Turn signal cancellation

[maximNikenGT]

Saw a fellow Niken owner post this on how to install STS turn signal cancellation functionality on your Niken GT. 

 

 

[maximNikenGT]

Took delivery of a STS Smart Turn Signal Cancellation box. Made in Slovenia, it's a little device that functions a a gyroscope, accelerometer, and motion detector. When wired between both wiring harnesses between the bike's computer as well as your turn signal switch on your handlebar, it performs turn signal cancellation by using the acceleration and gyroscopic sensors combined with a software algorithm  to detect the end of your maneuver (e.g. left/right turn, roundabout, lane change) and turn off your turn-signals. It supposedly also knows not to turn off your turn signals when waiting at a stoplight. 

High level steps:

1. Identify the two wiring harnesses to be spliced into: 

a. One wiring harness that goes to the turn signal switch will have three wires that will require male power connectors to be crimped on and ultimately connected to the three female power connectors of the STS. 

b. the other wiring harness that goes to the motorcycle's computer will require 3 female power connectors to be crimped on and will also be connected to the three male power connectors of the STS. 

2. Connect power and ground wires. NOTE: Identify a 12v power source that is only on when the ignition is on.  If you connect to an always on wire then it will drain your battery over time and could potentially leave you with a dead battery. 

3. Open up your turn signal switch housing and insert supplied foam discs to nullify the switch catch mechanism that would normally be engaged. This part is where the STS instructions are woefully unclear. The turn signal switch mechanism that exists generally has a mechanical latch that "catches" when you signal left or right. So even though the turn signal switch may have returned to center position on your handlebar, it is this catch that tells the bike that the turn signal is still engaged, and can only be cancelled when you press into the middle of the turn signal. These little foam discs are inserted into the housing to suppress the catch mechanism and basically render the turn signal switch into a button. [UPDATE] After you insert the foam discs, if you turn the signal left, you must immediately signal left twice in rapid succession and hold the switch left in order for the turn signal to blink ( I think I connected something incorrectly because it's supposed to stay blinking upon signaling left. Same thing with the right upon insertion of these foam discs. 

4. The actual STS box must be positioned with the logo facing upwards and with the arrow pointing towards the front of the bike. If you don't orient the STS box correctly then the electronics cannot perform its turn signal cancellation effectively based upon bike motion/movement. 

I'll post detailed install photos after I've had a chance to recheck the suggested wiring colors in the STS instructions against the Niken service manual. 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by maximNikenGT
Updated test blinking behavior

[maximNikenGT]

The instructions themselves are very generalized. Be sure to double check wiring  colors in service manual before cutting anything. 

[maximNikenGT]

These two videos helped fill in a lot of missing details :

 

 

 

[maximNikenGT]

Ok - attempted first part of getting all the STS installed tonight.

1. Remove left hand side fairing, left side upper cowling, and protective boxes covering electricals.

2. I ended up cutting the protective sheathing off the wiring harnesses so I could get as much room to work with when stripping the wires and adding male and female bullet connectors (provided by STS). 

3. I now know why Duarte Silvestre's Youtube video recommended splicing the wires where the connector goes to the motorcycle's computer vs  the wires between the connector and the handlebar switches. Two key reasons:

a. This is because the area from the connector to the handlebar switches is under the upper cowling and handlebars, hence less room to easily use your tools to strip/crimp wires. NOTE: I used a very good metal wire cutting tool that I use to cut my road bicycle brake and shifting cables. That way, my wiring didn't have any frayed edges or uneven cuts, which helps when trying to add connectors and establishing strong electrical connections. 

b. the visible wiring section from the connector to the handlebar switches area is actually shorter than the visible wiring section from the connector to the motorcycle's computer. The additional wire (about 1.5-2 inches) is super helpful when crimping on the male and female butt ends. If you screw up crimping your connectors, and you ruin the wire ends, then the additional cable will be a blessing in disguise since you have a little more leeway to trim and start off with a fresh cut connection. You'll be much happier you spliced this section. 

4. The bullet connectors supplied by STS is not a typical connector I keep in my electrical toolkit (usually spades, tube crimpers, or positaps). I ended up messing up one of the female bullet connectors while crimping and unfortunately STS doesn't supply any extras if you mess up. So Amazon to the rescue by getting a few extra bullet connectors. The bullet connectors make sense vs. using positaps because if you ever had to revert the bike to stock, it's easy to disconnect the STS and plug the turn signal connections back into each other. 

5. Finding an appropriate place to mount the STS accelerometer/motion sensor box proved a bit challenging. There's not a horizontally flat area that doesn't interfere with the suspension or steering mechanism in some way. I attempted to see if it were  possible to mount the STS box:

a. Beside the windscreen directly on top of the shock tower plastic. This didn't work ideally because at maximum lock the wiring could interfere, and it meant the underside had less wiring to work with e.g. I would have needed to add additional extension wiring to hook everything up. 

b. Under the cowling but above the section where the brake lines for the Niken run past the horn. This didn't work because the STS wiring was too thick and trying to run the 8 connectors through the brake line bracket proved very difficult. Also because the STS box itself is plastic, I wasn't that keen on having plastic directly above the brake lines separated by a metal bracket (potential melting concerns due to high heat conditions from the brake lines). 

c. I ended up finding a small vertically flat space directly behind the wiring I was going to splice into. It didn't appear as though the STS should fit but it actually does quite nicely with the logo pointing upwards and the arrow on the STS pointing to the front. I used velcro to affix the STS sensor to the vertically flat space. 

At this point, I'm awaiting the replacement female bullet connector to arrive before I can run a full test to see if the STS works as described. Will post video and pictures soon. 

Will tackle adding the foam bushings/washers to the turn signal handlebar switch in the meantime. 

