Replacement fuel light / fuel tap

Since i have streetfightered my sv, (curvy), i just ahve a speedo running at the moment. a vapour one, very good, no worries about that, but i do need something to tell me when i am running out of fuel. i have tried to link the wires up from the fuel levekl sensor to a LED, but it doesnt seem to want to work. I looked at the wiring diagram int he haynes but they arent that comprehensive when it comes to electrical circuits, and it looks like the wires from the fuel sensor go into some circuit int he clocks, then goes to the low levekl light. ( i presume the circuit board determines when it flashes and goes solid determined by the state of the sensor in the tank)
I have thought about chainging the fuel tap to a bandit version but the frame is in the way fo the actuall reserve lever to be turned.
Any one tried anything different and made it work?? at the moment im trying to remember to reset the counter everytime i fill up and i do sometimes forget!!

also oil pressure?? any recomendations on how to sort that out as well?? tried LED indication lights but still nothing.

Cheers
Rik

[rictus01]

I'm prosuming you're talking about a curvy here ?, but the tank sender has two out puts (at different levels) one obviously signals the flashing light , the other the solid when the level changes (or the other way round? three wires from sender) you should be able to measure the signal(s) on a meter and see what the output is and use it accordingly.

As far as I'm aware you don't have an oil pressure sensor, but only an oil level warning light, which once oil fails to cover it triggers the light, once again it shouldn't be hard to measure the signal and get an appropriate light working from that.

Cheers Mark.

thats what i thought at first. one wire for low, one for very low, and one for the earth. but ive tried linking them up individually, and together, and still nothing. i'll have another look tonight. i though it was oil pressure but oil level is just as good. iwill see if i can hook that one in as well....but it is a bit harder to test really to see if it works. i havnt got a meter at home a the moment, should really invest in one but never really got round to it. allways borrowed them from my old work.

cheers

[rictus01]

Well I fitted the sender unit into a triumph tank, and as that only has a single pair of wires had the choice of using the upper or lower one, you sure the sender is working ?

was working fine before i had it all apart. i also got another unit with another tank i brought and that also doesnt seem to want to work. i kinda wanted a reserve tap, like bandits have, because i want to keep the front of the bike as minimilistic as possible. i can see that idea going down the drain now.

[northwind]

It's Complicated. The fuel sender is dependant on the resistance of the lamp- try again with teh standard lamp in the circuit. Oh, also, it doesn't come on immediately if memory serves, again some sort of resistance based effect. THere's a great thread on SV Rider with people working out this stuff, if you were to search for my name and the word sticky you'd quite likely find it, since my entire contriibution was "You guys are clever- this should be a sticky"

Originally Posted by rictus01

I'm prosuming you're talking about a curvy here ?, but the tank sender has two out puts (at different levels) one obviously signals the flashing light , the other the solid when the level changes (or the other way round? three wires from sender) you should be able to measure the signal(s) on a meter and see what the output is and use it accordingly.

As others have mentioned the fuel level sender needs a certain load to work, a LED alone won't work. You must either use a bulb (I use a 1.7w bulb on my curvy) or a LED with a load resistor in parallell. A 47 ohm/3 watt resistor should work.

Hooking up a fuel light is actually quite simple, just connect one end of bulb to 12v, and the other end to one of the wires on the fuel sender. Which wire depends on how early you want the warning light to switch on. The red/black wire is grounded when there's about 3 litres left, the black/light green at around 1 litre.

Originally Posted by rictus01

As far as I'm aware you don't have an oil pressure sensor, but only an oil level warning light, which once oil fails to cover it triggers the light, once

The curvy has an oil pressure sensor. Like the fuel level sensor this is connected to ground, so you connect the positive end of the oil pressure bulb/LED to 12v, and the negative end to the oil pressure sensor.

ah yes that makes more sense, because of what i saw, it didnt look like there was a live anywhere in the circuit. i will give that a go and see what happens.

cheers mate