audiomick

Well, if you do insist on living in Gippsland.

I feel I should pull those two posts up again. If what @Weegie meant with "high beam bulb" was the high beam indicator in the dashboard, the answer is of course "Yes, it could". As I read that post, I still had the original problem as being with the low beam in my mind, as described in the opening post. After Tennigtragic swapped the green wires on the relays and the problem moved to the high beam, the high beam indicato light became part of the circuit and provided, of course, a path to earth.

I just put that through deepL.com, just for fun to see what comes out. This was translated as this and putting that back through to English, it gave me this Funnier in German, but still good in English, I reckon.

Another penny dropped a couple of hours ago, probably the last one on this topic. Initially, it was the low beam playing funny buggers, then @Tennitragic swapped the green wires on the relays. After that, it was the high beam with the peculiar behavior. As long as it was the low beam playing up, it was likely the fuel sensor providing the path back to the battery minus. In the high beam part of the wiring loom, between the high/low switch and the headlight, or the way the wiring is now the new relays, there is also a connection to earth through the high beam indicator on the dashboard. With the green wires on the relays swapped so that the high beam was playing up, both the fuel sensor and the high beam indicator provide a potential path to "earth". I'm now content to believe that there is no fault as such in the wiring, but merely "weak spots" that only showed up because of the incorrect connection of that one green wire to plus instead of minus.

Brilliant. Now I just have to figure out how to translate that appropriately for the German forum.

Somehow, she looks sulky and bored to tears.

Not until they sort out the saggy tits.

I seriously doubt that it would sell much in Australia either, but here in Germany it might. Not heaps, but there might be a market. I reckon it would be serious competition for the Royal Enfield 350, and is quite possibly a better bike into the bargain. This Enfield: https://www.royalenfield.com/de/de/motorcycles/classic-350/

Well done, that man. Carry on!

The name "Diavel" seems to play on "diavolo", devil. No doubt in the sense of "as ugly as the..."

Now that you mention it, it occurs to me that the fuel level lamp nearly always glows a tiny bit, doesn't it? Even when the tank is full? I'm more and more convinced that the fuel level sensor was providing the path to earth.

I don't see how it could. The incorrectly connected green wire was on one end of the coil in the relay. The wires out to the headlights have no connection to there.

I hope taking it over the pits works out. Good luck.

@Tennitragic as I was chopping up stuff for the soup in the kitchen just now, your problem was still going round in my head. And a blaringly obvious question popped up that should have occurred to me at least hours ago, if not days: How much fuel is in the tank? If it is low enough that the fuel light is on, then all questions are answered and the case is closed.

