HeadLight Turn off Switch

[FlaDRZ]

Ive always wanted to able to TURN OFF

my headlights while riding on trails

Was reading a book Planning and implamenting Active Directory ,,,,

Has nothing to do with the light,,and it hit me

I always ride with my HIGH beems ON ,,so I found the wire that turns on the LOW beem

and cut it,,positoned the headlight with the adjusting screws downward

So i have switch on my bars that turns off my headlight when I switch to Low BEEM

On the streets and if I ride at night ,,I have a headlight

What do think ,,that should be OK ,,Ill go the hardware store

and find the connectors for wires,,for if and when I want it back

[avalanche]

That's pretty cool. Anyone know if the regulator can handle this??? After the battery reaches a certain voltage your regulator stops charging it and dumps all the excess power to the regulator rectifier. That's why it has the big heat sink. If you aren't running the light at all, the regulator needs to dissipate 55 watts more. That's 25% of what the stator puts out. The DRZ already has a pretty hot stator too. I'll bet you're ok, but you might want to keep tabs on the temperature of it......especially if you run an LED taillight, which uses even less power.

[jacofan]

That's pretty cool. Anyone know if the regulator can handle this??? After the battery reaches a certain voltage your regulator stops charging it and dumps all the excess power to the regulator rectifier. That's why it has the big heat sink. If you aren't running the light at all, the regulator needs to dissipate 55 watts more. That's 25% of what the stator puts out. The DRZ already has a pretty hot stator too. I'll bet you're ok, but you might want to keep tabs on the temperature of it......especially if you run an LED taillight, which uses even less power.

Man, I didn't know that if I lowered my wattage usage on the bike , SM, (LED's, no lights...) that I had something to watch out for.

Thx for the lesson!

[Neil Claydon]

You should be fine, my DRZ has a switch to turn the lights off as standard.

As for cutting the dip beam wire, why cut the dip and not the main.

If you ride on the main beam at night around town you will piss people off.

Just because you adjusted it lower it will still dazzle other road users because the beam is also wider, and covers the oncoming traffic as well.

If you resort to cutting wires, cut the main beam, although which ever you cut you still have the rear light on.

It would have been far easier to fit a switch, if you do a search you will find that it has been covered several times.

Neil.

PS. Upsetting car drivers is not healthy, you will find very quickly that having blinded them by shining a light in the rear view mirror, they tend to react with lots of brakes be warned.

[FlaDRZ]

Your probably right on ,,about cutting the low beam off

When I get to the HW store Ill by 2 wire connectors

THe cut is very easy ,,pull off plastic around headlight and unDo the tape

and cut. 3 minutes tops

I cut the wire because I dont need/have space on my handlebars

for adding another switch..(long story about needing as much power trying crank that bike over and over)

I have the swith aready built IN

Dont ride much at night,,too old,,

[FlaDRZ]

I decided too leave the high beems all the time and turn off the low beems

I live in the country,,and finding the horses and goats out on the farm at night

I need the high Beem..I do not ride to the city (20 minutes away) at night

If I do ,,Ill plug the wire back in ...only takes a minute

THX

[Bugstain]

That's pretty cool. Anyone know if the regulator can handle this??? After the battery reaches a certain voltage your regulator stops charging it and dumps all the excess power to the regulator rectifier. That's why it has the big heat sink. If you aren't running the light at all, the regulator needs to dissipate 55 watts more. That's 25% of what the stator puts out. The DRZ already has a pretty hot stator too. I'll bet you're ok, but you might want to keep tabs on the temperature of it......especially if you run an LED taillight, which uses even less power.

That sounds like a lesson from the school that teaches that if you dont plug up the outlets in your house, all of the electricity runs out on the ground....

The regulator only dissipates power when there is a load on the system. If you reduce the load (turn off the headlight), the regulator actually runs cooler. No worries.

[DRayzor]

That sounds like a lesson from the school that teaches that if you dont plug up the outlets in your house, all of the electricity runs out on the ground....

The regulator only dissipates power when there is a load on the system. If you reduce the load (turn off the headlight), the regulator actually runs cooler. No worries.

Avalanche is actually correct. The DRZ has permanent magnet AC Generator. The only way to regulate its output voltage is to apply a load (Eg lights battery) if this load is reduced the output voltage will go to high. To prevent this, the voltage regulator sinks the extra power generated to reduce the voltage.

In a car alternator it has a rotor coil driven by a voltage regulator to control output voltage from the stator. (motor bikes have a permanent magnets as such the output voltage cannot be altered other than applying a load)

[FlaDRZ]

The Light stays on 50/50 and when the light is off

I either have a phone,GPS,IPaq hooked up to cig lighter

I felt the rectifier and its cool even down here @95 +

riding pretty hard for me

[Wayward Son]

running with the lights off is fine.

