Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Rivco driving lights

I just installed A Rivco lightbar that I bought from Brent, and the instructions tell you to connect the lights to the 'illumination lights' circuit. The lights are 34W each, and that calculates to 5.7 Amps at 12 Volts. The circuit has a 5A fuse, and the driving lights are blowing it after a few minutes. I replaced the 5A fuse with a 10A fuse and the lights seem to work properly.
Am I hurting the bike by replacing the fuse? I'm worried about overheating the circuit with the higher current draw.
Any info is greatly appreciated. TIA

You should be ok.

Do those lights come with a relay in the wiring harness? If no you may want to pick up the wiring harness for the Triumph driving lights (part #A9930037), it comes with the relay plug in, then you can also plug the wiring harness into the stock accessory plug.

Soren

Like Soren said, get the wiring harness and do it right. That circuit's not designed to pull that sort of current, and the proper driving light wiring harness will be a lot cheaper than replacing the bike's main wiring harness.

All this "wiring up a relay" stuff sounds hard, but it is super simple. I have two relays mounted under the tank where the AI used to be.

A relay is just a glorified switch... except it uses an electro-magnet to operate the toggle and that magnet requires two wires of it's own. The whole idea is to let the magneticly operated switch carry the heavy current while the nice neat little switch carries a light current - just enough to operate the magnet.

Think of it in those terms... a power supply and a load (same as a normal switch) with another power supply (usually with a real switch or a button in the way) and an earth for the electro-magnet. It makes more sense that way than as a "mystery box" which a bunch of "mystery terminals".

Thanks for the info guys! Looks like I need to install that relay. Rivco's website sells a relay that might work for me. Again, thanks a bunch, you guys are great!

Hey Robert,

Radio Shack sells the perfect relay (Model# 275-226) for this. It's $6.49 and accepts normal spade lugs perfectly. Here's the link. You should be able to find it locally.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....amp;tab=summary

and a pic:

That's what I got....

Thank you very much, Phil! Getting one today. Ride Safe.

And remember Robert, If you don't want to wire in a relay, run your wire/fuse/switch off the battery or the accessory point on your fuse block....Angelis

--Radio Shack sells the perfect relay (Model# 275-226) for this. It's $6.49 and accepts normal spade lugs perfectly. Here's the link. You should be able to find it locally.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....amp;tab=summary --

Is that the relay that plugs into the standard triumph auxilliary lighting wiring harness??

Bob,
Aside from the fuse/relay problem, how do you like the quality of the Rivco Light Bar and lamps? I am considering buying them. I already have the Triumph accessory light harness.