LED | Moto-Abruzzo

02/12/201303/02/2016

See ya later Indicator

While it rains, rains and rains some more, I’ve had time to complete the mods with respect to moving the warning/tell-tale lighting around on the dashboard. Now the Capo has a nice left AND right indicator repeater lights ….. and looks all the better for it. So to recap.

Unused ABS light is now the side-stand light
The side-stand light is now the low-fuel warning light
The low-fuel warning light has new green LED’s and is now a right-hand indicator repeater.

Here’s another piece of video with all the lights working. You’ll notice that the fuel is already on reserve, hence the old side-stand light (now low-fuel) is on throughout the video. Sorry about the quality, but a dismal dark day and a smartphone don’t work so well together ….. and my cold hands adding the shake didn’t help! I’ll add a new page to the site shortly with details of how the circuits were rearranged.

While I waited for Youtube to upload the video, I took a walk down the road to see what damage had been done by the 24hr+ of solid heavy rain …………

…………. let’s just say the Capo nor the Rangerover are going anywhere soon. We don’t appear to have a road left for about a 30m stretch. It appears to be languishing somewhere down in the valley by the looks of it! Pics tomorrow. 😥

23/11/201303/02/2016

Tacho/Voltmeter live on the Caponord

Phase 1 is over, Phase 2 begins …….. yes, the reworked dashboard with voltmeter/tacho and fade-in/fade-out auto-dimming backlighting is off the workbench and finally onto the Caponord. I know it doesn’t look too inspiring at the moment, but it is only a prototype unit for development. The white tacho face is simply a temporary inlay printed on a piece of A4, so it better not get wet!

Inside the box lives an Arduino Uno with a homemade interface board that switches and adjusts the signals to/from the dashboard as required. The single connector plugs into an additional fused loom that runs to the battery positive terminal. I’ve tried to build in safeguards against under/over voltage, battery disconnection and reconnection spikes and its own failure with regards to how the dashboard functions, hopefully most if not all eventualities have been covered …. fingers crossed!

I’ll run this setup for a while and try to iron out any other issues as they crop up, but what then? Well Phase 3 has already started in parallel with Phase 2! A new microcontroller board that uses the same chip, but with a footprint that is an astonishingly small 8% of the Uno has been ordered. Not only is it small, it also loses the peripheral bits and bobs that I don’t need – and that means much lower power consumption. I’m really hoping to get the whole thing inside the dashboard case if possible, but the worst case scenario will mean a small box fixed directly to the back of the dashboard – so no wiring loom or bulky connectors!

Where the ideas originated ..... the Kwak GT & GPZ's of the 1980/90 era As well as getting the inlay reprinted with the added voltmeter graphic, I’ve also decided on a little re-arrangement of the existing graphics and functions. For example, why oh why is a ‘side-stand’ light prime-center of the display when it already has a safety circuit to stop you riding away with the stand down? ….. Magneti Marelli over-egging the pudding I think.

So the side-stand is moving down to the (unused) ABS lamp spot, the low-fuel then moves up to the side-stand lamp and the low-fuel light then becomes the right-hand indicator – as it should have been all along. Yes, a turn repeater for both left AND right hand signals!!!

Left AND right turn repeater lamps!

With all this in the pipeline, I can now source a decent place to have the new inlay card made. I’ve spoken to a couple of companies in the UK already, but I’ll keep looking around for a little while longer …….. do you know anyone you can recommend? If so, I’d like to hear from you.

Last but not least, here’s another short piece of video with the panel working on the bike.

18/02/201312/05/2020

My very own total Eclipse…..

When I got back from the UK just after Christmas I set about installing the new Eclipse-8 battery monitor on the Capo. You may remember from a previous post that I fitted a 5mm LED battery monitor from Sparkbright a few month ago and loved it (previous post here). In December Andrew very kindly sent me an Eclipse-8 as a sample so I could evaluate it – thanks again Andrew!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid - Sparkbright multi-state auto dimmng battery monitor

What’s the difference between them? Well firstly, it’s only available as an 8mm or 10mm unit, no 5mm version as yet. Secondly – and this is the kicker – it’s also auto-dimming, changing it’s brightness depending on the prevailing light conditions, without using a separate photo-sensor to do it. Here’s a Sparkbright video of it in action.

So does it work? Short answer – yes, VERY well! I installed it in the same place I’d had the 5mm unit, just drilling the hole a little bigger to accommodate it. The Eclipse-8 has the circuit board attached directly to the LED, so only two wires and no circuit board in the loom to find a home for. The board is very compact and once the LED is inserted into the mounting clip, it is hardly visible. The length of wire supplied was ample to attach to the battery and earth points I chose in the bikes wiring.

The Caponord was bolted back together and fired up, the LED quickly changing from orange to green as the rec/reg did its thing and the voltage rose in the loom. In the strong daylight of the barn the LED glowed brightly, but put a hand over it and it very quickly dropped its output in response. All well and good, but would it be effective when put to use in the real world?

Well I’ve covered about 700 miles through January and early February in all weathers and lighting conditions and the Eclipse-8 has certainly lived up to my expectations. For example, here along the Adriatic, the A14 Autostrada weaves its way along the cost through numerous dimly lit tunnels. Jumping from bright sunlight to twilight and back gives the unit a good workout and each and every time it switches very rapidly – I’m guessing in a few milliseconds, but certainly fast. At night-time the unit operates primarily at it lowest output and is never distracting, sometimes increasing in brightness as I pass under a sequence of street lamps just to let me know it’s still doing its thing!

