Motolites on R1200RT

[RoyTemple]

I have been told my my dealer that there may be a problem with the canbus system if Motolites are installed on my R1200RT. He tells me unless BMW can assure him there will not be an issue, he does not want to install the lights on my bike. Actually, he says any electrical accessory could be a problem, not just Motolites.

 

I called Motolites and they said they had installed them without problems on more that 50 R1200RTs.

 

Has anyone had any issues with the canbus and electrical accessories?

 

Thanks,

[Walter]

I'm not sure how to find it, but there was a thread a couple of months back discussing the CAN bus and what components were on it. Someone posted that there were only 3 ECU's on the CAN bus, and that the headlight and switch assembly was normal dedicated circuit.

 

From what I know about cars, this makes sense since the CAN bus is a communication bus, not something that would be affected by Motolites. The only issue I can see is if some ECU on the CAN bug registers abnormal current draw and shuts down the circuit (like the horn issue).

 

Walter

[ahllev]

Hope it's not Cliff's BMW.

[RoyTemple]

No, Not Cliffs

[randys]

I have motolites on my 1200GS. 22000 miles no problems. Well, one, when I have the parking light on with the bike shut off, the motolites feed back to the headlights. Usually that parking light is on by accident, and I dont know about it till the damn bike wont start, lol.

 

I have mine coming from an extra fuse box connected to the battery, with the power for the relay coming from the tail light. I SUSPECT if I changed the relay power to one of the accessory ports, the feedback problem would go away, but really its not a problem unless I accidentally hit the turn signal getting off the bike. My motolites are wired so that they are on regardless of the headlights hi and low beam.

[Ken H.]

Well the issue, and "issue" is probably too strong of a word, is not the CAN-BUS itself per-say, but the load monitoring feature of the ZFE that replaces fusing in older bikes.

 

The ZFE module (one of three modules on the CAN-BUS (four if you have the alarm)) shuts down a circuit if it sees too high or too low of a current drain on the circuit. When you add additional load from something like more lights directly too the circuit you may run the risk of the ZFE shutting down that circuit. The best approach is to power the additional load/lights directly from the battery, and then relay the load on/off from the light circuit if you want that control. You will have no problems that way as the drain of the relay is so low as to be inconsequential.

 

If you power the lights directly from the battery and switch them on/off with their own switch then there are absolutely no issues. How can there be? The lights are then totally independent of the ZFE and the CAN-BUS system.

 

The bike may be advanced, but it still has a regular old battery that puts our regular old electricity that will illuminate a regular old MotoLight!

 

Some of these dealers are just overly paranoid about something new and foreign to them and thus are saying "hands off." Which is silly and self-defeating because sooner or later they are going to have to step up to the plate and and face up to advanced technology on a bike. The automotive industry had to 20-years ago after all.

[SiamJim]

My motolights are working fine. I have the power wired to the battery with the relay wired to the rear accessory port.

 

The problem is not wether the motolights will coexist with the CAN-bus but what your dealer and regional BMW will (or wont) do if you have an unrelated problem with your bike.

 

This thread has a lot of good info.