Fitting Acumen shift light to R1100S - help with Tacho wire

[masha]

I am part-way through retro-fitting an Acumen DG8 shift-light to my R1100S. I have bought the optional sender kit as the R1100 has analogue speedo.

Everything is neatly connected up EXCEPT the brown wire that the instructions say to connect to EITHER the tacho/crankshaft sensor/hall effect trigger/coil low-tension wire.

Can anyone point me to where any of these area most easily, safely and neatly accessed up-front where the rest of the loom is situated?

Also interested to hear if anyone else has fitted one of these and where they mounted the sensor - I've gone for rear swinging arm for now.

thanks
Matt

[timbox2]

I have bought the optional sender kit as the R1100 has analogue speedo.

thanks
Matt

Mine hasnt, the sensor is on the back wheel,top of diff to be exact, thought they were all like that, suppose its analogue in the fact its got a needle but im sure its still a digital speedo

[r550s]

'analogue' speedometer - yes it's an analogue (i.e. needle & dial) display, but the sensor/driver is digital. The Acumen people don't really make it clear, but what they are looking for is an electronic speedo pickup (which gives out a digital signal) - not neccessarily a 'digital' speed readout. Digital-pickup digital-display speedometers are the ones that display the speed in numbers, whereas traditional-looking-but-really-electronic speedometers (R1100s) use the digital pulses to 'charge pump' an analogue meter. All that matters for the acumen thingy is whether you've got a electronic (digital) speedo sensor - as compared to the older gear-and-cable-thing that some japs (tee hee) still use.
On the R1100s everything that you need is in the the RH relay box inside the fairing - that's where the multipin connector for the instrument display can be found. Trace the wiring from the instruments into the relay box, identify the connector, and the 'pin-out' is as follows (courtesy of haynes)
Pin 16 (black wire) is the tacho signal from the motronic
Pin 14 (yellow wire) is the speedo signal from the rear wheel bevel box sensor
Pin 5 (green with black) is ignition-on 12v (from fuse 1)
Pin 18 (red with white) is permanent 12v (from fuse 3)
Pin 15 (brown) is ground
Note that the pin numbers are moulded into the plug connector - good eyes reqd.
Take your time, it's straighforward.

[r550s]

can't help a mini-rant....all the brown wires on your bike, car etc. are ground (or earth -it is soil-colour after all), and all the brown wires in your house (courtesy of EU harmonisation) are LIVE, DEATH, 240VOLTS, KILL KILL KILL

[twodear]

Personally, I'd connect to the terminations at the back of the dash module. All the wires are terminated in ring connectors and screwed to the back of the module making it simple to stack another ring termination. Going into the back of the relays would require splicing in with either those dodgy plastic splice gismos or soldering.

[throttlemeister]

can't help a mini-rant....all the brown wires on your bike, car etc. are ground (or earth -it is soil-colour after all), and all the brown wires in your house (courtesy of EU harmonisation) are LIVE, DEATH, 240VOLTS, KILL KILL KILL

Actually there is no standarisation on colors for bikes. Honda uses green for ground and brown is a signal wire. On Beemers you never know, since they appear to change the colors for every model. On Yammies its something else again.

Low voltage DC ground should simply black everywhere. That's the standard. But I guess that would be too easy.

[masha]

Thanks for all that - that is a great help and interesting to know there is no analogue drive to the speedo (I'm still waiting to get a Haynes Manaual for hte bike and haven't dismantled much of it yet). I will try connecting it up over the weekend - thanks again.

[masha]

work in progress but the only thing I could do with a further pointer on where it is is the "Negative Lead to the Neutral light" in the loom. Does anyone have a manual illustrating the pin no. on the BMW speedo loom?

I take your point on browns being 'earth' seems sensible to me, but silly when they illustrate a live wire in UK mains plugs!

[r550s]

sorry, missed it from my first post: the acumen green wire (connect to the neutral light) should go to Pin 7 (brown with purple) on the instruments. Let us know how you get on with programming it - as you can guess, I've recently fitted one to mine - but there were glitches with the programming.

[masha]

All wired up now to the removable instrument binacle - will connect it back up later Sunday and try setting the unit.

[Blackal]

can't help a mini-rant....all the brown wires on your bike, car etc. are ground (or earth -it is soil-colour after all), and all the brown wires in your house (courtesy of EU harmonisation) are LIVE, DEATH, 240VOLTS, KILL KILL KILL

........... and you'll end up in the 'ground'


Never felt it worthwhile fitting a shift light to my BCR ......I just rev it untill the vibration starts to blur my vision

Al

[masha]

that's a good fun alternative alright - good on you. As something of a novice rider myself (I've only been riding 4 years), all the info I can get on the display to assist is welcome, but at the same time I didn't want a Jap bike full of gadgets and creature comforts to go wrong.

[JoeC]

BM's are quite capable of going wrong by themselves let alone adding gadgets into the equation.

[masha]

Connected it all up fired her up and put the DG8 into learning mode, told it it has 6 speeds, put the bike in first and ran it between 2000 & 4000rpm as instructions said, but it won't learn anything (it is supposed to flash after 10 seconds and a no.2 appear on the display).

That is with the following wiring connected:
acumen = BMW
black = BROWN (12v +ve)
red = GREEN & BLACK (12v + ign.)
orange = YELLOW (speedo)
brown = BLACK (tacho)
green = BROWN & PURPLE (-ve side of the Neutral light)

Back to the drawing board and it looks like I'll be sending a note to Acumen for some pointers in the new year (and I need to get myself a Haynes book to check the pin-outs and colours: but all the above appears correct, so its confusing why it won't program and the moment?)

Matt

[throttlemeister]

Maybe stupid remark, but did you run it as in riding it or having the rear wheel spin, or did you have the clutch pulled?

It only learns when there is both a speedo and tacho reading. which means you need to have the rear off the ground and running or you need to be riding the bike.