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Post by stepthrutuner on Apr 26, 2017 19:17:59 GMT -5
Don't know why manufacturers don't make provisions for gps use easier as popular as they are???
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 28, 2017 5:51:35 GMT -5
I started off yesterday by fishing wires into position, and Monty supervised.   The mail lady drove up to drop off some stuff that didn't fit in the mailbox. I looked at the package for the circuit breaker that I ordered and thought, "great, the mail lady prob thinks I'm ordering male enhancements."  I thought about trying one of these circuit breakers so I could just reset it if anything happened, rather than needing another fuse on hand. I ended up going with the standard blade fuse though, because the breaker is so much larger and nowhere near fitting the closed fuse holder.   I got it all tied up.  I hooked up the battery so I could check everything. The GPS hotwire works. I switched on the key and then checked the gloveboxes and one outlet was off. I checked the connections and they were fine. I turned the key off and realized that it came on then. So one is on with the key on and off key off, as I'd like. The other is on with key off and off with key on. I looked at the relay and it looked like it would switch to one or the other, but I doubted my circuit reading skills and thought maybe the relay was junk since it was $4 shipped with a harness and locally they're $8-10 without a harness. I went to the parts store to grab another SPDT relay... even though the diagram was basically the same. Hooked it up, same result. Then I looked at the packaging and it said "alternating". Damn. I guess I'm just dumb, because I've always thought the double throw relays just operated 2 things once the signal was live. I guess I should have known better since I use a SPDT switch on T2 for the headlights, but I thought the relays were different. Oh well. Felt dumb, but I learned something that may be useful.    Of course then I realized I just put one of these in the TaoTao. Went over and checked the center prong for voltage when the key was off and it only read 4V. Hmmm. Then I checked battery voltage and it was 4V. Crap. I had the grip heaters on the center prong that's hot without a switching signal and apparently the PWM with an off switch does not totally kill power through the heaters. It's on a charger and I'll have to swap relays in that. Back to the TMAX. I removed the center connector from the relay harness, soldered the 2 cigarette lighter positive leads together, and connected them both to the SPST relay. I could have done that and kept the SPDT relay, but I didn't see any need for the unused hot output to be there and didn't like it there when the scoot is off. After that, everything worked as expected. I got the lower panels back on last night. I had about 10 screwdrivers out trying to find what worked best for the screw in the rearmost part of the turn signal panel. If not for that, it goes together well enough.  Then I was just down to installing the new windscreen. There was a bit of a hiccup though. They supply double sided tape for a panel to go between the new shield and a mount area for the stock shield, and they packed them together. At some point, those were crushed together and the sticky tape ripped the paint off of the panel and ruined some of the tape and ripped the partial instructions included.    It looks like Powerbronze used a clear plastic piece and just painted one side black to make the other side look black and shiny. Kinda cheap, but good news for fixing it. I masked the shiny side and sprayed a layer of black over the painted side. That's been drying overnight so hopefully I can finish it up today. |
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Post by oldgeek on Apr 28, 2017 6:26:28 GMT -5
The relay is SPDT and should work depending on what you are trying to do. I think the instructions are just poorly written/translated, alternating referring to on or off. The 12 volt coil does not care what type of voltage you are switching on the contacts.
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 28, 2017 6:41:59 GMT -5
The relay is SPDT and should work depending on what you are trying to do. I think the instructions are just poorly written/translated, alternating referring to on or off. The 12 volt coil does not care what type of voltage you are switching on the contacts. It's all wired and working with a SPST relay now, but the goal was to have both outputs of the relay on with the switching signal and that's not what the SPDT is made for. It's meant to work like an SPDT switch, switching one input between two outputs basically. One output is normally closed and one is normally open and they switch when the switching signal is present. SPDT could do what I needed if I wired both 12v outlets to the normally open output. I bought it specifically to be able to hook up each outlet separately though, and had no use for the normally closed output that would be hot when the scooter is off, so I just swapped in a SPST. EDIT : Just realized I think you thought I believed it was for alternating current. That was not the issue. I just had the operation of an SPDT relay wrong in my head. |
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 28, 2017 14:48:51 GMT -5
The panel looked OK this morning so I proceeded with installing the new shield.  This is the end picture in the instructions. They don't have any explanations, just a series of pics that ends slightly early.  I knew I needed to put double-sided tape on the support on the scoot between screws. I assumed the white patches on the panel are supposed to be tape. All the kit came with was the panel, tape, and piping that is (AFAIK) supposed to go around the edges of the shield.   Stuck it on.  That same illustration shows something going on in these corners. I guessed a pad/protector of some sort because the windshield was close to it with a quick test fit. I didn't want to put tape there and sitting piping there wouldn't accomplish anything.  I bolted on the shield and pushed upward away from those corners for extra room since there was a small amount of play.  I cut small pieces of the piping and put it on each corner to protect the scoot.  I removed the Powerbronze emblem and it was done. I think the piping should go on the edges, but I don't like the look.  There's now an open area up front, but it wasn't sealed before with my windshield delete either.  