Great. There is still the question of where the wrongly connected green wire was finding the connection through the coil and back to battery minus. Whether you want to dig into that is more or less your choice. Whatever the connection is, it must be very high resistance, otherwise the lights wouldn't work. The mystery connection to "earth", i.e. back to battery minus must be in the bit of the loom that is supplying the 12V to switch the new relays, i.e. in the original power supply for the headlights. If the mystery earth connection were not very high resistance, the Volts that are supposed to be switching the new relays would disappear there instead of appearing at the relays, so it must be a very high resistance leak. Looking at the wiring diagram, assuming ignition off, and the actual situation on your bike, i.e. with the new relays: The section of wiring that comes into question is connected to Pin 87 of the lighting relay (34) that is the output of that relay, and the source of the voltage in that part of the loom. It is fed on to The "input" side of the front brake switch (37) The "input" side of the rear brake switch (26) The "input" side of the horn switch, the high/low beam switch and the "flash" switch in the left handlebar switchblock (19) Up to there, it is fairly straightforward. Clean all the connectors, inspect the wiring loom for signs of physical damage, open up the switchblock and see what it looks like inside. Then there is the final bit of that part of the loom. First of all, the English legend to the wiring diagramm I linked to has a further mistake. It lists (14) as "oil level switch". This is obviously wrong, as the bike doesn't have one of those. The German legend on the next page lists (14) as "Kraftsoffpegelschalter", i.e. "Fuel level switch". The bike does have one of those, and the telltale that it is connected to is labelled "benz". Petrol (Gasoline) is "benzina" in Italian, so (14) is the fuel level switch. The part of the wiring loom that we are interested in also feeds the fuel level switch, so there is a further connection to One of the pins on the 12-pin connector to the dashboard (8) From the other side of that connection, the wire goes to the tell-tale for low fuel, back through the same connector block, and on to the low fuel level switch, which switches the incoming voltage to earth when it closes. In that 12-pin connector to the dashboard, according to the wiring diagram, there is also a connection earth to earth. So that is one possibilty: there might be muck in that connector that is allowing a trickle current to earth from the pin that is connected to the part of the loom we are interested in. Easy: pull the connector apart, inspect it, clean it. Then there is the fuel level switch, and this is where I am getting out of my depth. As far as I know, the fuel level switch is an NTC thermistor, one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermistor Can someone confirm that, please? Going by the description, one of those probably never goes completely open circuit. If that is true, there will ultimately always be a (very) high resistance connection to earth through that component, even when the switch is "open", i.e. not low fuel level. I don't know for sure. If that is true, though, maybe there isn't a fault as such, but rather something like a "weakness in design" that showed up only because of the incorrect wiring, i.e. your green wire on the battery plus. Would anyone else care to comment on that last point? Anyway, it is up to you @Tennitragic to decide if you want to go looking for the mysterious earth connection, or whether you want to just ride the bike, because everything works.

What was happening there is actually fairly simple. One side of the coil in the relay was getting permanent 12 V from the battery. The other side was also seeing 12V with the ignition on, when the high/low beam switch was switched to that relay. Result: no potential difference (difference in Volts) from one end of the coil to the other. It doesn't matter if it is 0V at both ends, or 12V, or even 1000V. If there is no difference, no current will flow, no magnetic field will happen, and the relay wont switch. So, no lights. With the ignition off, the coil in the relay had 12V at one end, and the other end was connected to a part of the wiring loom that wasn't connected to anything else (with the ignition switch off). If all were well, no current should have flowed, the relay shouldn't have switched, and no lights should have gone on. But the light did go on, so therefore there must be a fault in the wiring loom that lets a bit of current go back to "earth", i.e. battery minus. But as I wrote further up, that can be addressed later.

Well it is, but I'm happy to have the confirmation.

@Tennitragic On second thoughts, don't do that. It's safe enough for someone with a bit of practice messing around with electricity, but if you fumble, you might get sparks. So Green wire off the plus, and tuck it away from the battery. Confirm for certain that the "lights on with ignition off" thing is not happening anymore. Connect the green wire to minus and check your lights. Report back, and we'll take it from there. PS: just so you know, the suspected high resistance short to earth is something that should be addressed, but is not immediately critically dangerous. Assuming it is there, it has been there all the time, and the bike hasn't blown up yet.

@Tennitragic Beauty mate, that's exactly what I thought you'd find (at least, the second picure is.. ) The green wire from battery minus to the one pin 85 is definitely wrong. It is electrically wrong, and explains why you are seeing 13V with ignition off on the 86 of that relay, which shouldn't be the case. When you take that green wire off the positive, I'm confindent that you could hold it to the minus and see what your lights are doing then. I reckon they should work normally. As I mentioned further up, there would still remain the suspicion of a high resistance short to "earth" in the wiring. That would explain "lights on with ignition off", and would provide a reason why the bloke added the new relays in the first place. If it's there, the lights would have been a bit dim. But finish off the first bit first.

On the pin on the relay, or on the (green?) wire that was connected to the pin? Either way, I reckon that's wrong. They should be the same, at least, I would assume.

