Headlight Modulators

[Rob]

I installed a headlight modulator on the Shadow this weekend ... a quick 15 min job ... and what a drastic improvement that made in day time visibility. I will soon be following that up with a brake light flasher of some sort.

Anyway, I know there have been MB discussions on headlight modulators for the Buddy. I believe the issue has always been that most modulators are DC while the headlight on the Buddy is AC.

I just found this online https://www.kisantech.com/popup/multiimage.php?product=P115W-AC

Just wondering if anyone had any experience with and opinions of this product? Or perhaps another product that I've missed.

Rob

[Tazio]

I have the Kisan headlight modulator on my Vespa and am very satisfied with it. I didn't know that Kisan made one for the ac system used on the Buddy. I just ordered one. I don't think anyone else makes one that will work with the Buddy.

[charlie55]

I would imagine that all the AC headlight modulator does is incorporate a rectifier so that the headlight effectively becomes DC. More than likely that explains the heat sink. If they're going for full wave rectification, then they'd be dropping about 1.2 - 1.4 volts across the rectifier diodes. At the roughly 3 amps that a 35W bulb draws, that's about 3.6 to 4.2 Watts of power that need to be dissipated as heat.

Lucky for me, the Blur's headlight is DC, so any standard modulator will work.

[Rob]

[Tazio]

Good news and bad news!

The good news is I installed the Kisan AC Modulator on my Buddy and it works.

The bad news is that the top cover will not fit with the plug and play installation. The modulator headlight connection with the Buddy connector plugged into it is just to long to allow room for the speedometer housing and cable behind it.

Anyway, I had another headlight connector and removed the metal clips from the plastic housing and bent the ends 90 degrees. Then wrapped up everything with insulation. This resulted in a home made flat connector.

I sent Kisan an email that for scooters like the Buddy they will have to come up with some kind of a flat plug connector/adaptor as most people won't want to play around with the hookup like I did.

Anyway I really like the modulators on both of my scooters. I've had the one on the Vespa for about 6 months now and people starting to pull out or turn in front of me do notice and stop.

[Rob]

[Tazio]

Got a reply back from Kisan that an engineer will try to come up with a flat connector adaptor. I didn't get any pictures of mine because it is not only not a work of art but looks like crap with the way I had to wrap the electrical tape around it. It was a real quick and dirty approach to the problem that I plan to change as soon as I can find a flat H4 plug or Kisan comes up with an adaptor.

[Rob]

[Tazio]

The Kisan has the auto off sensor that I installed by drilling a hole in the top cover. Did the same on the Vespa. It makes a very clean looking install.

Doing the plug to fit is very simple. Just use a jewlers screwdriver to depress the locking tab on each connector and remove from the plastic housing. Then use a needle nose pliers to hold the end tab of the connector and bend the tab about 90 degrees.

Push the tabs on the Kisan connector and insulate. I used the non sticky electrical tape that you stretch as you wrap it around the connectors. It holds instantly and is heat and high voltage resistant. I cut the tape to a smaller width so it would fit better.

After I decided what I wanted to do, it probably took all of 5 minutes to complete the job. Tomorrow I will be taking the Buddy out for a 2 hour road test just to make sure everything works with the road vibration and all.

[Rob]

[LuvMyScoot]

[Lostmycage]

Couldn't you also clip the H4 harness and solder or crimp on 12" 14ga extensions to the leads, then crimp/solder on female spade connectors (labeled and marked), wrap the wire with electrical tape and/or wire loom and mount the unit under the horn cast with the wires running up to the headlight in parallel with the other signal wires?

This would let the modulator unit get a little more cooling air and avoid possible overheating issues, it is really cramped in the headset and it already gets pretty toasty in there. It seems like there'd be a lot more mounting options in the legshield.

[Tazio]

My Kisan modulator is working great. The modulator unit itself probably already has long enough leads that it could be mounted down under the front shield. I'll take a look at that possibility the next time I have the top cover off.

[Rob]

[Rob]