Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories sigma speedometer

I was looking at my speedometer the other day thinking to myself " They could have done a much better job designing that thing". In my opinion it really isn't a nice looking unit, and to top it all off... it ain't even close to being accurate. In this day and age there is no excuse for a speedometer that isnt accurate. I would love to do a conversion like jethro666 did on his bike and put the speedometer in the tank console, but the speedometer I would want (dakota digital hly-3015) is the one with the tack in it, and it would cost me over $600 canadian to buy it and the speedo sender. So then I saw the thread about the sigma cyclocomputer and I figured "what the heck, I'll give that a try". So I did, I bought a BC800. It cost less than $20 and has a bunch of features that the stock speedometer doesn't. It's programmable so you can get it to be super accurate, it has a clock, tripmeter, odometer, and some other stuff that a person may or may not use. I test ran it today and it works great. At 75kmh on the sigma, my gps read 73.7. Pretty good for a first run. I'll just adjust my numbers by 1.7 percent and it should be perfect. Eventually I will still do the HLY-3015 conversion, but for now this will be fine. I need some ideas on how to rig up a little light or led so i can see the sigma it night.

here is a pic

Where did you find that?
Would be great if it were back-lit - even at 2x the price!

Check JJ or Sandman - one of them had rigged a led light to their console to illuminate something - like a clock, maybe?

I got it at a local bicycle shop. They're pretty common in the bicycle world.
Yes, back lit would be awesome, but bicycles don't have an electical system so you won't find one with that option. Now if someone would start making these specifically for motorcycles that would be great. Of course the price would probably be $200 instead of $20.
I saw the pic (cant remember whose it was) of the led that was mounted in the console to illuminate the clock. Unfortunately that won't work unless I could figure a way to mount the sigma down where the clock was mounted.

Here's the link to Sandmann's site..... web page

Here's one that's backlit and can be had wired or wireless (18" max unobstructed distance):

http://www.webmountainbike.com/toppanbikcom.html

I looked into the wireless ones. But on a motorcycle, the sender needs to be farther from the guage than on a bicycle. I had to add a section into my sender wire so it would reach from sender to guage. It's probably 36 inches long now. On a bicycle the sender can mount high on the front forks near the handlebars, but on a motorcycle it needs to be mounted down low near the hub.I think a backlit one would only be feasible if it used your bikes electricity for the lighting. If you were to rely on the guages battery for the lighting I think you would be changing batteries a lot. Of course ... I could be wrong, it's happenned before.

To each his own I guess. I think the stock speedo looks exactly right for our motorcycles. It is big and round and very retro looking like the old Manx motorcycles that raced on the Isle of Mann. I do wish they were more accurate though. I would never want one that was mounted down on the tank so you would have to shift your eyes down to see it. That is the reason I won't install a triumph tach on my bike. I gotta find one that mounts on the bars.

KennyMC, I agree, our speedo's look just right for these bikes. The only thing I would change are the orange needles on the speedo and tach.

SpeedRacer

I like the way it looks from the saddle. I just never really liked it much from the side veiw or from the front of the bike. I guess to me it looked like a bit of an afterthought. Then again, maybe I was just looking for an excuse to remove it. It seems I'm always looking for ways to remove stuff that doesn't absolutely have to be there. If the unit is doing a poor job of it's intended function, it makes it easier for me to justify getting rid of it.
Probably if it had been accurate I wouldn't have been so quick to ditch it. I'm liking the way the bike looks without now. It kinda has that "less is more" look.

It looks like the setup from the Thruxton would work on our bikes. Tach, indicator lights and speedo where it is supposed to be. You could put a clock where the tach is and find some way to plug up the holes in the console. Or modify the tank to be like the Thruxton. I have envisioned it on my speedy and would love to find a way to envision the money to do it

i did the sigma mod to my bsa. it does have some nice little features.

yours looks good and has clean presentation.

where/how did you mount the magnet, on the rotor?

cat

Yes cat, I used a dab of JB-weld and attached it to the rotor.
That reminds me ... another thing that bugged me about the stock spedo is that the cable was rubbing the rotor/hub assembly.

Hey Slug...

Like the speedo.. SRS has the same thing (but has also kept the standard one), really shows up just how innacurate the old one is. Still undecided if I want to lose the original one tho as I kinda like it. Was checking out your pics and noticed the tinted taillight lens.. how'd you do that and how much light does it cut out?

Oh yeah, check out my site for how to put an LED into the front of your console.. I did it to light up a stemnut clock but it'd work just fine on the speedo. You might want to try it out before you drill holes tho, just to make sure the reflection off the plastic front of it doesn't make it unreadable.

Matt