Fitting an alarm LED inside the rev. counter

[J.M.]

I bought the Cyclone V2 alarm for my new bike, the Suzuki GS500 FK4, and decided to try and fit it myself rather than getting someone else to do it. I did have an offer from Tef for him to help me fit it, however, I'm not insured to ride the bike until the beginning of April so it's not going anywhere.

Fitting the alarm has taken forever so far for a number of reasons. One of the longest parts of the job was actually deciding where to put the thing. The one place the alarm would actually fit on this bike was somewhere that the positive/negative wires to the battery couldn't reach. Finally found somewhere else to fit it; it's held there by rather a lot of gaffer tape.

If anyone saw my thread asking which alarm for <£100, you may have seen that I wanted to mount the LED inside of the clocks somewhere. Today, I have done that.

So the first thing to do was to remove the rev counter from the bike. I couldn't be bothered to remove any of the front end of the bike, I'm too lazy. Instead I just put a socket around the nuts at the bottom and used a pair of pliers to loosen it up so that I could remove them by hand. Worked marvellously.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0167.jpg

Next is to unscrew the wires and pull out the back-light bulb. I took a photo just encase I was stupid enough to forget the order to put them back in (even though O, BW and BR is written on the bottom).

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0168.jpg

With those unscrewed I had the rev counter out, it's pictured below with the LED I will be fitting.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0172.jpg

I'm in the kitchen now, I look out of the window, look, it's missing an eye!

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0173.jpg

As you can appreciate, it's been some pretty tiring work up until this point. Time for some lunch. Ladies, if a man ever tells you that he can't cook, believe him. All that crap stuck on the toastie-maker is my lunch. It's still there now. The toasties were.. kind of.. in multiple pieces.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0174.jpg

Okay. Refuelling has been done, it's now time to take the rev counter apart.

I had a quick look on google whilst I was eating my lunch and saw someone in a YouTube video taking their (similar) rev counter apart, to calibrate it. I stole the technique that he was using and used it to open my own.

There's a silver metal tab, coming from the metal cover, which folds over the plastic to hold the cover on. The technique was to use a screwdriver to lift up this tab so that the plastic part comes free.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0175.jpg

With the rev counter assembly taken apart, I had the following result. Please excuse the spelling mistake in the picture; I only just noticed it and I can't be bothered to delete, edit then re-upload it for the sakes of a single letter.

You'll also notice how I've cut the wires coming from the LED. I've done this because there's no other way that I could get the wire to fit through the hole that I'm going to drill for the LED. The LED is one of those which has a wider lip at the top, to hold it in position, and a thinner body to slide in the hole. The connector, however, was too big to fit through the hole I was going to have to drill.

I cut the wires like below so that I could get them through the hole and then attach them back together later.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0178.jpg

I then took the rev counter to the shed where there was a vice and a drill on hand. The rev counter was carefully placed into the vice whilst I carefully drilled through the display. I'm purposefully drilling a hole that is too small so that I can size it correctly by hand, with a circular file. I'm doing that because it's easy to make a hole bigger, but making it smaller is a PITA.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0180.jpg

After drilling the hole, and being careful not to drill through the circuit that I didn't take off, I then set about filing it down to size. This took lots of trial and error, but I had it done within a couple of minutes. By guessing I think that my drill bit was about 2mm from the size that I needed.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0182.jpg

After a little bit of work the LED slotted in to the hole. It slotted in so snugly that I didn't even need to use glue; it was hard to even get it in there!

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0184.jpg

Looks good, no?

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0186.jpg

Next I had to join the original wires back together. If you're using this Show & Tell as a guide to doing this yourself, remember to drill a hole through the rev-counter-casing and thread the wire through this before joining them together. You can *just* see that I've done this in the photo below if you look hard enough. I forgot to take a photo of doing that step.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0187.jpg

Ideally I would have soldered these wires together for extra strength. All of my soldering tips are about dead though; I need to get some more. Well actually I need to get a better soldering iron full stop; we're both useless.

I just twisted the two wires together and then put some electrical tape around them, separately, to ensure that they don't touch and short-circuit.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0188.jpg

I then took it a step further and used the same electrical tape to tape it down to the back of the clocks; just to ensure that there is no movement. Movement = connections coming loose. I don't want that. The below photo also illustrates better how the LED wire goes through the rev-counter-casing.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0189.jpg

Now all of this was done I had to put the rev counter back together. If you're doing this too, ensure that you pull the wire to remove slack whilst you're putting it back together. Also make sure that the wire doesn't cover any of the screw holes. When you're putting it back together remember to flatten the tab back down, to ensure that the metal-cover doesn't come off of the clock.

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/IMAG0190.jpg



Below are two videos (click the image to play them):

This video was taken before I put the assembly back together. I just wanted to test that it was working before I put everything together:

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/th_VIDEO0024.jpg

This other video was taken after everything was put together, but the LED wire had not been put in position yet; it was still running loose. I ran the wire through the bike with all the original wires after filming this video. The purpose of this test was just to make sure that the rev counter was still working; i.e. to check I hadn't broken it

https://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h379/jordanmoore9/Sidney/th_VIDEO0025.jpg



That's all. Let me know what you think.
____________________
2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

[pepperami]

Cool
____________________
I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[paddlesat16]

Whats with the blue LED, didn't you want to go with the more common red?

good install tho
____________________
I once saw a bloke shagging a donkey.... in Saudi arabia. Theory Test Passed 26/10/09 Mod 1 Passed 26/4/10, Mod 2 Passed 7/6/10 Current Bikes Suzuki GSX1400 K5, Aprillia Pegaso 650, Suzuki DR350T.

[J.M.]

[andy_uk]

Looks great!
I'm beginning to wish I'd done that with mine too...although mine doesn't have a rev counter so it would have to go in the speedo.
____________________
Aprilia Classic 125, GS500E, ER5-A1, ER5-C4, ER6 & an XJ6 project frame...

[nick.h]

Twist and tape? Why go to so much effort for a bodge job?
____________________
[Italjet MM5A] ll [Rieju RS1 Evolution] ll [Suzuki GS500e] ll [Suzuki GSX600F] ll [Honda CG125] ll [Pug Elyseo 125] ll [Yamaha YZF750R] ll [Yamaha Thunderace] ll [Yamaha R6] ll [Triumph 955i] ll [Hayabusa RZK3] ll [Suzuki RGV250] ll

[J.M.]

[Bomberman]

You need to butter the outside of the toasty too
____________________
'Allo! My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!
'89 TZR 125 - '94 GPZ500s - ZK3 GSXR600 Alstare

[J.M.]

[Bomberman]