Here are some pics of it on the scoot.       I took a 65 mile test ride to see how I liked it... and I'm disappointed. It's not quite as bad as the stock shield was, but it's close. Above 40MPH it gets louder than the windshield delete. I can't really hear the engine or much of anything but wind, and I like being able to hear that stuff. The wind seems to hit me starting at the top of my chest or bottom of my neck. If I sit up as tall as I possibly can, the wind noise dies down a little. I didn't like the way the wind comes off of it at speed in turns either. I let out of a turn at 80 that I had no trouble with faster before because of the way the wind was pushing me. I'm sure I'd get used to it, but it was the first time I felt how it hit me with this shield. Buffeting is pretty crappy when I'm around other vehicles. About like stock. More or less, it's similar to a stock screen for me... it just looks better. The GoPro gets better sound with the windshield delete. Even though I prob won't use a lot of clips from this scoot, that is a big deal to me and I'm not into having a mic cable running through my clothes or buying a separate recorder and syncing clips at this point. Wish I put the $100 toward pretty much anything else. As I said when I ordered it; it's hard to know what you will like based on reviews because of varying rider sizes. For anyone else that finds this, I'm around 6'2" tall with a 34" inseam. Most just seem to try to describe themselves as having more torso or legs in these discussions so there's that info in case it's of any use. My friend told me he's surprised the windscreen situation has bugged me so much since I'm used to T2 with essentially no protection and cruising 50-60MPH regularly. I told him it's different. The wind really does feel different with nothing in the way than coming off of a screen. Going back and forth between shield and no shield has solidified my confidence in that statement. I've never rode at 50MPH-60MPH on T2 and heard nothing but wind, but that's how it is at 50-60MPH when a shield directs air in an unfavorable manner. Probably the biggest high point of the shield is I think I may be able to be slightly more covered by it, so maybe it would pull out a MPH or 2 extra tucked WOT. That's totally impractical though. |
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 28, 2017 14:54:21 GMT -5
Oh, one other observation from my ride. That was the first time hooking the GPS up to the hardwire kit and riding. I noticed that I don't get all of the constant errors that I see with GPS on the small scoots. It's always telling me something like "device unsupported" an I'm not changing anything when it's on the little scoots. Either the vibes on them mess with it, or the power conditioning sucks with them, or both. Anyway, I was glad to see it worked well on the TMAX.
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Post by spaz12 on Apr 28, 2017 14:54:49 GMT -5
Too bad it doesn't work as good as it looks, because it looks pretty sharp.
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Post by 190mech on Apr 28, 2017 19:42:42 GMT -5
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 28, 2017 20:06:05 GMT -5
So what you're saying is I need this? Looks like a vortex generator to me.   The Harley guys are gonna be so jealous of my windshield tassels. |
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 29, 2017 16:53:00 GMT -5
I taped a bunch of yarn bits to the windscreen and went for a ride today. I even made a little shark fin out of a plastic scraper to tape on and tried without it and then put it in three different spots.      It looks like air hugs the windscreen to me. It looks like it heads pretty much straight back where the top of the screen ends. No big surprise there since the top of the screen and where I feel air hitting me align well. The shield claims to push air up, but the yarn doesn't stick up. It bends and comes at me. The yarn flaps back and forth when I'm near other vehicles, but straightens out in clean air. You can watch the vid below and hopefully see that when I pass the truck the yarn goes straight again. I think the easiest thing for me ATM is to just put it back to windshield delete mode whenever I feel like working on it again, but I'm open to suggestions that don't involve buying more stuff. |
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Post by stepthrutuner on Apr 29, 2017 22:52:20 GMT -5
I still haven't figured out why it is called a double bubble. I seem to see three raised sections.  |
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 30, 2017 5:06:28 GMT -5
I still haven't figured out why it is called a double bubble. I seem to see three raised sections. Maybe they mean concave bubbles as there are lower 2 sections?  |
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Post by 190mech on Apr 30, 2017 10:00:23 GMT -5
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Post by 90GTVert on Apr 30, 2017 13:07:38 GMT -5
I've got the piping that came with the kit to go around the edges. I think it degrades the appearance, but I can try it and see if it works. There are sort of spoilers/deflectors that are even adjustable for the top of the screen, they call them laminar lips. Not a fan of the appearance and don't know what could be build that would make it look any better. I know, usually I'm FFF (form follows function)... but usually I'm riding ugly junk. The idea in the link seems to be to get airflow moving under the shield as well. Spacing won't work with the design of this scoot since the shield is under another panel at it's leading edges. I've read something similar with someone drilling holes in the bottom of their screen on a TMAX and reporting that it helped. Drilling holes sounds tacky looking to me. Maybe I'll try slots or something. That doesn't sound great either, but better than just poking holes in it. Another downside with this thing's design there is that I think it could let water go straight into the area with all of the fuses, wiring, gauges, etc... so I have been reluctant about that idea, although it's not really a sealed area anyway. I'll look it over. Thanks John. Just didn't know if there was any magical thing out there that I haven't seen. |
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Post by stepthrutuner on Apr 30, 2017 14:22:17 GMT -5
Probably best solution is to either cut it down or get a shorter one.
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