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G'day folk's. Well after the wee issue with the battery from not riding her for awhile I've been riding as much as I can of late.So yesterday after taking the wife shopping I thought I'd take a ride and see Dad ( about 100 kays away ).The rain front seemed to be moving through but still a bit gloomy ...ah what the hell bugger the wets! So gassed up in Warragul and came across a wee Breva 750 and a Norton Dommie ridden by Hubby( ?) on the way back to Drouin and the road to Lang Lang.So I'n not the only idiot out an about... All was well bike and me running great and enjoying the twisty bits weather even holding out! Then we get to the highway and bugger me I start missing the odd gear change,hitting every pothole and bump in the road and feeling generally beaten up! Has the front end developed a slight wobble? Do I need to rethink my suspension settings ( just as I thought I had them sorted ) and of course as we're down by the coast now it's blowing a gale and the first of the showers start rolling in... Well for all of this I'm still glad I took the bike.... So after seeing Dad I fire the ole tart up and head for home and right on queue the rain starts again... Van Morrison's song or line DAYS LIKE THIS pops into my head as I head up the street. Well a few kays further and the rain clears there are no mystery wobbles in the front end and the suspension is fine still.I stop at the clowns arches for a bite before hitting the good bits home. It took care of the pangs of hunger as not eaten yet and it's 1.30pm. My patience was rewarded with a clear run through the fun bits home and we nailed it.. ha ha everything went just so and what a ride! Even the weather held out and temps in double digits now too ( just ). Ahhh home, shower and propped up in front of the fire with the wife and only a couple of hours to wine o'clock..... So what was looking like one of those days turned out to be a bit of a ripper..... Cheers Guzzler

I think so, and am assuming so until I learn something that contradicts that. As far as I understand it, inductive and capacitive loads are more to do with A.C. circuits than D.C. . We have inrush current to an extent on the motorcycle: conventional light bulbs, starter solenoid, the starter motor. However, the inrush current on the relatively small light globes on a motorcycle is not such an issue, I think. As far as the starter solenoid goes, there is enough discussion about that elsewhere in the forum (Startus Interruptus etc.), and the starter motor itself gets its power more or less direct from the battery, so that is not an issue regarding the relays. The ECU probably has a certain amount of inrush current, but I can't imagine it is large enough to be relevant. The steady state of the electronics should resemble a resistive load, as far as I know. It occurs to me to mention why I am spending so much effort on this when there are known relay types that are adequate for the job. The answer to that is, I want to understand why they are sufficient, and which of the myriad of specifications are actually directly relevant to the application on a motorcycle. It is not really neccessary to know all that, but I am curious.

There is a bloke in the German forum that has the following in his signature: "If God had meant motorcycles to be clean, there would be detergent in the rain".

The V11 came out of hibernation yesterday and took a few shots. Took this YT video also with some gratuitous blipping. No motorcycle sounds better to my ears.

