125 lights are Rubbish.

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

I've seen one or two new riders come onto the site with YBR 125s, and they usually have a problem with the RUBBISH lighting. It's a pain, and it's DANGEROUS.

I've tried everything, halogen upgrades (instead of the rubbish incandescence factory fitted rubbish), xenons, LEDs, al to no REAL avail. Halogens/Xenons are better, but you can still only see a few meters.

I've recently fitted some H3 extra lights, and so I'm sharing my experience with others, so that anyone who comes to the site with a query regarding lights can consider this much safer option than standard bulbs.

My New Lights

I made this video for others to see what a HUGE difference it makes- as I was doubtful at first, and being £50 to get the parts for such a job (Which is lots for a student to spend on something they're doubtful about!) it is very easy to stay away from it, so I'm making the option clear- and saying it is WELL worth it- even if you don't night drive frequently.

I hope this topic can stay in the forum (I think they're called stickies?), as I would have really liked a video like this when I first starting riding, and people do still ask about it!

[Airhead]

ok Tommy its a sticky one.

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

ok Tommy its a sticky one.

Thanks, git. (Wow, that sounds bad...)

I hope this helps people lots

[Mark K]

The original bulb on my previous YBR started to intermittently fail (go off for a second then come back on), not good on country lanes in the dark, had to switch to full beam to be able to see. But yes, it was also crap even when it did work and was far from safe.

Popped the bike up the bike shop, they changed the bulb and realigned the light for me. I don't know what bulb they used but it made a HUGE difference. Makes the bike much much safer at night with proper lighting.

[Cynic]

Tha don't kno thas born, ya want te try lamp on that thar DT175.

Thats proper pants that is........

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

Tha don't kno thas born, ya want te try lamp on that thar DT175.

Thats proper pants that is........

You think that bulb was "proper pants"? That wasn't even the original! That was a halogen upgrade, which was 10x better than the original crap LOL.

The original bulb on my previous YBR started to intermittently fail (go off for a second then come back on), not good on country lanes in the dark, had to switch to full beam to be able to see. But yes, it was also crap even when it did work and was far from safe.

Popped the bike up the bike shop, they changed the bulb and realigned the light for me. I don't know what bulb they used but it made a HUGE difference. Makes the bike much much safer at night with proper lighting.

As I only just said above, that was a halogen upgrade. Probably what they did to yours!!

Cheers Guys.

[Cynic]

You think that bulb was "proper pants"? That wasn't even the original! That was a halogen upgrade, which was 10x better than the original crap LOL.

As I only just said above, that was a halogen upgrade. Probably what they did to yours!!

Cheers Guys.

You cannot imagine the shocking amount of light emited by the DT. A dim orange blob around 20feet in front of you is about it. I am not joking when i say that there are times when i've been relieved its a full moon.

Cant blame you for wanting to improve things as all lights on bikes are questionable.

[Hughsie]

Hey fellas. Me again

I took the advice of this topic and plunged in for a set of those lights along with the relay.

Got them home, wired them up exactly as the instructions said. Turned the engine on, let it idle for a few secs to charge up a little (something my uncle always told me) then flicked the full beam switch. Nothing...

Quadruple checked the wiring, all was good.

Thought it would've been a dodgy set of lights/relay. Took them both back and got a replacement set. Tried them again, and had absolutely nothing again...

Then, as a final straw, I wired it directly to the battery (Bad. I know, but I just wanted to see whether the light worked - It didn't)

Any one have any clue as to what on earth is going on? Or should I just take the lights and relay back and get myself my £41 back?

Cheers in advance

Tom

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

Hey fellas. Me again

I took the advice of this topic and plunged in for a set of those lights along with the relay.

Got them home, wired them up exactly as the instructions said. Turned the engine on, let it idle for a few secs to charge up a little (something my uncle always told me) then flicked the full beam switch. Nothing...

Quadruple checked the wiring, all was good.

Thought it would've been a dodgy set of lights/relay. Took them both back and got a replacement set. Tried them again, and had absolutely nothing again...

Then, as a final straw, I wired it directly to the battery (Bad. I know, but I just wanted to see whether the light worked - It didn't)

Any one have any clue as to what on earth is going on? Or should I just take the lights and relay back and get myself my £41 back?

Cheers in advance

Tom

Heya Tom,

This is long, but PLEASE READ CAREFULLY (And possibly twice?). And firstly, if you connected directly using the fused positive wire, CHECK THE FUSE. YOU MAY HAVE SHORTED IT.

CHECK THE FUSE.

CHECK THE FUSE.

