this one shown on the photo. A 5 watts led light with E27 type socket, same as those CCFL energy saving lamp. They are commonly been found nationwide on hardware store, supermarket and electronic supplies at an affordable price. Being an enthusiast and a DIY'er, i got curious again what was inside this kind of household lighting. I recently bought one for another experimentation and wanted to take a peek inside.

By twisting the diffuser, at last the leds came out and i wasn't surprised at all. 5 pieces of 1 watt led was used to bring out the 5 watts specification of this led lighting. They were soldered on an aluminum piece of PCB, to where they will act as the minimum heatsink, and the violet (purple) fins as the main thermal support for the assembly. Getting deeper onto it, i desoldered the board to the main heatsink and

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Odometer / Mileage Reset (reads 99999.9)

It is the end of the line for my shogun 125cc odometer reading which reads 99999.9 and it is been two weeks from now that it was stuck at that reading, and the only way to revert it back to zero is by injecting a new odometer data on its eeprom by using an eeprom programmer and a corresponding software plus an odometer value calculator that will convert any decimal value to hexadecimal that will be manually type to the specific eeprom address on the software window.

Years back, i posted this kind of panel,

what's inside on this link
Speedometer Panel

looking inside the panel will expose of course the entire board of the speedometer. This is digital and care must be consider handling this to prevent problems later on due to static electricity.

moving on

what we are eyeing is the IC with mark IC5 written on the board, that is the eeprom that store value for the odometer reading.

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