5/17/21 CORRECTION TO WIRE SPLICING BELOW - BE SURE TO CUT THE DARK GREEN AND NOT THE LIGHT GREEN WIRE!!! 

Edited May 17, 2021 by maximNikenGT
Added correction to correct green colored wire

[maximNikenGT]

Installing the foam washers into the left turn signal instrument was a little challenging:

1. If you have the GT, the cables that go to the heated grip warmers prevent you from easily taking off the instrumentation housing from the bracket. You have to loosen the 8mm  bolt that secures the clutch Lever to the handlebars in order to have enough clearance to get the top part of the instrumentation housing out of the way in order to get access to the internals of the turn signal switch. 
2. Once you've finally gotten access to turn signal internals, the foam washers provided by STS are two sizes. One is  8 mm thick, the other is 15mm. The size of the spaces to be filled are 10mm (of course they are 😠). Hence i had to bust out a crafting mat for cutting paper projects at a high degree of accuracy and utilize a ceramic paring knife in order to cut the washers down to size as  cleanly as possible. Scissors struggled with the foam washers deforming under shearing action of the scissor blades and a rotary cutter was too light duty to cut the foam effectively. 
3. Blinker wire coloring on the backside is white/yellow,white/brown, white/black (pin 7)
4. After wiring everything up, turned on the ignition and did not get the turn signals to light up when activating the turn signals. Turns out instead of cutting the dark green i had cut the light green wire. Corrected that and still no startup sequence detected.  Checked voltages in power and that registered above 12v, now I'm stuck because I'm not sure what I missed. Reverted back to stock and now turn signals won't blink normally. Going to look at fuse box to see if I blew a fuse in the process.
5. Checked fuses and no blown fuses there. Took out the foam washers to see if that was causing the issue with the turn signals not activating, still no blinking turn signals upon removal of foam washers. Will need to check my male/female bullet connectors to see if there was a problem with my wire stripping and connector crimping. 
6. [5/7/21 update] disconnected the multi-wire plug that goes to the handlebar switch and reconnected it and it actually ended up allowing the turn signals to activate when double push and hold of turn signal. I then tried reconnecting the STS and then the turn signals wouldn't activate. I suspect a bad wiring strip/crimp of the signal wire to be the culprit - will have to try and redo the signal wire to see if that's the key. Couldn't isolate the problem to the actual multi-wire plug. 

[micah2074]

It’s always fun to tinker. My turn signal canceller thing-a-ma-gig is much simpler and, so far, very reliable. 

[Clem Fandango]

I ordered the smart brake module from those guys weeks ago, even added the "expedited" 2-4 day shipping.  Still waiting.

[Heli ATP]

3 hours ago, micah2074 said:

It’s always fun to tinker. My turn signal canceller thing-a-ma-gig is much simpler and, so far, very reliable. 

 

I've got two of them in case one fails......  😁

[maximNikenGT]

Section 8-167 shows location of 3 fuse boxes #17, 18, 19 (cruise control fuse). 

Turns out one can access the right hand side fuse boxes without taking off the right fairing. Checked the fuses for the turn signals and no broken fuses. 

8-168 shows Fuse box 1 under the rider seat. 

[maximNikenGT]

Fuse box is fine, appears to be a bad crimping job on the bullet connectors for the signal wire. Will need to review videos on best ways to connect bullet connectors to wiring. Was told by a friend that low voltage wiring must have solid connections or they just don't work. 

[maximNikenGT]

Looks like I'll need to solder the connections to ensure solid voltage. Getting out the soldering iron...

[BBB]

@maximNikenGT, have you ever used these? Strip each wire, push into the connector from opposite ends then just use a hot air gun. The ends shrink seal, make the connection waterproof and hold the wires. The low temperature solder inside makes the electrical connection. I use a variable temperature hot air gun: low temp to shrink seal, then wack up the temperature for the soldering. I also use a curved blade on the end of the heat gun to protect anything behind. I much prefer them to conventional soldering, where I’ve had problems getting solder to run properly.

Kuject 120PCS Solder Seal Wire Connectors, Self-Solder Heat Shrink Butt Connector Solder Sleeve Waterproof Insulated Electrical Butt Splice Wire Terminals for Marine Automotive Boat Truck Wire Joint: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

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Free delivery and returns on all eligible orders. Shop Kuject 120PCS Solder...

 

[Heli ATP]

The Self-Solder Heat Shrink Butt Connectors work really well and a kit on ebay is only about $12. Be sure to heat the outsides of the connection first, if you heat the center the solder moves to outside. The only down side is the connection is not flexible so you need to plan how you lay it out. Also it maybe difficult to pull through small holes so again plan the location/position before heating.

[maximNikenGT]

On 5/10/2021 at 3:03 AM, BBB said:

@maximNikenGT, have you ever used these? Strip each wire, push into the connector from opposite ends then just use a hot air gun. The ends shrink seal, make the connection waterproof and hold the wires. The low temperature solder inside makes the electrical connection. I use a variable temperature hot air gun: low temp to shrink seal, then wack up the temperature for the soldering. I also use a curved blade on the end of the heat gun to protect anything behind. I much prefer them to conventional soldering, where I’ve had problems getting solder to run properly.

Kuject 120PCS Solder Seal Wire Connectors, Self-Solder Heat Shrink Butt Connector Solder Sleeve Waterproof Insulated Electrical Butt Splice Wire Terminals for Marine Automotive Boat Truck Wire Joint: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

---

Free delivery and returns on all eligible orders. Shop Kuject 120PCS Solder...

 

Didn't know these existed. Will look into these. Actually don't have a heat gun. Might be time to get one. Any suggestions? I'm assuming these don't work with hair dryers.