I'm not sure what your level of expertise is in electronics. I'm sorry if its patronising, but please tell me in precise detail (Every detail. Even what current-rated wire you used!):

-Exactly what lights you have

-How you wired them direct to the battery

-Did you use the Halfords relay kit?

-How did you ground the lights?

Heres a few pointers from me:

-CHECK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT WIRES ON THE RELAY CONNECTIONS. See GUIDE BELOW.

-PULL BULBS OUT. Refit.

-I found out the crimp connectors on the HALFORDS RELAY KIT are RUBBISH. Pull on the wires to see if they fall out!!! If they do, replace with ordinary crimps. MAKE SURE YOU USE INSULATING TAPE ON POSITIVE CONNECTIONS.

-DONT use BOTH 55watt halogens! There isn't enough power generation to run them both! Use an LED replacement, and take the bulb out in the meantime!

-Run a ground cable from the lights to the negative battery terminal. Use crimps to attach to the H3 spades if you need to. Use SCOTCH CLIPS in order to wire them up in parallel. Use a HIGH-CURRENT-CABLE incase you ever want to connect anything else to it via Scotch Clips.

-RUN A CIRCUIT CONTINUITY TEST. If you dont have a multimeter, get one. If you do, set it to "Buzz" or to Ω . Put one probe on one side of a wire, the other on another bit to see if the current is running through. Start with 1x then run up to 1K x. Although make sure you know what you're doing if using around sensitive electrics!

WIRING GUIDE. HALFORDS FAST FIT KIT RELAY.

-Spade 85 must go to GROUND. Connect to battery terminal negative. I reccomend using high current wire and connecting bulb grounds to the wire using scotch clips on the way.

-SPADE 87 goes to ORANGE parallel wires, which go to the POSITIVE bulb connections. (WHITE OR BLUE)

-SPADE 30 goes through a fuse, and then to the POSITIVE BATTERY TERMINAL (IF NOT USING TWO HALOGENS, OR USING HALOGEN AND an LED, REPLACE FUSE WITH A 7.5 AMP ONE)

-SPADE 86 goes though the BLUE CABLE to the YELLOW CABLE connected to the headlight (with a SCOTCH CLIP).

Just incase you use a different name for a SCOTCH CLIP, like scotch lok, tap lok, etc. This is a picture of what I mean:

SEND PICTURES of all connections, and MSN address, IF STILL HAVE PROBLEMS

[Hughsie]

You, sir, are a legend for replying in so much detail..

Once I've unpacked everything (Just moved house) I'm back outside with the innards of the bike hanging out. I'll let you know (with pics) what i've done.

As for the fuse related statement, I swapped the 15a fuse from the relay into the bike itself just to test, and all the electrical systems work perfectly well (In fact, I forgot to swap the fuses back!)

Thanks once again for the reply, I'll message back here once I've done my stuff!!

Tom

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

You, sir, are a legend for replying in so much detail..

Once I've unpacked everything (Just moved house) I'm back outside with the innards of the bike hanging out. I'll let you know (with pics) what i've done.

As for the fuse related statement, I swapped the 15a fuse from the relay into the bike itself just to test, and all the electrical systems work perfectly well (In fact, I forgot to swap the fuses back!)

Thanks once again for the reply, I'll message back here once I've done my stuff!!

Tom

Thats ok mate. Worst to worst- I'm prepared to have a phone conversation, whilst sat in front of the wiring, for us to check on each others handiwork.

Have fun

[Hughsie]

As promised, I had another attempt at it.

I think I'm going wrong on the "grounding" part...

The Lights and Relay I have used. (Note, it's not exactly the same as the lights on your link, but Halfords said these are exactly the same, but just a different shape.

Pics are linked for the benefit of the 56k users.

Wired up around the battery: -Grounding is just above the location of the toolkit (That's where I think I'm going wrong)

The Scotch Clip: (Looks like there's good metal-metal contact, but I trimmed away any plastic just to be sure, then re crimped it.)

and finally, the Relay wired up (Note, I'm only using one light, so I've replaced the orange cable with the blue one for the switch... The cable in question is the one with the black connector cover.)

I truly appreciate your effort and assistance.

Tom

[kishan]

i had brightness problems on my aerox100 had a 23w bulb and then i boosted it up to a 50 or a 55w halogen headlight bulb and it has made seing at night so much easier

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

As promised, I had another attempt at it.

I think I'm going wrong on the "grounding" part...

The Lights and Relay I have used. (Note, it's not exactly the same as the lights on your link, but Halfords said these are exactly the same, but just a different shape.