That was the problem on my V35 Imola. It has a Bosch alternator originally, not the Ducati one, but anyway... I didn't actually have battery problems, but noticed that the charge light came on at higher revs. Seems like the problem was, the surface on the rotor that the brushes run on was a bit out of round, and maybe the springs behind the brushes a bit long in the tooth. Result: at higher revs the brushes started to float and loose contact. A new Bosch rotor would have been fairly cheap, but I bought a very expensive one from Silent Hektik to match the electronic ignition from them that was already in there. Not sensible, but I had the money at the time...

Don't try and save it. It's degraded all the way along, and the other end is likely to be not far off the state of the end in the picture. I bought one about a year ago, so they are available. I think I got mine from Stein-Dinse. If I remember rightly, I also found a cheaper one there, but was strongly advised by knowledgable and experienced people to get the expensive one, or plan on replacing it again in a couple of years. It's a bit of a pain to get to, so I bought the expensive one. If Stein-Dinse has it, I expect that the better suppliers in the USA would also have them. https://www.stein-dinse.com/en/item-1-1116274.html

Yeah, do that, mate. I'll pull up this post again to explain why Sorry, bye the way, that this will probably also turn into a long post, and it is still speculation. Looking at the picture of the battery, there are two green wires and two red ones, all with the same type of connector. They are all definitely not original, and I think it is fair to assume that they are likely to have all been fabricated in the course of the one modification. The works seems fairly competent. All the crimps are pretty neat, which takes some practice. So if the bloke had green and red wire in stock, why did he put one green to minus, and two red and one green to plus? Someone with a bit of competence would normally use the red for plus and the green for minus, I reckon. The one green on plus bothers me quite a lot. I can't really believe that it is right. Those four wires, two red and two green, would correspond well to the bloke having run two wires to the new headlight relays as the new power supply (to be switched by the relays), and two wires back to the battery as new "earth" wires for the coils in the new relays. According to "convention", the power to the relays would be the red ones, and the green ones the "earth" connection back from the relays. In which case both green wires should be on the minus pole. At the other end, the new relays, your photos show green wires on what is most likely pin 85 or pin 86, the two ends of the coil, referring to the diagran that Weegie posted, and which is also in that post. Going by your descriptions, the bloke used the original power for the headlight to switch the new relays, the conventional solution, so the other end of the coil needs to be connected to battery minus. Also, your photos show a red wire on the pin on the relays that is most likely pin 30, ie the connector to which the power which is to be switched by the relay is to be connected, and which would come directly from battery plus. So two red wires from battery plus to the new relays, and two green ones back to battery minus. Further to that, I discussed your problem with a colleague of mine who is a trained electronics technician (I'm a sound engineer, by the way...), and he concurred that what I suspect is at least feasible. Sooo, the reason for checking for 12 V on the wire from pin 86 that seems to be causing the problem is to see if it might be the green wire that is coming off battery plus. I'm not saying for sure that that is the case, but everything you have described is at least consistent with that, even if it is not conclusive evidence. It's all a bit of a shot in the dark, but easy to check and exclude as a possible explanation for your problem. PS: if there are 12V on the wire, follow it back manually, or disconnect the green from the battery plus and measure continuity from one end of the wire to the other to make sure it really is the same wire (measure ohms or use the continuity beeper on the multimeter). NOTE: Always disconnect everything from the minus terminal before you start messing around with the electricals. Obviously the battery needs to be connected to see if 12V is arriving where it should. The thing is, when the minus is connected, the entire frame and engine and gearbox is connected to the minus, so if you accidently contact the frame when you are working on the plus pole, it will cause a short. If you disconnect the minus first, you have to specifcally make contact with the minus to create a short. That's enough for now. If what I suspect is true, you most likely have a high resistance short to the frame or something somewhere in the wiring loom, but we'll get to that if it turns out the one green wire really should be on minus instead of plus.

When I posted that, I had that suspicion, but didn't find it with a quick search on his page. The picture has since turned up on the German forum, and it seems it is indeed one of his designs.

So your problem went with the wire, right? Are those by any chance the green wires? Just for fun, turn of the ignition and see if maybe there is 12V on the end of the wire from pin 86 that is causing the problem.