Datatool Digi Gear Indicator 8/27/2005

I attempted this farkel, but didn't succeed for a couple of reasons mentioned below.


There's a discussion on this farkle here. I have a Document describing the install here.
You can get the device here.


This is a piece of strip board for the remote LED.


I cut a small piece to mount the LED on.


This schematic is used to determine which pin lights which segment of the LED.


I used a hobby saw to remove the stock LED from the Digi board.


Here's what you end up with. The light sensor at the top gets removed and replaced with a resistor.


Resistor in place.


This shows the CAT 5 cable soldered in place where the LED was. This cable extends to the new 'remote' LED.


Once I had the Digi modified I started to take the bike apart. Windscreen and fairing piece come off first.


You only need to remove 6 screws and this whole assembly comes off.


The two connectors shown is all that drives the entire display!


Here's what the bike looks like with the dash removed. You can see the two plugs in the middle of the picture.


The instrument head comes off the dash next.


Next the front comes off the head.


Here's the place the remote LED gets mounted.


This is the white plastic piece that gets the whole cut in it for the LED.


This is the circuit board behind the white plastic piece. This is when I changed my mind about installing the farkel the
way described in the document. You have to cut the white plastic for the LED and make a whole in this board and the
back of the instrument head to route the CAT 5 cable. I didn't want to be quite this destructive to the stock pieces.


The LED hole would be cut just to the left of the blue high beam lens. It would impinge on the mounting snap.

At this point I decided I would just install the remote LED display in a hobby box and mount it on my dash. If I changed my
mind about mounting it in the dash I could always do it later. I went ahead and <tried> hooking the Digi  up to the wiring
harness to test it out. It <appeared> like it was going to work. I was able to enter the programming mode and tell the
unit there are 5 gears on the bike, but I couldn't get it to lock in on the gears. It seemed the unit wasn't properly seeing
the tach or speedometer pulses?? It's <suppose> to determine the ratios between speed and the tach pulses to determine
the gear it's in. It was either not seeing these pulses, or I damaged the unit in some way modifying it. Since it was entering
the programming mode OK I don't <think> I broke it. There is some discussion on the Digi support site about the possibility
of this kind of problem if there is too much noise in the electrical system.

I was hoping to have this farkel installed before WeSTOC X. Oh well!! :)

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