LLC
Ride Well... And Well Equipped.
|
Ride Well... And Well Equipped.
|
|
|
Tap A TaillightThis family of products is designed to simplify the process of adding electrical accessories to your bike. The TATThe first product in this family is our Tap-A-Taillight, TAT, or Basic TAT. The TAT plugs into the wiring harness of specific Honda bikes (Helix, Reflex, Silver Wing, and Pacific Coast 800) and requires no splicing or other permanent modification to the bike. You can use it to add low-draw accessories into the brake light, tail light, and/or turn signal lighting circuits. (It is fairly common to use the TAT to add brake lights on luggage boxes to the brake light circuit, CBs or radios to the tail light circuit, and beepers to the turn signal circuits.) To power the accessories, it passes current from the bike's brake light/tail light/turn signal circuit to the accessories. The TAT is a great little product - simple to install, easy to use, and pretty functional if we do say so ourselves. However, customers told us there were two ways it could be improved: make it universal - so that it works on all bikes, and enable it to power accessories from the bike's battery directly instead of through the tail/brake/turn circuit. While making the TAT available for more bikes is a fairly obvious improvement, powering accessories directly from the battery may not be as clear so an explanation and story is in order. As designed, when you plug an accessory into the TAT, that accessory will draw power from the bike's tail light (or brake light, or turn signal light) circuit. If the accessory in question draws enough current, the tail light (or brake light or ...) may appear dimmer than normal. Worse yet, if something should short-circuit in the accessory, you may blow out the fuse to your tail light (or brake light or turn signal) and then not have use of that safety feature until you get the problem fixed. And, yes, I can tell you that the dashboard lights on a 2002 Honda Silver Wing are on the same circuit as the tail lights. I know this because I ran wires from my TAT to my license plate frame in such a manner that the wire jacket was (unbeknownst to me) nicked on something metallic. The first time I applied my brakes after this, the circuit to the license plate frame shorted out; this blew the bike's tail light fuse and my dashboard went completely blank. No speedo, no tach, nothin'. This isn't an indication of anything wrong with the TAT; just that I wasn't careful when I wired up the license plate frame The Super TAT, or S-TATThe way to solve this is to send power directly from the bike's battery into the TAT device and have a "traffic cop" (a relay, or actually one relay for each circuit) in the device that knows when there the bike's brake light (or tail light or turn signal) is on. When this traffic cop senses power on the brake/tail/turn signal line, it would allow the power from the battery to flow through to the accessories. If one of the accessories shorts out, the fuse in the S-TAT would pop shutting down the accessories but leaving the items on the bike's stock circuit working normally. We researched building such a device ourselves. In looking into it, we stumbled upon a device manufactured by The Electrical Connection. Their device was developed for Gold Wings pulling trailers. They call it the "Trailer Relay Isolation Package", and - as its name implies - it was designed to power the tail, brake, and turn signal lights on trailers pulled behind motorcycles. We worked with the good folks at Electrical Connection to build an adapter "sub harness" that would enable this device to work with the 6-pin wiring harness found on the Honda Helix, Reflex, Silver Wing, and PC 800. We've decided to call this package the "Super TAT", or S-TAT (pronounced "stat"). While the S-TAT does offer an advantage over the TAT, there is also a drawback. Lots of folks like to add a brake light modulator to their bikes in order to make the brake lights pulsate when the brakes are applied. The original TAT makes this process relatively simple. With the original TAT, you can add a modulator to accessory brake lights or to both the stock lights and accessory lights. However, we've been told that the relays ("traffic cops") in the S-TAT will wear out prematurely if a modulator is placed between the bike's battery and the S-TAT. You can, however, use a modulator between the S-TAT and accessory lights. (This means that you can use a modulator and an S-TAT to make accessory brake lights - on luggage, license plate frames, etc. - pulsate, but setting up a modulator to pulsate the bike's stock brake lights isn't generally advised with the S-TAT installed.) The Uni-S-TatThe next task was to make a "universal" TAT. Here the challenge is that there are too many different wiring harness configurations out there. The only reasonably feasible solution is to create a mechanism that would splice into the bike's wiring harness. (More mechanically experienced customers might use more sophisticated solder-type connections.) Fortunately, the Electrical Connection folks already thought of that for us and have a "universal" adapter for their "Trailer Relay Isolation Package". We're calling this the "Universal Super TAT", or Uni-S-TAT. This version of the product has all the benefits of the S-TAT, the same potential disadvantage with the brake light modulator, and one additional disadvantage. It DOES require that you splice into your bike's wiring harness. Some would say that this defeats the purpose of the device, but even though you have to splice into the wiring harness, there are two advantages: your are only splicing once instead of once per accessory (you lose this advantage if you will only install one electrical accessory, but we find that very few folks who install one electrical accessory will only install one before they are done with the bike), and your accessories are powered by the bike's battery instead of pulling current from the brake/tail/turn signal circuits. Which TAT is right for me?
Select a TAT:The Helix and Pacific Coast 800 versions require an extra part to build, so they cost a little more.
Note:The basic TAT device does not generate electricity or pull electricity directly from the bike's battery. It is only a conductor of electricity. Any accessory you plug into the TAT will be in the same circuit as your tail light/brake light/turn signal. (Accessories plugged in to a Super TAT or Universal Super TAT are given their own, separately fused circuit.) The electrical system of your bike has a peak output; if that is exceeded harm could be done to the electrical system. Any added lights/accessories should be of minimum wattage (LED lights are best in this regard) so as not to exceed the limits of your bike. Check your service manual or ask your bike dealer for advice on what wattage lights/accessories can be added. There is some thought that bikes with ABS systems will be more sensitive to "electrical overload" in the brake light circuit than other bikes. While we've not researched this thought, it seems to make sense on the surface. Therefore, our advice is to be absolutely certain you are not overloading your bike's electrical system if you have ABS brakes. This device does not give your bike's circuitry any more "juice" than a bike without the device; it simply makes it easier to connect lights into the proper circuit. TWO WHEEL TOURING EXPRESSLY DENIES ANY AND ALL LIABILITY FOR DAMAGE CAUSED TO MOTORCYCLE/SCOOTER, RIDER, CO-RIDER, OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR PROPERTY BY USING THIS DEVICE IN A MANNER THAT OVERLOADS THE ELECTRICAL CAPABILITIES OF THE MOTORCYCLE/SCOOTER IN WHICH IT WAS INSTALLED. |
|
Send mail to
ian@twtouring.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