[FlaDRZ]

Thanks everyone I was getting nervous there

To correct myself the heat sink is warm (not cool)

meaning I can touch it ..its not super HOT

But thats good to know ,,for when me and my best Friend (DRZ400S)

want to go for a swim again,,,and the carb and engine suck

up a ton of water and mud,,and I need all crankin power I can get

to blast all the water out of the engine,,3000 miles and a couple of

oil changes later and still going strong,,,

life is good when you have a friend like mine

[Noble]

You guys are getting close.

Yes - lights off is fine.

DRZ Regulator - yes, it is a permanent magnet rotor alternator. Out-put is more or less constant to the RR. The RR shunts the excess power to ground. But it is not dissipated in the RR as heat. That would take a resistive load and a much bigger heat sink. The heat sink just dissipates the heat of the diodes due to the internal resistance in them to fwd current. The RR will run cooler because the AC is shunted before the diodes although I doubt you could actually tell any difference.

Auto regulator - Yes, by reducing the current to the electro-magnet rotor, out-put is reduced and the alternator runs cooler.

[danath 34]

i dunno if this is too late, but i would add a switch. period. If you get rid of high/low beam you might regret it, as you could piss other drivers off, or if it is a dark, cloudy, moon/star-less night, you wont have that extra brightness to help. I would just simply add an on/off switch aside from high/low.

[FlaDRZ]

i dunno if this is too late, but i would add a switch. period. If you get rid of high/low beam you might regret it, as you could piss other drivers off, or if it is a dark, cloudy, moon/star-less night, you wont have that extra brightness to help. I would just simply add an on/off switch aside from high/low.

Yep

been thur that,,I have too many things on the handlebars ,,

If you read the entire thread you'd see that my decision was based

on

1.I have a quick connect to connect the wire..If I did ride

at night ,,,in a town thats 20 miles away..it would take 1 minute

too connect the low beams back up.

2.I live out in the country on acres of land,,and when I do

ride at night ,,its way dark ,,looking for horses and cows and

goats.

3. in MY opinion you can be seen better during the day

with high beams ,,ya think ,,,not sure though

[KWYJIBO]

I too wanted to be able to turn off my headlight, so I installed a toggle switch in the low beam circuit. It fits nicely on an aluminum bracket that I put between the two forward handlebar clamp bolts. I added a red warning light to remind me when it is off (I NEVER ride without the light)- headlight off, warning light on, and vice-versa. It looks really clean. And because it is only in the low beam circuit, I still have the hi beam as a backup in case something with that mod ever fails.

If anyone wants to see a picture of this, PM me. Also, if you'd like the parts and instructions to do this yourself, I'd be willing to set you up real cheap, like for the cost of the materials and shipping.

Take it easy, moderators, I'm not trying to market a commercial product here- just offering to help out any fellow TTers who might like to duplicate my homemade mod.

[Bugstain]

Avalanche is actually correct. The DRZ has permanent magnet AC Generator. The only way to regulate its output voltage is to apply a load (Eg lights battery) if this load is reduced the output voltage will go to high. To prevent this, the voltage regulator sinks the extra power generated to reduce the voltage.

In a car alternator it has a rotor coil driven by a voltage regulator to control output voltage from the stator. (motor bikes have a permanent magnets as such the output voltage cannot be altered other than applying a load)

Not exactly. Output regulation is a little more sophisticated than what you describe. Rather than just hanging a load on the output of the generator, output is regulated with a solid state voltage regulator circuit which dissipates far less than the rated power output of the generator. While you are correct that the dissipation of the regulator circuit does increase with decreasing load, for the reasons you mention, it isn't nearly as significant an increase as our friend Avalanche indicated. The regulator circuit doesn't care what the output voltage of the generator is - it only regulates the voltage supplied to the load.

[FlaDRZ]

I too wanted to be able to turn off my headlight, so I installed a toggle switch in the low beam circuit. It fits nicely on an aluminum bracket that I put between the two forward handlebar clamp bolts. I added a red warning light to remind me when it is off (I NEVER ride without the light)- headlight off, warning light on, and vice-versa. It looks really clean. And because it is only in the low beam circuit, I still have the hi beam as a backup in case something with that mod ever fails.

If anyone wants to see a picture of this, PM me. Also, if you'd like the parts and instructions to do this yourself, I'd be willing to set you up real cheap, like for the cost of the materials and shipping.

Take it easy, moderators, I'm not trying to market a commercial product here- just offering to help out any fellow TTers who might like to duplicate my homemade mod.

Im pretty sure its against the law to ride without a headlight on

while riding in the street ,,here in Florida,,for a bike. Does anyone know for sure about this law,,,?????

I also can see the high beam blue light as an indicator light that my lights are on after the trail riding,,and if needed,. like I said its maybe a minute to

connect the low beams back up (wire connector),,,works great for me

thx guys