Today I got around to having a look under the seat of the V11 Le Mans. The short version: it doesn't look butchered, which is a good start. This is the V11, and for good measure her sister, the V35 Imola. The big Bertha under the cover behind the Le Mans is my Kawasaki GTR 1000. T The VIN has a "2" before the "M", which I gather is a sure indicator that the bike was built in 2002 (first registered May 2003). and the build year is corroborated by the label on the ECU Under the seat looks like this. Turns out there is even a collection of mediocre tools in there for rounding off the heads of bolts on the side of the road. There are more photos in the Gallery of the seat base and a couple of spots on the frame where it is obvious that there is contact, as there is wear visible, as is also the case on top of the batterey. The battery box mounts at the front haven't been moved to under the frame rail yet, so I'll have to do that soonish. After having already given some thought to relays (see the "Best Relay" thread) it occurred to me to take notice of what is in there now. Turns out that they are all 5 pin relays. SPDT is the acronym, I believe, i.e. they have both an NC and an NO contact. NO 35 A., NC 20 A., so I'll be leaving them in for the time being. Never heard of the brand, but I expect to be able to find some info in the net somewhere. There are no signs that the relays are contacting the seat base, which is good, but the upper mounting bolt in the picture, i.e. the one to the front of the bike, seems to be. The blinker relay (I guess) is mounted behind the relays with a cable tie. Is that where Luigi put it, or has it been moved? It is apparent that someone has been at the wiring. The first clue is a red wire going away from the battery positive. There are also more pictures of the "new wiring" in the gallery. It looks like a fuse holder that is normally not assigned has been used to supply a fuse for this wiring, the light blue one at the top of the picture for which there is no pictogram on the fuse box lid. Is this assumption, i.e. that this socket is normally not "assigned", correct? Following the wiring, I found this, a 12V accessory power supply socket from Hella. The wire going to it (photo in the gallery) has "Niedervoltleitung" written on it. German for "low voltage line" or "low voltage cable". There is a ball mounted on the handlebar that looks like it will fit the RAM mounts for my Sat-Nav, so the power socket makes sense, and the wiring looks half-way sound, so that is also good. The biggest question is, who's bloody idea was it to put the lock for the seat on the right-hand side of the bike? Took me quite a while to find it.

I can at least guess at least some of that. "nominal" is a word that turns up in relation to audio gear. "Nominal level" is the level that the gear is designed to work best at. Given that audio signals are a.c., and very dynamic, the gear is almost never running at exactly the nominal level. The value states a theoretical level, and the real world is (hopefully) within foreseeable limits around that value. "resistive (load)/resistance" is as opposed to inductive and capacitive loads. A resistive load complies the formula p=VI. Work done (Watt) is the product of voltage and current. Inductors (coils etc.) and capacitors don't exactly. The current for the work done (Watt) can be higher than the formula would suggest for the applied voltage. "Continuous" and "carry" seem to me to be two different words for the same thing, i.e. the current (load) that the contacts can deal with when they are closed. "Switching" is the current that the contacts can deal with when they are opening and closing. We had mention of the problem with arcing when the contacts are slightly open, and you, docc, quoted out of those documents I linked regarding the fact that the "carry" current can be larger than the "switching" current. That is pretty logical to me when I think about how a welder works, and the sparks that happen when attaching the clamps of a battery charger to the battery. "inrush" has to do with the way some devices pull a heap of current when they are switched on compared to how much they draw when they are up and running. Things with coils (including transformers in power supplies) in them, or capacitors, tend to do that. I gather tungsten lights do too (read that somewhere this evening...). Things that do that need a relay that can deal with that "switch on" current, and not just the steady state when the device is running. Wikipedia has an article about inrush current: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inrush_current

Re: Relays - Isn't the "Contact Rating" of 35/20 for the inrush current and the "Switching Current" the continuous load rating? In that case, you have relays rated 20/10. Re: Fuses - the #8 fuse was used on the early V11 for the Electric Fuel Tap, unused position with Manual Fuel Tap V11. Take a close look at your #3 green 30 amp fuse. Are there heat signs of melting and the case starting to spread? Re: Battery - I've never seen a battery turned sideways in a V11. It looks like that necessitates some "extensions" of the wiring, including main cables? Is that an unshielded positive junction behind the battery on the right of the bike?

I fiddle with my sat-nav far too much to mount it on the brake/throttle side. Garmin even designed their motorcycle units to operate with the left hand.

In case anyone is curious how one might have pods but retain the side covers, which are normally bolted to the now-removed airbox; see the following thread where I cut up an airbox and used the portion to which the side-covers affix, then built a simple frame from aluminum bar stock to mount it to the bike. Along with the aesthetic aspect (love it or hate it is fine ), this approach also may help with the issue of rain saturation that some pod users have noted by providing some modicum of protection from the elements. This may not be for everyone, but is one approach.