I was out and about earlier this year, stopped at a light, when I heard that dreaded squealing of tires. Yup... soccer mom on her phone, which by the way is perfectly legal here in the great state of Missouri. I always leave the bike in gear at a light for just such occasions. Headed for the curb and when I looked back, it was a tossup as to whether me and the bike would have fit in the space she left 'tween her and the car in front. Fast forward 'bout 10 minutes and the same damn thing happened again... a kid on his phone... which ain't legal. So... time to do something about this.
Found this FXC Brake Strobe Controller on Amazon. Actually it's a pack of 2. Has the Amazon's Choice banner and generally gets good reviews. For ten bucks to my door, what do I have to lose.
They come packaged in individual esd bags... which is a bit overkill in my opinion but... whatever. Shows a bit of class. I was gonna make this a how-to, but it really is a no brainer install. Black and red in and black and red out.... clearly marked. All wires were pre-stripped and each came with a double sided tape pad... 3M at that. Not wanting to hack the wiring on the SG, I ordered a tail/brake light connector from Vintage Connections to pigtail 'em. There's another ten bucks.
The 80SG has 2 tail/brake lights so Yamaha used a 6 pin connector. 1 pin each for the tail lights, 1 pin each for the brake lights and 2 ground pins. Found the brake light power (yellow wires) and pinned the red wires there. The blacks went to blacks and added 2 blue wires for the tail light... making a pigtail of it. connected everything up and stuck 'em to the plastic panel that sits between the seat and the light assy. I suppose I could have just used one of 'em and split it out to both brake light pins, but I kinda' like the redundancy that comes from each one driving it's own light. If one fails, I still have a brake light.
They work great. Time will tell how robust they are, but they work as advertised. 4 quick flashes followed by 4 long flashes then steady. Didn't affect the brightness in the least. I like it
Here's a quick video. Not sure why my camera shows 'em orange, they really are red.
Found this FXC Brake Strobe Controller on Amazon. Actually it's a pack of 2. Has the Amazon's Choice banner and generally gets good reviews. For ten bucks to my door, what do I have to lose.
They come packaged in individual esd bags... which is a bit overkill in my opinion but... whatever. Shows a bit of class. I was gonna make this a how-to, but it really is a no brainer install. Black and red in and black and red out.... clearly marked. All wires were pre-stripped and each came with a double sided tape pad... 3M at that. Not wanting to hack the wiring on the SG, I ordered a tail/brake light connector from Vintage Connections to pigtail 'em. There's another ten bucks.
The 80SG has 2 tail/brake lights so Yamaha used a 6 pin connector. 1 pin each for the tail lights, 1 pin each for the brake lights and 2 ground pins. Found the brake light power (yellow wires) and pinned the red wires there. The blacks went to blacks and added 2 blue wires for the tail light... making a pigtail of it. connected everything up and stuck 'em to the plastic panel that sits between the seat and the light assy. I suppose I could have just used one of 'em and split it out to both brake light pins, but I kinda' like the redundancy that comes from each one driving it's own light. If one fails, I still have a brake light.
They work great. Time will tell how robust they are, but they work as advertised. 4 quick flashes followed by 4 long flashes then steady. Didn't affect the brightness in the least. I like it
Here's a quick video. Not sure why my camera shows 'em orange, they really are red.
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