Autoswitch question

[ednap]

 

Have been reading about the Cyclegadgets autoswitch.

 

The blurb says...

 

Model AS-5NCY - BMW, Single Press. This version installs on any non-CanBUS BMW (does not work on R12GS/RT/ST or K12S/R). To activate or deactivate lights, press & hold turn signal cancel button for 1 second or longer.

 

So if I understand this...

 

When you go to high beam you press the turn signal cancel button and your Aux lights come on

 

A another bike approaches so you dip your lights. Head light goes to low beam and the Aux lights go off.

 

Here comes my question.

 

When you go back to high beam do the Aux lights come on again straight away or do you have to re activate them each time via the turn signal switch?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Scotty]

This is the switch I use on both my BMW's (with Motolights). I'm not sure what you mean by "high beam", though. To turn on the auxilliary lights, simply hold the turn signal cancel button for 1+ second. To turn them off, do the same thing. It is not possible to execute a quick flash (on/off/on or off/on/off) with this switch.

[Aluminum_Butt]

The direct answer to your question is no - they would not come back on automatically just because you turned the high beam back on.

 

Whether or not the aux lights are only available with your high beams depends on how you wire it. I (and I think most people around here) wire the "on" side of the Autoswitch to the parking light or some other input that is hot when the key is on. That way, the aux lights can be turned on and off regardless of whether the high beam is on or not.

 

You could certainly wire it to the high beam. In that case, the Autoswitch would have no effect unless the high beams were on. If the high beams were on, you could switch the aux lights on and off with the Autoswitch. If you were running high beams and your aux lights, then dipped to low beam for a car, you'd have to reactivate the aux lights when you went back to high beam.

 

If you simply want the aux lights to go on and off with the high beams, you could use a standard relay. Just wire the "on" side to the high beams. If I were doing this, however, I'd still mount some kind of toggle switch so I could cut the aux lights if I didn't want them on for some reason.

[ednap]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Down Under our Driving lights are only allowed to be on the High Beam circuit, but they must also be switched.

 

That means we normally have an extra toggle switch for the driving lights.

 

That allows us to have high beam plus the Driving lights (if the toggle is switched on) or Just the standard high beam headlight (if the toggle is switched off).

 

Also, if you dip your headlight high beam for on coming traffic the driving lights must go off as well.

 

It isn't a complicated circuit, just an extra relay with feed form the battery for the driving lights and an extra switch with feed from the high beam circuit to drive the relay.

 

So, coming back to the AutoSwitch, because it doesn't have a memory of the last state it was in, I would have to turn the driving lights back on again after each time I dipped the high beam for on coming traffic.

 

Only way to avoid this would be to have the Driving Lights on all the time the high beam is on but that doesn't satisfy the requirement to have them switched.

 

Thanks again for the replies.

[Ken H.]

Here's a thought, and I don't know if it would meet your legal requirements that they be switched or not, but here's the way I have my aux. driving lights wired...

 

I use a latching relay triggered by a momentary push (not a toggle) switch to turn them off. Normally the relay is not latched unless I hit the button. So when I start the bike the aux. driving lights come on. If I don't want them on, at any time while I'm riding, I hit the button and off they go.

 

When I switch the high beam on the latching relay is over ridden by a second relay and the driving lights come (back) on (if they were off because I had previously hit the button during the ride).

 

When I dip the high beam for oncoming traffic, if I have pushed the "relay latching, driving lights off" button sometime during the ride, they then also dip off with the high beam.

 

When I shut the bike down, everything automatically resets to the 'starting' point.

 

It's actually all simpler than it is to put into words.

[ednap]

Thanks Ken. (This is my second reply to your post, not sure where the first one ended up )

 

What you describe makes a lot of sense and probably should be a standard feature for installation of driving (not marker ) lights.

 

In my case I have elected not to pursue the AutoSwitch option as to make it work as I want it would require additional customisation along the lines of what you have described.

 

Instead I managed to pickup a new inboard dual switch block for my right hand grip. I will use one of these to enable my driving lights on the high beam circuit.

 

It also balances my 'cockpit' as my RT has the radio controls on an inboard switch block on the left hand grip.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post, greatly appreciated and I really do think you solution is a very clever one.