CDI/Voltage Regulator Relocation & Battery

[pondtunes]

So I a little industrious this last weekend and picked up a battery for the shee and decided to re-locate my electronics (CDI / Voltage Regulator) from the rear of the bike to clean up the wiring (which was in pretty poor condition anyways)

 

 

 

So I pulled the plastics and disconnected the CDI/Voltage regulator and fabbed up a bracket from a simpson strong tie (available at lowes in many different shapes and sizes) These ties are pretty rigid but you can cut them easily and they can be bent with a vice in a pinch, I used small 12" brake mounted to the bench that we found somewhere ages ago.

 

I found one of suitable size to hold both the CDI and voltage regulator and once it was bent/drilled to accept everything I gave it a quick coat of primer and sprayed it flat black (ill re-do it to match the frame whenever I can get around to that)

 

The spot I picked was between the suspension arms just above the brake lines, I bent the bracket in such a way that it didn't contact the stock lines at all.. I was also looking to mount my coolant overflow bottle here but I relocated it to the garbage can as many people seem to have done. The wiring harness did need to be shortened but it's not a big deal at all. The wires are all color coded so once I routed the wires to the front I cut the plug off of the harness and shortened it about two feet. I soldered the connections and used waterproof tape and wire loom to protect the splices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then i moved on to the battery. I didn't go to the trouble of floating the stator and giving the shee the ability to charge it as im only running some very low current LED's and my GPS off of it and it's never gone dead. I normally just stick it on a battery maintainer every few days to keep the charge up. (I intend on just leaving my lights on for a few days to see how long they will last, previously they ran for 16 hours on a 9 volt battery and were still on when I came back out to the bike)

 

The battery I picked was the smallest 12 volt Powersports battery that Autozone carries, it set me back about $49.00 I think, it fits perfectly under the gas tank plastics and the plastics when bolted down actually serve to hold the battery in place. It is a duralast battery part # CT4L-BS FP if anyone is curious.

 

Again I used a simpson strong tie bent around the contours of the battery in a "U" shape then the longer tab was bent over and I used some self taping screws to attach it to the frame, then primed and painted it flat black. The gray/orange connectors serve as a positive/negative bus and have 4 positions for distributing power. The black plug in the picture is a quick connect for my battery charger that tucks neatly out of the way when not in use. Everything connects to the orange/gray quick connectors and is protected by a waterproof inline fuse that is visible on the right hand side of the battery near the tank bolt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally since we're gearing up for a riding trip next weekend I threw my Lowrance GPS on the bike, it has a land/sea/offroad feature that can map trails and make waypoints as well as a speedo feature.. As a bonus the thing has an MP3 player so I actually have some tunes when I shut down the bike haha. Same thing on the brackets here, some thin simpson strong ties that use the screws that hold on the plastic that supports the key switch (also relocated to the trashcan). The small black button that goes where the fuel tank overflow tube normally would go is a waterproof on/off switch that turns on the accessory power from the battery. I relocated the tube just beside the plastic keyswitch cover.

[bbcmudtruck]

Sweet! Does it play dvds so the kids have something to watch while your riding?

[bansheerage]

Job Well Done!

[pondtunes]

Sweet! Does it play dvds so the kids have something to watch while your riding?

 

 

Sadly No... but it sure did raise a few eyebrows from my buddies when I pulled up shut the engine off and music was softly playing from the shee haha. I joked with my neighbor and told him I got jealous because his big fancy 4x4 honda had a speedo so I figured id one up him by having GPS, Speedo & some music.

[87sheerips]

Awesome work man, very creative, Id watch that front bracket tho it may flop around on ya by the looks of it in the front view..

 

I might just go to a battery for lights, then I can have the option of hooking a GPS up like this. Let us know how long u can run headlights for on this battery cuz I may just have to pick one up! Nice write up

[WINDYCITYJOHN400]

I agree, Nice write up. I do sheet metal for a living and I'm also thinking that CDI braket isn't going to last long. The sheet metal screws will fail/strip/back out if the front end of that braket isn't bolted in place to. Or the braket will shake like a mud flap till the metal cracks. But I'm most impressed with the fact that you got a battery to fit between the tank and the seat! I've wanted to do the DC conversion to run some LED lights, 4 or 5 Trail

Tech's on a light bar and to stabilize my current to not spike my exhaust temp gauges. This looks like a hot setup.

[pondtunes]

Awesome work man, very creative, Id watch that front bracket tho it may flop around on ya by the looks of it in the front view..

 

I might just go to a battery for lights, then I can have the option of hooking a GPS up like this. Let us know how long u can run headlights for on this battery cuz I may just have to pick one up! Nice write up

 

 

I thought about this when I made it, it's actually kind of hard to see here but it's bent in such a way that it rests on the cross brace on the side as well as on the top. I'll keep you posted if I have any problems, I figure it could always be through bolted with some small bolts but I didn't want to drill any larger of a hole than I had to. As for the metal itself it's quite sturdy the brackets I have holding my GPS are much more narrow and don't flop around at all, No more weight than was on it id didn't really fear it flopping much the screws are probably the weakest point.

[pondtunes]

Regarding battery life, im not running my headlamps off of this battery since it's not charged by the stator. My gps and LED's under the quad are all that run off of it at present, if I can find a set of lights that would look decent on the shee I might convert them over.

 

From what I can find I think the trail tech's are rated at 37 watts each so thats 74 Watts of draw.

 

Convert watts to amps (Amps = watts/volts) 74 / 12 = 6.1 amps of draw.

This particular battery is said to have a 4 amp-hour reserve

Thus it will last probably about 30-40 minutes running your lights.

 

The only way this would be reliable powering your headlights is if you had charge coming into it from the stator unless you can find a battery with much more Amp-Hours on it and to do that the battery will get larger, for my application the led's and gps will run a very long time as my LED's only draw about .01 amps each..

 

.01 x say 5 led's (only one strip on there currently) is .05 amps

4 amp hours / .05 = 80 hours of runtime.. This would drop off some as the battery discharges but they could stay on days and days and not hurt the battery. I'll have to look up what the GPS draws but it's not much either.

[madjimmax]

Just pray you never flip your shee over because you'll be saying bye bye to that GPS

[pondtunes]

Just an update got back from our camping/riding trip to Uharrie where we had a blast. My little sheet metal screws and homemade brackets for the battery and CDI held up great, despite a LOT of jumping, quite a bit of rocky/bumpy hill climbs and a rollover off a 6 foot embankment... (i got no good excuse lol it was pitch black and I just didn't see it) Anyways the brackets for my GPS were much thinner and didn't survive the fall, so the next morning I got up and straightened my clutch lever and mounted the GPS flat to the plastic that housed the keyswitch. It's much more stable here and is just as visible/usable.

 

As for battery life I ran my LED's & GPS/mp3 player constantly while we were there and I got about 12 hours of ride time on a full charge running everything. I probably would have gotten a little more had I left the mp3 player off but who knows it worked fabulously. I think i'll float my ground so I can keep it charged with the shee next.