Plunged into darkness

[wjbertrand]

I haven't had an experience like this since I sold my Norton decades ago. I decided to ride STat down to my Mom's in San Marcos on Saturday and surprise her for Mother's day. I had a very nice visit and left about 7:00PM last night, traffic was quite light and I made good time getting back to Ventura, including a stop to change the faceshield after the sun went down.

I was almost home and got off the freeway at my customary short cut ramp in Camarillo which connects to East Ventura through some farm land roads. There's little lighting on this road so is quite dark. While switching between hi and low beams both beams of both head lamps suddenly went dark. Completely dark! :eek: Here I am hurtling along at 65 mph in total darkness. Scared the crap out of me. Flipping the hi/low switch back and forth a dozen times indicated that there was no way the lights were coming back any time soon. ****. :mad:

I decided to try and pull over, a scary endevor when you can't see the shoulder very well, but I was able to confirm that the tail lights were still on and I also noticed the little parking/position lights above and outside each head lamp were still lit. This is a good feature on the 1300 as I would still be visible from the front, even if I couldn't see where I was going. The other nice feature is the 4-way flashers in a situation like this. Since I was only a few miles from home (thank god for small favors) I decided to press on slowly and carefully and not try to trouble shoot this on the dark shoulder of a narrow road.

After some tupperware removal and verification that the 10A head lamp fuse had not blown, I decided my ancient Kriss modulator must have crapped out. Bad design I thought, it should "fail safe" not the way it apparently had. By-passing the modulator, sure enough I had a right head light again but the left one still didn't work. Trying a known good bulb in the left socket gave the same result. Uh oh, it seemed I now had a Honda problem instead of or in addition to a Kriss problem. Crap. :(

After futzing around a bit I discovered a second 10A headlight fuse in an adjacent fuse box. ***? :confused: I pulled that one and sure enough it had blown to hell. Replacing it brought STat's left light back. Turns out on the ST1300 the left and right headlights are fused separately. I never dug into this aspect on the 1100 so I don't know if it's the same or not. Reconnecting the modulator after replacing the fuse proved that it was working normally again as well.

The reason both lights went out is because of the way the Kriss modulator is connected. It connects to one of the two OEM head lamp sockets and the "Ys" out to the two headlamps with it's own sockets. One of the OEM sockets is therefore left unused after installation. This routes all of the current for both lights through one socket, the left one in this case. I wondered about this design when I first installed this thing in SThenia about 8 years ago but there had never been a problem and decided it must be OK. Maybe the 1100 uses a higher amp fuse than the 13?

I see three possible solutions:

1. Connect some jumpers from the unused OEM socket to the Kriss connector so that the power going through the modulator and to the bulbs can be shared by both circuits/fuses.

2. Put in a slightly higher rated fuse 12A or 15A to replace the 10A one.

3. Pitch the Kriss unit and get one with a different design, or do they all connect this way?

What says the WOTL, considering that options 1 & 2 are basically free.

[nm6r]

I would pitch the headlight modulator for a couple reasons. It has already proven to degrade the reliability of your ST. This very same thing happened to a friend on his GoldWing. It's a very dangerous situation to needlessly be put into.



I argue the usefullness of a headlight modulator. They are annoying to fellow riders and oncoming traffic. I know the arguement is that way the oncoming traffic sees you. And if they misinterpret your flashing headlight as a flash to proceed in front of you, then your attempt was actually counterproductive. Add lights if you want to be more visible from the front.

I feel the same about brake light modulators. Give me a constant on, not flashing. That's what all drivers recognize as stepping on the brakes. Add another brake light if you want to emphasize braking.



Ray
http://www.frontiernet.net/~st1300rider/smile04Bikerwheelie.gif

[Dorian]

I'm in agreement that you should toss the Kriss unit. Its design is dangerous and you blew a fuse for some reason... have you figured out why it blew yet?

No argument for or against the modulator from me, I know they work. I used to be dead set against them, but now that my wife is piloting her own bike I'm rethinking a whole bunch of safety issues. I have noticed in the past couple of weeks how folks don't quite give the buffer zone to the ST that they do to the GL. And the ST does not have a highly visible profile.

[dond]

The reason the fuse blew is 'cuz both HLs are working on the same circuit with that POS Kriss inSTead of separate as Honda built them. I know Jeff can figure out how to improve the device tho' :-)


The profile of the ST1300 is very similar to the profile of the cop bikes in this area and the recogition is obvious in the actions of aware cagers. 8-) I do use a modulator WHEN APPROPRIATE.

[wjbertrand]

I'm in agreement that you should toss the Kriss unit. Its design is dangerous and you blew a fuse for some reason... have you figured out why it blew yet?

No argument for or against the modulator from me, I know they work. I used to be dead set against them, but now that my wife is piloting her own bike I'm rethinking a whole bunch of safety issues. I have noticed in the past couple of weeks how folks don't quite give the buffer zone to the ST that they do to the GL. And the ST does not have a highly visible profile.

After doing a little math, I know exactly why that fuse blew. Since A=Watts/Voltage, a single 60 watt bulb (Sylvania ExtraVision) on high, assuming 12 volts, is drawing 5 amps. Two bulbs on the same circuit pull 10A, the exact rating of the fuse. There's probably a little surge when the high beam is first selected before the filament fully heats up. That's when it blew, just as I selected high beam. I also know why I never had this problem on the 1100 with the exact same modulator and bulbs installed - the ST1100 runs 15A fuses to the head lamps. Not sure why Honda down rated the fuses, perhaps to discourage the use of ultra high output bulbs, what with the plastic headlamp lens and all. There are wires of the same gauge in my fuse block that are running 15 and 20A fuses so I'm betting I'd be OK running a 15A fuse in there as a temporary fix. Gonna check more into this though. Given the math, I don't expect the 10A replacement I put in there to last too long!

[wjbertrand]

LiSTers,

I've been analyzing my "Lucas Moment" Sunday night. Recall that the Kriss
modulator routes current for both head lamps through only one HL circuit. What I really think cause the fuse to blow was that I recall switching to high beam that time a little sloppily and if the switch is held just right you can light all four filaments, both high and both low beams at the same time, that's 16.4 A, best case! Even putting in a 15A fuse will be insufficient.

As a result, I tried using some jumper wires to share the load from the unused OEM HL socket over to the input of the Kriss unit where it's attached to the other OEM HL socket. This experiment did not work. Upon initially hooking everything up, I turned the key on and the bike passed the smoke test, I switched to high beam and, using a bright flashlight aimed at the photo sensor, discovered that the modulator would not modulate. Hmmmmm, here's the wierd part though; First I could not switch back to low beam, the HLs stayed on high regardless of the switch position! When I turned the key off, the HLs, tails and dash light ALL stayed on!!! I even had the key out of the ignition and in my hand!!!!!! I had to unplug the jumpers to get the lights to go off. If I plugged them right back in the lights stayed off until I turned the key on again.

At this point, I realized that my knowledge level of electrical systems had been exceeded and I dumped the jumpers and hooked everything back up according to the Kriss instructions. Everything is working again but now with a 15A fuse temporarily in place. Someone mentioned the need for diodes or something?