Wednesday 21 March 2012

The world's most complicated "simplified wiring" system!

After way too much time away from the build, I finally got my ass into gear and knocked up my wiring harness.

As this build is absolutely from scratch, I had any number of options available for the wiring diagram.

I took it upon myself to knock out my wiring own design in CAD, prior to ordering my extensive list of parts. As usual, the devil is in the detail with plenty of forward thinking required.



My system contains seven fused relays that are operated by closing an earthed circuit via the switch assemblies. The only switch that is passing any voltage at all is the indicator. It really was my intention to minimise the risk of having any potential shorts within the system by switching the relays via an earthed signal.

I did face a particularly big challenge with where to mount the seven fused and indicator relay upon the bike. It had to be relatively easy to access the fuses, whilst being in a discreet location. After much though I decided to relocate the coil upon the forward chassis down-tubes, as shown upon the mock up pics. This left an appropriate, if not tight location for the wiring harness within the gas tank tunnel. I am hoping that I'm not asking for a bucket load of potential problems in the pursuit of outsmarting myself.



Despite my build intending to be a fair weather daily rider, an obvious problem did present itself in the form of the potential dramas I might face with keeping the relays dry and safe in the event of a sudden downpour. My solution was to insert a rubber umbrella of sorts around the electronics. Fingers crossed that this rubber cover combined with the tank above and engine just beneath will provide satisfactory protection against the elements.




Servicing any blown fuses is also a piece of pie even with the tank and engine in place. I really hated the thought of trying to get access to them should they be squirreled away in an electronics box that was secured too well.



Hopefully engine heat and vibrations won't be my downfall, with using the bike once complete being a trial by fire!

I also made my own miniature battery to fit into my milk jug with A123 cells. I used these two links to help with the making of the battery which were very helpful.

http://www.scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/lipo.html and http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=599316

Right now the battery looks as ugly as all hell, however, once I get my hands on some heat-shrink that's large enough I should be able to sex it up a touch.

Here's a short clip of a guy that had built one with exactly the same setup as my battery.



The great news with my battery and wiring system, is that my first trial test of the setup went absolutely perfectly! Everything is spot on so far in operation.