A couple of Cyclops questions

[narcosis]

After low beam replacement #5, I purchased a Cyclops H7

Question #1 - On the BMW connector, which is +?  The single wire or the double wire?  The Cyclops connector is clearly marked + and -

Question #2 - Is it a good idea to but the dust cap back on?  Seems like the heat would build up with the fan just recirculating the sealed air.

[Pappy35]

The ground is brown on my Camhead. You can check if that's the case on yours if all three connectors have one brown lead.

 

Close the housings up. The heat the generated will be about the same as the halogens and keeping them open will let moisture in and cause the lenses to frost up. Fans (or heat sinks) are needed to flow heat away from the LED emitters, not for overall cooling.

[alegerlotz]

I have the full cyclops kit on my wethead (H7 low beam and two H1 high beams).  I have all dust caps on and the drivers and resistor inside the housing.

 

I have had no issues riding in the dark, even with the high beams on for several consecutive minutes.

[AndyS]

Brown is ground (-ve)

Yes, try an put the dust cover back on. You  want as little moisture and muck in that headlight bowl as possible.

[narcosis]

Unfortunately, on the Wethead the wires to the connector are all black.  If I have to guess, I'll go with the connector side with two black wires is ground as it's probably daisy-chained to other grounds.

[strataj]

I went with the ADVmonster bulb and had the same question to the company.  I got a fast response "The H7 Plus will work whichever direction you connect it.  So it is not sensitive to polarity" .  Works great very happy with the upgrade! 

 

[narcosis]

Lighting up the LED is not the issue with polarity.  It's the fan.  One polarity will push air over the LED and the other polarity will pull.

[PadG]

I take it that you don't have a VOM handy!  May be it's about time that you get a cheap one.  It's always handy to have one around the house.  If you do have one, it will be quite easy to find out which is the +ve terminal.

[strataj]

The ADVmonster bulb doesn't have a fan.  It's in my bike for a little over a year and over 8,000 sMiles. 

[alegerlotz]

56 minutes ago, PadG said:

I take it that you don't have a VOM handy!  May be it's about time that you get a cheap one.  It's always handy to have one around the house.  If you do have one, it will be quite easy to find out which is the +ve terminal.

 

Harder if the headlight unit is on the bench because you've removed it from the bike to install all of this stuff...  I suppose that with a wiring diagram for the connector that goes from the bike to the headlight unit you could find ground on there and use the meter to determine which of the two wires it is.

[narcosis]

3 hours ago, alegerlotz said:

 

Harder if the headlight unit is on the bench because you've removed it from the bike to install all of this stuff...  I suppose that with a wiring diagram for the connector that goes from the bike to the headlight unit you could find ground on there and use the meter to determine which of the two wires it is.

 

Yes, the headlight assembly is off the bike.  It occurred to me last night to do as you suggest but I was hoping that someone else had already blazed this trail.  So, if I can find the main connector diagram I'll use one of my VOMs and ohm it out.  I'm reasonably confident that the diagram will be in either the Haynes manual or the BMW shop manual.  I have both.

[alegerlotz]

50 minutes ago, narcosis said:

 

Yes, the headlight assembly is off the bike.  It occurred to me last night to do as you suggest but I was hoping that someone else had already blazed this trail.  So, if I can find the main connector diagram I'll use one of my VOMs and ohm it out.  I'm reasonably confident that the diagram will be in either the Haynes manual or the BMW shop manual.  I have both.

 

FWIW, I just plugged the thing in because I thought I read somewhere that the polarity didn't matter (the fan direction wasn't mentioned).

 

So far so good... I'm not tearing the front of the bike apart now to verify the polarity, that's for sure!

[92Merc]

When I had installed my ADV lights, I was able to use my volt meter and detect polarity.  I'm sure I watched the polarity when I installed mine, not knowing if it was polarity sensitive.

 

Now, did I document that somewhere?  Of course not.

 

My brain says the top wire was the hot lead on the wethead.  But I wouldn't swear to it...

[Pappy35]

Maybe check the colors? The ground will be the same color on all three. The low beams should be the same color as each other and the high beam would be different?

[narcosis]

Ground is the connector side with two wires.  Pulled the dust caps off the high beams where ground was obvious and established continuity to the two wire side of the low beam connector.

[PadG]

22 hours ago, alegerlotz said:

 

Harder if the headlight unit is on the bench because you've removed it from the bike to install all of this stuff...  I suppose that with a wiring diagram for the connector that goes from the bike to the headlight unit you could find ground on there and use the meter to determine which of the two wires it is.

Good idea!  Ground is always brown, or any mix with brown in it.