Motolights + Autoswitch install

[tiedend]

I am installing caliper mounted Motolights to be operated by an Autoswitch. I have an 05 LTSE.

I have a few questions that I have been unable to fully answer by searching this site and the archive and I hope there are some kind souls out there who may be able to point me in the right direction.

I have 3 questions: -

Routing of wiring:
I have read the posts regarding placing the wiring under the tank (r/h side) and that to me seems a most sensible direction to go. I can see that cable ties for the motolight wiring from the lights on the calipers can follow the brake lines up the forks. The left caliper brake line crosses the front wheel joining the right side brake line and proceeds up the right hand fork. If I follow this line for left light the cable for the right hand light has less distance to travel and the plug into the Motolight harness leaves this cable needing to shortened.
Can I ask what route others have used for the cables for both left and right lights to the connection that needs to be made to the Motolight harness coming out from under the tank.

Motolight Switch:
The Motolights come with a switch. Am I correct that if I am using the Autoswitch as my on/off switch I do not need to connect the Motolight on/off switch at all.

Autoswitch:
I am not really any sort of electrician and have tried to use what logic I have to work out which wires from the Autowsitch are connected to which from the Motolight loom.
I know that the orange wire has to be spliced into the brown wire with white stripes in the r/h handle bar wiring cluster. The Motolight relay has a ground cable and the Autoswitch instructions say that if the 3rd party lighting relay has a "black ground wire" connect one of the black wires from the Autoswitch to it. As there are 2 black wires from the Autoswitch I presume I connect one of them as a ground wire (to the normal ground connection on the frame or battery post) and the other to the ground wire from the Motolight relay (which also has to be connected to gound) by splicing it in.
Now to the purple wire. The Autoswitch instructions say take the purple wire and connect it to the wire from the relay going to the switch for the Motolights. On the Motolights wiring diagram I am instructed to connect the switch wire to a switched power source. There is a warning from Autoswitch namely "if violet wire touches a +12V your Autoswitch is ruined and not warranted". If I connect these 2 wires am I not doing just that connecting it to a 12V source.

I am happy to show my ignorance of matters electrical and hope that someone can offer me some advice.

Best wishes to all for the New Year.

[CharlieVT]

Graham,

I have Motolights and autoswitch on my 2000.
I ran wires from the lights up the brake lines just as you described.
I did a bit of custom wiring, but if you are not equiped to do that, I'd just make a loop of any excess wire and secure it with a zip-tie.

It has been several years since I did the wiring of the autoswitch, but I can tell you that if I were doing it again, I would not use the autoswitch. The switch works perfectly as described and I have had not problems with it. I just don't like the way it works; every time you turn off the bike the auto switch resets to "off". When you start the bike, you have to turn the lights back on, I'd rather just have the motolights slaved to the low beam circuit. I would use the motolight supplied switch just to disable the motolights in the rare case I didn't want them to come on.
If you do use the autoswitch, no, you don't need the Motolight supplied switch.

[jhowdy]

Graham,
As Charlie indicated, slave your motolights to the lowbeam and run them all the time. I believe that most everyone has them set-up this way more or less. Save the autoswitch for some other lighting project such as driving lights, fog lights, etc. The motolight switch can be placed some where kind of out of the way in the event you do have reason to turn them off.

[icycler]

Graham,
I have Motolights on my 2005.
I ran wires from the lights up the brake lines just as you described. and routed the wires along the left side of my tank, I did the same thing on my 1999 and 2002 LTs.

I eliminated the autoswitch and shortened the wires to length required for attaching. Autoswitch was installed on my 1999 on left handlebar on top of brake fluid reservoir. Autoswitch was installed on 2002 under seat on left side of tupperware, always kept in ON position. Thus on the 2005, I eliminated the autoswitch as I keep the Motolights on.

I attached the appropriate wire (after splicing it to bypass the switch - look at their drawing and connect the relay wire ot bypass the switch) to the switchable power source going to the rear speakers or tail light, forgot which color wire, think it was green. This has worked fine for me since install in October.

[mtrevelino]

Attached is a picture (shown many times) showing where I have mounted the moto light switch. I just leave it in the on position and on rare occasions I will shut off the lights (mostly when sitting at a long traffic light with my gerbings on).

[tiedend]

Many thanks for the messages posted and the advice given.

I have decided to use the switch that came with the Motolights pro tem and then obtain and fit the Phoenix switches.

I have installed the lights today and now just need to hook up the power which I will do tomorrow.

Thanks again for the help.