Wiring Smith Electronic Gauge

Greetings

I'm fixin' to install new Smith electronic gauges and I'm trying to figure out the best way to connect them to the wire harness. I don't want a bundle of wires in the headlight or wire nuts under the tank.

Any suggestions? Pictures would be great.

There are an indecent amount of wires to connect for these gauges.

Under the tank did not appeal to me. It all went into the headlight shell without issue. I was a tad unhappy about losing the OCD level of neatness in there, but needs must etc !

It seems there are more wires on the Smith's electric Chronometric tachometer than a 1950s motorcycle had in its complete wiring harness. At least they are small like Vermicelli!

Glen

It's a living nightmare without real support (to date) from Smiths . The wires all go into the headlight shell where the fuzzy confusing photocopied diagram leaves you speechless. I'm still asking for help for 2 yrs. now on how to wire them up. No one in the G.T.A. has that I've talked to but I'm going to the Mayfair Plating x-mas event in a few hours so will ask if anyone has gone there but I'll be wasting my beer breath I think. Then over to Revere motorcycles X-mas party the next day , but they know dick about Brit stuff except they look cool to the hipsters.

After 200 views I think we remain in trouble.

I wired both gauges complete with a 3 amp fuse under the tank.It took a while but everything works and I am very satisfied with how they work other than getting the speedometer calibrated to a more real speed

I agree with Ying - I wired everything under the tank. I didn't find the wiring to be that big of an issue. The speedo calibration...now THAT"S a different kettle of fish! It's hard to accept that with today's technology - "there's an app for that!" - they couldn't have made a very simple calibration process that would be essentially automatic..

BUT, admittedly it works well once the calibration is completed. But I do have a "complaint' about the speedo's operation: the odometer is almost useless in daylight - to dim/too small. In fact, I even considered going back to the OEM speedo because it has a READEable odometer.

I found the initial wire up and calibration a bit tedious as my tach has different wire colours from the tach detailed in the instructions.
Also wiring of the tach impulse feed had to be from a different location than in the instructions. A couple of discussions with the Vendor got that sorted.
Hopefully they have printed an accurate instruction sheet by now!
The instrument worked for about two weeks then went haywire.
The Vendor thought the problem was with my wiring job and I agreed that it might be. He said the problems he had encountered had all been due to improper installation, that the units were extremely unlikely to fail.
Also, they had no replacement available in the US or UK.
So over the next couple of months, when I had a free afternoon, I tried rewiring it to his exact instructions and even installed it on another bike. None of this made any difference. Finally he agreed that I should send the unit back to him. He may have done a bit of testing then sent the unit on to the UK. It was found to have two fried diodes. After a couple of months it arrived here and I reinstalled it, now about the fourth or fifth time and about a year after purchase with just two weeks of glorious usage.
This time they included a small resistor to be added to the impulse feed.
At this point I was wishing I hadn't purchased it but gave it another try anyway. It's been working fine ever since.

I also have a Dakota digital speedo/tach on the Egli. That one has a lot of wires as well but the instructions are accurate so it was a straight forward install.
That one has multiple features, measures zero to sixty or zero to 100 kmh time, highest speed each trip, quarter mile et, low fuel, low oil, shift light, high beam light, left and right indicator lights, gear indicator and some more features I've forgotten.
It's understandable that it would need a fair bit of wiring but the Smith's tach just does one thing, it measures RPM.

Glen

MexicoMike said:

I agree with Ying - I wired everything under the tank. I didn't find the wiring to be that big of an issue. The speedo calibration...now THAT"S a different kettle of fish! It's hard to accept that with today's technology - "there's an app for that!" - they couldn't have made a very simple calibration process that would be essentially automatic..

BUT, admittedly it works well once the calibration is completed. But I do have a "complaint' about the speedo's operation: the odometer is almost useless in daylight - to dim/too small. In fact, I even considered going back to the OEM speedo because it has a READEable odometer.

Click to expand...

I have a Smiths speedo on my feet forward Norton. No problems with calibrating, once you have done the simple calculation of turns of wheel per mile. Odometer not easy to read while riding, but easy enough when stopped, which is fine for most journeys.

Hi there,
If you need more instructions about the Smiths digital instrument; contact:
Peter Wilkinson at Caerbont Automotive Instruments Ltd, they are the makers from Smiths electronics
peter.wilkinson@caigauge.com
Peter is a very helpfull personn
Regards
Yves

yves norton seeley said:

Hi there,
If you need more instructions about the Smiths digital instrument; contact:
Peter Wilkinson at Caerbont Automotive Instruments Ltd, they are the makers from Smiths electronics
peter.wilkinson@caigauge.com
Peter is a very helpfull personn
Regards
Yves

Click to expand...

Thanks Yves I'll do that.

Thank you for all the replies.

One of my concerns was needing to unwire the gauge to remove it. I like to remove the gauges before removing the fork top “nuts”. Too bad the Smith gauges don’t have a connector for a removable wire harness with larger gauge wires.

Then there is the transition from the 20 AWG from the gauge to the 16 AWG of the factory wire harness. I am considering DB 9 connectors under the tank.


Are there any comments on sending units ?

This is my sender unit set up. Hardware came from Matt at cNw. His bikes are all neg earth and he has a magnet in the sender unit, with raised ‘buttons’ in the wheel nut for the magnet to pick up.

My bike is pos earth, so I used the sender unit available from Smiths Pucca. Matt supplied the hardware inc a plain wheel nut without the raised buttons. I then drilled this and fitted a small (4mm diameter I think) magnet in the nut.

I only fitted one magnet, Matt recommends more to get a smooth reading, but it seems to work fine as is.

Regarding your connector question, I used multi pin connectors when I wired up my clocks so they are simple to unplug and remove.

Fast Eddie said:

This is my sender unit set up. Hardware came from Matt at cNw. His bikes are all neg earth and he has a magnet in the sender unit, with raised ‘buttons’ in the wheel nut for the magnet to pick up.

My bike is pos earth, so I used the sender unit available from Smiths Pucca. Matt supplied the hardware inc a plain wheel nut without the raised buttons. I then drilled this and fitted a small (4mm diameter I think) magnet in the nut.

I only fitted one magnet, Matt recommends more to get a smooth reading, but it seems to work fine as is.

Regarding your connector question, I used multi pin connectors when I wired up my clocks so they are simple to unplug and remove.

View attachment 13652 View attachment 13653

Click to expand...

I got a similar setup from Matt (plan is to fit it over the festive break) but he was kind enough to source pos earth sender unit which fits into his clever mounting wheel spacer/bracket, so I think you can get a Neg or Pos 'kit' from Matt if you want.

Not looking forward to wiring the speedo, electrics are not my best subject!!!