I decided to install voltmeters on both of my 650’s. After looking at the available options I settled on this one, they are available almost everywhere online and very inexpensive. They come with a piece of double sided adhesive for sticking them in place.
After looking at all the possible mounting locations, I decided on a rather low key location, especially on my XS2, I didn’t care for the look of a modern digital meter next to my old school gauges. I chose to mount both of them off of the steering head pinch bolt. I cut up a scrap piece of aluminum bracket I had laying around.
A similar but slightly modified one for my ‘77D.
I was talking to Jim about good locations for tapping into a power supply, I had thought of going inside the headlight bucket. He suggested the horn, it’s easy to get to and the brown wire is hot when the key is on.
Thanks Jim! I pulled the wires for the horn off and soldered a little pig tail plug in for the voltmeter.
Plugged in and I ran the ground to a point on the frame , right next door.
Key is on and we have power!
I took my multimeter and checked the readout on the voltmeter against the actual voltage at the battery posts. There is about a half a volt drop after running through the wiring harness, but I figured that would happen. It’s plenty good enough to monitor my charging system. I’m calling this a success!
Later, Bob
After looking at all the possible mounting locations, I decided on a rather low key location, especially on my XS2, I didn’t care for the look of a modern digital meter next to my old school gauges. I chose to mount both of them off of the steering head pinch bolt. I cut up a scrap piece of aluminum bracket I had laying around.
A similar but slightly modified one for my ‘77D.
I was talking to Jim about good locations for tapping into a power supply, I had thought of going inside the headlight bucket. He suggested the horn, it’s easy to get to and the brown wire is hot when the key is on.
Thanks Jim! I pulled the wires for the horn off and soldered a little pig tail plug in for the voltmeter.
Plugged in and I ran the ground to a point on the frame , right next door.
Key is on and we have power!
I took my multimeter and checked the readout on the voltmeter against the actual voltage at the battery posts. There is about a half a volt drop after running through the wiring harness, but I figured that would happen. It’s plenty good enough to monitor my charging system. I’m calling this a success!
Later, Bob