So are there any downsides? Yes, but not as a result of anything done by Sparkbright. 8mm LED clips it seems are only available in convex and not concave style. Great for increasing the angle of visibility ( not important from the saddle) but also increasing the susceptibility of the LED to being ‘washed-out’ by direct sunlight and becoming difficult to see. As it is, there is a simple partial fix. Drop the LED further down the clip and glue it in place. I dropped the LED so its top was flush with the clip – a couple of millimetres I guess and this has made a world of difference. Now only the most direct sunlight affects readability and I can live with that!

Bottom line, the Eclipse-8 is a simple all-weather battery monitor for day/night use on a motorcycle – no more, no less. And it is doing the job perfectly.

Contact details E-mail: [email protected] or Tel: 0141 557 5277

Other than my initial purchase of the 5mm unit and sample Eclipse-8 supplied by Sparkbright, I have no affiliation to them. I’m simply offering my own review of products I believe to be useful and cost effective. It’s my unbiased opinion, if you buy one and don’t like it – tough. Don’t come running to me! Is that a disclaimer?

11/01/201326/05/2016

Dash it all Jeeves…..

Well here it is at last ….. the green LCD Caponord instrument panel. A hot brew and an early start on a cold wintery day, had the panel off the bike and in the warm workshop by 8am. While the soldering station warmed up, I separated the cases, eased the needles off and surprised myself that all this only took a couple of minutes – no hassle with the needles at all, which is unusual!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid - Dashboard LED's to replace Next, the six diagnostic panel and two odometer blue LED’s were replaced with green versions, this isn’t difficult but you need to make sure they go on the right way round or they won’t work! The LED specification I used is:

3.2-3.8v 20ma 1000mcd green PLCC-2 SMD LED

Then I removed the old 24C02 chip and read off the data and saved it. I modified the file and wrote it to a new chip and soldered it in place. Back out in the cold I plugged the board into the bike and got ready to switch on. Would it, wouldn’t it ….. blingy lights or a puff of smoke? Hoorah – we have bling!!! The case was buttoned back together after giving the clear lens a clean and checking the rubber seal was OK. All in all, about an hours work, time for another brew then.

So is it just a bling-thing or is their anything worthwhile about changing the LED’s? Personally I prefer it in green, the contrast between digits and background is better making it easier to read the display on the move – sadly the photographs don’t reflect how good they really are. Also the green LED’s are brighter than the blue and that certainly helps. Keeping the blue LED’s behind the analogue gauges adds a nice touch, balancing out the green.

09/01/201309/01/2013

Who’s bright idea?

Yes I know, I keep fiddling with this damn board …… but my new green LED’s turned up today!

So in one went on the test board to see what it looks like. The pic doesn’t do it justice as the green is a little deeper and more vibrant. The idea is to replace the LED’s under the diagnostics panel (x6) and the odometer (x2) and keep the meter lighting in blue.

I quite like the look of it, so tomorrow the RR instrument panel comes out of the bike and all the work I have lined up for it begins … please don’t let me screw up!

21/10/201226/05/2016

Low voltage battery warning LED

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid - voltmeter in right hand fairing I’ve already got a voltmeter in the right hand fairing and although I wouldn’t be without it, I have to say it suffers from a couple of drawbacks.

Poor readability in very bright daylight (Blue LED display)
Low down in the fairing, so requires eyes to be diverted from the road ahead.
I also have to lean forward a little to see over the hand-guard/brake master cylinder.

So I decided I wanted something more in my eye-line, something that simply displays as a go/no-go indicator, something simple; and it looks like SparkBright have just the solution. A neat encapsulated circuit feeding a Tri-state LED that will display a different colour depending on the system voltage. Now my peripheral vision should quickly spot a change in the Caponord system and give me ample time to take action. Here’s a table that explains the various states of the LED at different voltages.

The package can be supplied with LED sizes of 5mm/8mm or a whopping 10mm. I chose the 5mm as it will match the one I already have in place for the Autoswitch AS7 (fog lights). Before ordering I had a couple of questions and sent off a quick email – bear in mind this was a Sunday morning. Before I could even read through the Sunday funnies, Andrew Ferguson owner and guiding light behind SparkBright had replied – now that’s dedication! the bottom line – It does what I want and it’s waterproof, ideal for motorcycle use then!

Anyway, long story short, Andrew agreed to make a change to the mounting clip for the LED (at no extra cost – see gallery below for clip differences) and also told me of an exciting new development just around the corner for this product; auto-dimming built right into the LED for the 8mm and 10mm options. Sadly it won’t be available on the 5mm version for some time to come. However, this bit of technology is something the Capo is aching for on the Autoswitch Red/Green LED (fog lights) I already have fitted. By day it’s fantastic, but by night it’s just a little too bright.

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid - dashboard with AS7 Autoswitch LED and Sparkbright battery monitor

LED symmetry. Hopefully !!

So I’ll wait for Andrew to send this unit and if it does what I need of it, I’ll no doubt upgrade to the 8mm auto-dimming version and retro-fit this one to my tractor ….. about time I dragged it screaming into the 21st century. And maybe if I ask nicely, he may be able to help me upgrade the Autoswitch LED as well!

You can contact Andrew direct at [email protected] or bookmark www.sparkbright.co.uk (website should be up and running by the last week of October). You’ll also find them on Ebay, just search for “12v battery warning light”. The cost? £11.80 including P&P (UK) as of 21st October 2012.

I’ll finish by saying I have no affiliation or involvement with Andrew other than as a customer – I just like the product!