What's the aux light for?

[p0wn]

On my ex right next to the headlight bulb there's a little tiny light in there. Why's that in there?

 

[snydes]

I believe it’s meant to be used as a daytime running light. Don’t really see the point of it myself.

 

[Bionicman]

unplugged the headlight altogether to enhance ninja stealth mode...

 

[bluefxstc]

On my ex right next to the headlight bulb there's a little tiny light in there. Why's that in there?

I think (take that as I am guessing) it may be a safety thing. Keep the light on if the primary bulb burns out.

 

[John Lindemann]

That little light is required in Europe. I don't know why. I have used that circuit to power accessories on other bikes I own.

 

[bluefxstc]

Anyone have any idea how much current or power this circuit will supply? I would love to be able to power a USB charging circuit.

 

[John Lindemann]

You should have no problem running a USB charger off that circuit. Disconnect the light and wire in your charger. The charger will draw less than the light. I’m going to do the same to run a phone as GPS.

 

[snydes]

Won’t the bike shut that circuit off upon start up with no load detected? When I ran some tests on that auxiliary plug that is what I observed FWIW.

 

[John Lindemann]

The USB charger is a load. I will be trying this soon and I’ll report the results to this thread🏍

 

[snydes]

The USB charger is a load. I will be trying this soon and I’ll report the results to this thread🏍

Yes, but wouldn’t you have to cycle the power with the item attached first? Im thinking you wouldn’t be able to attach and detach accessories without having to go through a sequence.

 

[bluefxstc]

I do know the Alta 12 vdc circuits are sensitive to loads. I had to replace the tail light bulb that came with the bike, because the bike didn't like how the bulb "felt" and shut the circuit off. Bulb was good, worked fine if I started the bike with the head light in high beam setting, but as soon as you switched to low beam, it would shut the tail light and license plate LED off. As soon as I replaced the bulb, everything was fine, so there is some sort of load sensing circuit and software code in the Alta's and it can shut things off if It doesn't like what it sees.

Normally, a USB charger draws 500-900ma so less than 1 amp (6-12W). It isn't much, but I was told by Alta that the EX couldn't charge a phone so I haven't tried it. If you can trade off loads you may be able to make it happen though.

 

[John Lindemann]

Well you guys are right. The bike is sensing loads. I suppose this is done via can bus? Anyone know if they are using can bus?
I tried adding the USB charger in parallel to the aux bulb. You get voltage momentarily then the “system” senses the difference in load and shuts off the circuit. I tried this on the headlight and horn circuits and got the same results. Bummer it looks like there will be no accessories. That seems over engineered to me. 🏍

 

[bluefxstc]

The charger is controlled via CAN bus so probably safe to assume that the rest of the bike is also. I agree on the over engineered, but it is what we have. I can understand limiting current to the max of the DC to DC converter, but was pretty pissed of when I found out I was riding without a tail light because the biked sensed something wrong. I really don't need the USB charger. I can use a USB charging pack for that if needed, so really haven't been looking at it. Little scared to do too much to the bike. I like riding it and don't want to break it with the current Alta situation.

 

[Speedkills]

Since this bike is CAN bus, does that mean we have an OBD port somewhere I just haven't seen yet? I wonder what kind of connector the firmware updates are run through?

 

[bluefxstc]

The port is under the seat, just aft of the charge port. It is a round connector if I remember correctly, so not the standard OBD port. For updates and diagnostics I believe you need the laptop that Alta provides to their dealers and possibly connectivity/access to the Alta server.