Pics are linked for the benefit of the 56k users.

Wired up around the battery: -Grounding is just above the location of the toolkit (That's where I think I'm going wrong)

The Scotch Clip: (Looks like there's good metal-metal contact, but I trimmed away any plastic just to be sure, then re crimped it.)

and finally, the Relay wired up (Note, I'm only using one light, so I've replaced the orange cable with the blue one for the switch... The cable in question is the one with the black connector cover.)

I truly appreciate your effort and assistance.

Tom

Unplug the two blue wires on the relay, then swap them round.

From the colour of the connectors (IE Black/White) I can see that you've either put them in the wrong way, or that you've cut one of them in half, and connected it in the middle to the other, then used the other half. Which would be CRAZY, as you'd come out with the same result as just using both wires as they were

If this fails, send me a picture this picture ( ) but with you one more step backwards when taking it, so I can see the route of the blue wires/

Good Luck

[Hughsie]

Haha. Funnily enough, I was out earlier, and something told me to swap those two wires around.

Did that, and it worked flawlessly! Only hard part was finding a wire from the light to the battery's negative terminal. Used the Orange wire instead.

Thank you very, very much for your top class assistance!

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

Haha. Funnily enough, I was out earlier, and something told me to swap those two wires around.

Did that, and it worked flawlessly! Only hard part was finding a wire from the light to the battery's negative terminal. Used the Orange wire instead.

Thank you very, very much for your top class assistance!

I'm glad I could help! Was my first post on here. I don't even know how to use the forum properly yet

I'm glad you sent a picture of the finished product! I was gonna ask for one anyways

Just finished reinstalling my alarm to my YBR, Tell you what, its a b**** to find somewhere to put the siren which is secure, and NOT soundproof!

And something else... How do you keep the thing so damned clean?! (From looking at your bike in pictures!) And how did you stop the crank case bolts from corroding? Or is it just cause I use mine to much?

I've already stripped the paint and rust off the exhaust, and high-temp-anti-corrosion painted it. But the bolts?

I've got 4000 miles on it, and it only came out the showroom in late november last year. And its not as if I don't maintain it... I waterproof-grease everything, WD-40 appropriate places... even use FS 365 on the crank-bolts....

[Hughsie]

You call that clean?!

That's been through 3 rain showers and bundled into the back of a van since it's last clean! I've never (personally) taken the crank case bolts out, but when I clean, I use WD40 on the engine as I've learnt it's a very good degreaser. My Yam has 3500 miles on it. Been washed almost every week!

Once again, thank you for your very helpful posts.

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

You call that clean?!

That's been through 3 rain showers and bundled into the back of a van since it's last clean! I've never (personally) taken the crank case bolts out, but when I clean, I use WD40 on the engine as I've learnt it's a very good degreaser. My Yam has 3500 miles on it. Been washed almost every week!

Once again, thank you for your very helpful posts.

That explains alot. I've been through three showers THIS WEEK. I ride it EVERYDAY (Mon-Fri 20 miles per day, weekends vary LOTS between 5-100), Rain, Shine, (And yes, I really do!) through Snow/Ice. (Much fun.)

And the factory tyres are RUBBISH, as I'm sure you also know! Saving up for some better ones In the meantime- I'm learning to control my skids.

[Hughsie]

That explains alot. I've been through three showers THIS WEEK. I ride it EVERYDAY (Mon-Fri 20 miles per day, weekends vary LOTS between 5-100), Rain, Shine, (And yes, I really do!) through Snow/Ice. (Much fun.)

And the factory tyres are RUBBISH, as I'm sure you also know! Saving up for some better ones In the meantime- I'm learning to control my skids.

Ride on the rims. There's so much more grip there... I'm also saving for some Pilot Sportys. The tyres are quite alright in the dry, I've ground the footpeg on the floor without too much of a hassle. Bike has a tendency to "Shake" when you corner too fast, mind you.

[Tommy AJ Stanton-Cole]

Ride on the rims. There's so much more grip there... I'm also saving for some Pilot Sportys. The tyres are quite alright in the dry, I've ground the footpeg on the floor without too much of a hassle. Bike has a tendency to "Shake" when you corner too fast, mind you.

True- in the dry they're quite substantial. I myself have nearly got my knee down (I don't have sliders, so I didnt bother!!)

What do you mean by "riding on the rims"?

The worst thing is cross-winds on Ice. Now THAT has stopped me from going out. Heavy cross-winds are annoying enough in the shine of summer!

I hope the lights shine a better shine on the road for you, anyways