Pimp my sofa...
Discussion
The bloody weather had better shape up sharpish. Last weekend was the first decent day we'd had since early January and I had bloody food poisoning.
Today, I thought maybe... but no. I managed a brief blat to Darlington to collect a piece of wiring but that was it.
So I decided it was time to crack on and fit the alarm system to the ST13. I bought an aftermarket one for the ST11 but the 13 prefers the Honda unit, which is plug'n'play.... as long as you have the super-duper extra-special extra bit of wiring loom, that is.
Now normally I'm the kind of guy who would do anything to avoid spending money, but as the alternative would mean chopping the 13's loom (and it's nice and inaccessible too) I opted to bite the bullet and do it the Honda way. For twenty quid I thought I might have got a date with the brunette from that Honda car ad (you know, the one doing the windscreen wipers bit
) but no, all I came away with was a foot of cable with five connectors on it. Quartet, they call it, which is a misnomer if ever there was one
Honda in their infinite wisdom planned the alarm layout so that the status LED fits into a hole you drill in the right-hand fairing, near your knee. Drill? DRILL!? A bloody fairing? Flipping LED looking like it was tacked-on as an afterthought? God's teeth this is a twelve grand bike, you could have thought it out a bit more.
I contemplated the dashboard. Yes, the dashboard. The cruise missile doesn't merely have clocks, it has an instrument panel. As in 1980s saloon car, but that's by the by. Incidentally although it's absolutely huge and has more electronics than Maplins, the whole instrument binnacle weighs less than a pair of traditional 'clocks' in the sense of speedo and tacho, chrome bezel, cable drive... but I wouldn't expect you youngsters to know anything about those
Back to the contemplating. There's a cluster of warning lights on the right, covered by a smoked window. The ABS version has one more light than the non-ABS (durrr, it's the ABS warning light
) so there's a nice gap in the pattern. I stripped the pod down 
, banged a drill through the circuit board and installed my LED. With the smoked cover back in place it's nigh-on invisible when off (ie when riding) but is plenty bright enough when the alarm is on. I fed the wires out through the same orifice as the rest of the clock wiring so it gets the benefit of the rubber boot and avoids drilling any more holes. Job done, and it almost looks like it was meant to be there.
Just need to find a way to integrate the DiGI gear indicator now. Some BluTak, perhaps, or Velcro
Today, I thought maybe... but no. I managed a brief blat to Darlington to collect a piece of wiring but that was it.
So I decided it was time to crack on and fit the alarm system to the ST13. I bought an aftermarket one for the ST11 but the 13 prefers the Honda unit, which is plug'n'play.... as long as you have the super-duper extra-special extra bit of wiring loom, that is.
Now normally I'm the kind of guy who would do anything to avoid spending money, but as the alternative would mean chopping the 13's loom (and it's nice and inaccessible too) I opted to bite the bullet and do it the Honda way. For twenty quid I thought I might have got a date with the brunette from that Honda car ad (you know, the one doing the windscreen wipers bit
) but no, all I came away with was a foot of cable with five connectors on it. Quartet, they call it, which is a misnomer if ever there was one Honda in their infinite wisdom planned the alarm layout so that the status LED fits into a hole you drill in the right-hand fairing, near your knee. Drill? DRILL!? A bloody fairing? Flipping LED looking like it was tacked-on as an afterthought? God's teeth this is a twelve grand bike, you could have thought it out a bit more.
I contemplated the dashboard. Yes, the dashboard. The cruise missile doesn't merely have clocks, it has an instrument panel. As in 1980s saloon car, but that's by the by. Incidentally although it's absolutely huge and has more electronics than Maplins, the whole instrument binnacle weighs less than a pair of traditional 'clocks' in the sense of speedo and tacho, chrome bezel, cable drive... but I wouldn't expect you youngsters to know anything about those
Back to the contemplating. There's a cluster of warning lights on the right, covered by a smoked window. The ABS version has one more light than the non-ABS (durrr, it's the ABS warning light
) so there's a nice gap in the pattern. I stripped the pod down , banged a drill through the circuit board and installed my LED. With the smoked cover back in place it's nigh-on invisible when off (ie when riding) but is plenty bright enough when the alarm is on. I fed the wires out through the same orifice as the rest of the clock wiring so it gets the benefit of the rubber boot and avoids drilling any more holes. Job done, and it almost looks like it was meant to be there. Just need to find a way to integrate the DiGI gear indicator now. Some BluTak, perhaps, or Velcro
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