More wiring trouble for aux lights

[superdedooperman]

I've been combing these posts about wiring and aux lights and thought I knew what I was doing! Apparently something else needs to be done. I am a novice with this, but was following steps others have done and certain instructions that have been posted. I followed the 12v accessory instructions to install the relay kit and harness.

I bought the relay kit and accessory harness for this. First thing I noticed was the harness only has 3 total accessory connections. Two 3 pin and one 4 pin connections. I was under the impression it should have 4 total accessory connections. I've attached pictures of it and how I have it plugged in on the bike. I have installed the new relay and 7.5 fuse, too.

Also, I bought the hitachi type connectors and attached them to my new LED aux lights to be able to plug it into the accessory harness.. Red on aux light to brown on harness and black on aux light to green on harness. I want to have the lights on all the time when the bike's power is on. After plugging the lights into the harness and turning the bike on, the lights don't have power.

Any ideas of what I should do next?

The pictures should be rotated a quarter turn to the right but they will show both ends of the harness.

 

[670cc]

It kind of sounds like you have a harness made for a later year or different model. What was the part number on your harness?

 

[superdedooperman]

Part number is 08A70-MJL-D30. When I ordered, I went straight to Honda's accessory page and ordered from there. Mine is a 2013. This number is from my email. I'll check once I'm home tonight to verify it matches with the actual harness.

 

[Jos]

08A71-MGS-D30 on my 14' 750, it has 4 plugs.

But yours should be fine. Polarity inversion? Do you have a voltmeter to check if the brown il negative indeed?

 

[superdedooperman]

I don't, but I did attach the light both ways in case they were reversed.

 

[superdedooperman]

Looks like they may have sent me the 2014 harness. The 2013 has a part number of 08A71-MGS-D30. So, looks like I'll be ordering a new one!

 

[superdedooperman]

I'll sell the one I have for $18 shipped if anyone is interested. Model number 08A70-MJL-D30. The sticker on the harness looks like this:

 

[superdedooperman]

I've installed the correct sub-harness but the lights still don't have power. What say all the electrical gurus?? What should my next step be?

 

[670cc]

Sitting in an office chair attempting to diagnose this is difficult. I'd highly recommend going to a Harbor Freight or similar store and buy a voltmeter for under $10. Without the proper diagnostic tools, you/we are just guessing and likely to waste money.

In the absence of a voltmeter/ohmmeter, you might try connecting some other low power 12 volt device to the harness output and see if it works. If so, that would mean your LED lights are bad. You could also give the 7.5 amp fuse a close visual inspection, or swap it with known good 7.5 amp fuse and try the lights again. Third, put your finger on the new relay and you might be able to tell if it clicks when you power on the bike.

 

[superdedooperman]

I did check the fuse and it looked bad. So, I changed for a good one and still no light. So, I checked my lights on my truck battery and no light. So much for cheap Chinese lights! I'll let you know when I check the harness with a volt meter and give you an update. Thanks for the input!

 

[670cc]

Not all the Chinese lights are bad. I bought some 10 watt LED aux lights on eBay from M-Factory and they have worked great for over 20,000 miles. Too bad yours are not working. I wish you good luck.

 

[GgarryP]

One issue with cheap products is a higher failure rate. I just bought a couple of Chinese taillights to add. First things I did was confirm the condition looked good and they worked.
More later after installation.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[superdedooperman]

670, what is the lumen output on your aux lights?

 

[670cc]

670, what is the lumen output on your aux lights?

I don’t know the lumen output. They’re 10 watt LEDs. They are bright enough that I run them at 20% power when my low beams are on, otherwise they are obnoxious to other drivers. They go full bright with the high beams. Light output is controlled by a Skene Lights IQ-275 controller.

 

[superdedooperman]

New lights are on the way! A question about the harness... will I use the 3 wire connector(4 terminals, but 3 used) if I wanted say a light under the headlight that comes on when the brights are on? I know I've read the blue wire is used for the brights. Red wire to blue when connecting it?

 

[670cc]

New lights are on the way! A question about the harness... will I use the 3 wire connector(4 terminals, but 3 used) if I wanted say a light under the headlight that comes on when the brights are on? I know I've read the blue wire is used for the brights. Red wire to blue when connecting it?

The blue wire in the accessory harness 4P (3 wire) connector has 12 volts present (referenced to ground) when the high beam switch is on. I don’t know the current capacity of that output, and whether it was meant to power devices directly, but it can be used as a trigger to activate a device through a controller or relay. An example is that my aux lights are controlled by a Skene IQ-275 controller that gives me three different programmed light levels for the lights. I use the high beam wire in the accessory harness to trigger my aux lights to go to full brightness when the high beam switch is on.

Note that Honda change the 6P accessory harness wiring for 2014 and later so that the high beam trigger is no longer present. Also, bike schematics for markets in different counties vary, so check the schematics for your exact model to see what outputs are present on the accessory harness.

To answer the specific question, I think that yes, you could use the high beam wire in the harness on a 2013 model to power an LED light (or other relatively low power device) when the high beam switch is on.

 

[ld_rider]

I wired my LEDs so that I can control them a few different ways:

There is a master on/off switch so I can (naturally) turn the lamps on or off.

When the lamps are on, (but the high beams are off) I can control the brightness of the LEDs with a dial, from full on to barely noticeable. Very nice if I want to run them as daytime lamps (they have removable yellow lens covers and make the bike very conspicuous during the day), or if I'm in heavy traffic at night and I don't want to blind anyone but still need a little <extra> lighting.

Next, no matter what brightness I have set on the dial, if I hit the bike's high beam switch, the LEDs will automatically go full bright.

For the first year or so I had them wired only to the dimmer. That meant a lot of reaching back and forth to raise and lower the power while riding. Now I have the best of both worlds: I can dim them as necessary with the dial, and when I really need to see where I'm going all I do is hit the high beam switch and boom, night is instantly turned into day, regardless of the dimmer setting....6,000 lumens in a properly designed housing with the right beam pattern can do that ;-)

I could also wire them to my horn, so that when I hit it, the LED lamps go full bright but since I have a DCT and my left thumb insists on hitting the downshift paddle and not the horn button, for me that feature wouldn't be that useful ;-)

 

[superdedooperman]

Wow, I like the variety you have. Gives you any option you could want!

 

[superdedooperman]

Not sure what kind of chance this is, but with the new set of lights I ordered, only one works! I've contacted the seller, this time, to see what can be done. They are cheap Chinese lights, but they did ship from the USA(Kentucky) this go around. Has anyone else experienced this kind of failure?

 

[lootzyan]

Very unusual.
Did you try to connect this new set of lights directly to a battery? This can be any car or truck 12 V battery.