Installing the Autoswitch will not alter your existing wiring and can never cause a malfunction to your existing circuits. The Autoswitch simply taps any 12 volt wire after the ignition switch for power and the GROUND wire coming from the turn-signal-cancel button Add connections to ground and the coil of the auxiliary light relay and you have installed the Autoswitch!

The following paragraphs were provided by Sean at http://www.cyclegadgets.com/

For the R1100RT, most connections can be made in the fuse box under the seat. The Turn Signal Control module is a 1" x 2" cube in the right rear of the fuse box. Pull it up (do not disconnect it). There are about 12 wires underneath. Cut away some of the sheath, and locate the Brown wire with White Stripes. Tap the Orange wire from the Autoswitch into this.

On the K1200LT, the wiring is a little more complex. We recommend locating the Autoswitch under the seat, where you can connect the Red and Black to power and ground as outlined below. Route the ORANGE wire up to the front of the bike, and use Zip ties to fasten it to a wiring bundle or brake line leading to the right handlebar assembly. Remove the handlebar cover (two 3mm Hex screws from below). Cut away some of the sheath from the largest wiring bundle, and locate the Brown wire with White stripes. Tap into this wire.

For other BMW models with a turn signal cancel button, you will need to locate the wire leading to that button. It will generally be brown with white stripes, and you can test it by using a meter to confirm that the wire shorts to ground when the turn signal cancel button is pressed.

For all bikes, connect the Red wire to power. An ATC fuse tap (available at an auto parts store or Radio Shack) is an easy solution in most cases. Choose a fuse that is "hot" only when the ignition is on.

Connect the Black lead to a chassis ground. You may need to extend the black lead with a piece of scrap wire to reach a suitable frame or battery ground point.

The Violet wire controls your lights. If you are using a Cycle Gadgets lighting kit, attach the Violet wire to the Alternate Control Harness. For other lighting solutions, attach it to the +12V coil terminal on the light kit relay.

There are many options for mounting the LED, depending on the amount of effort you want to put into it. You can drill a hole small enough for just the lens of the LED in the dash and use silicone adhesive to hold it in from behind, fasten with a cable clip at the front of the fuel tank, etc. We have found that it's pretty easy to get the hang of the Autoswitch timing without a visual cue, so you may find it adequate to just coil up the LED under the seat and not use it at all.

For additional information, please view our "Relay Basics for the Novice" page.

Use the Autoswitch and have a hidden switch working for you. The Autoswitch is easy to install. If you already have auxiliary driving lights installed with a controlling toggle switch and relay, Put the Autoswitch VIOLET and the BLACK wire where your toggle was connected on the relay coil pins. Tap the RED into any ignition-swtiched 'ON' wire for power, ORANGE wire to the turn-signal cancel button wire. Add connections to ground, and neatly tuck the Autoswitch and wires out of the way in any convenient location. And without building a bracket, drilling any holes, or modifying your dash, you’re done!

Click here to download complete detailed instructions as an Adobe pdf file.

If using an aftermarket turn signal canceler that ALSO sends a negative or ground connection to the controller box, be sure the pulse is less than 1 second in length and it is a single pulse. This will avoid it telling the Autoswitch to activate your lights relay ON or OFF. Or activating the garage door opener.

LED dimensions details:

This LED has a lens on top. The housing is a 5mm diameter, 7mm tall. There is a 1mm long flange at the bottom thats 6mm diameter. The wire underneath needs aproximately 20mm before a full bend can be made. This stiffness is only due to all the layers of protective heat shrink tubing. By modifying this area the bottom of the LED wire secion can be set up much smaller.

LED info:

The LED is a bi-color. Red or Green. It changes color by getting the volatge on the feed wire reversed by the processor. When the LED is quickly pulsed the color appears orange to the eye. The wire is 6 to 7 feet long. It should never be cut or altered due to the danger of damaging the processor chip. If the wires are shorted when the Autoswitch is powered up, the processor chip will be instantly ruined.

Further tech info about converting the LED to be a bulb, or changing to a different LED entails custom work, info and configurations we do not have available at this time.

A relay is nothing more than a remotely located switch that you activate using a small switch or computer. The reason for a relay is to allow switching on and off high currents. Such currents like 10, 20, and 30 amps would make a toggle switch too big and impossible for a fragile logic circuit. So you control a relay using a small, low cost toggle switch or a computer circuit. You let the relay do the hard work. The relay then has an IN and OUT (usually reversible) high current pins that break the high current line between the battery and the large lights.

The relay has inside an electromagnetic coil, like an electromagnet. This coil usually draws very little current, such as 30, 50 or 100 mA (0.03 0.05 or 0.10 Amp) When the logic circuit or small toggle puts power across this coil it closes the high power contacts inside the relay. You hear a click on and a click off.

Most relays have a small drawing on the housing to tell you which 1 or 2 of the 3 or 4 pins are the coil and which are the actual switched contacts. If you dont know you can run some tests with a 12V battery, trying different combos of 2 until you get a click!

If the relay is in a metal housing, It may have only ONE pin for the coil. The second pin, or ground is the housing which must be mounted direct to chassis or otherwise grounded. If your relay is in a plastic housing it will have 2 pins for the coil, usually reversible. Your toggle switch is breaking the 12v power line between one side of coil and power.

The Autoswitch VIOLET wire feeds a small amount of 12V power to one side of the coil, in the same manner as your small toggle. The Autoswitch has an extra ground wire in case you have a 2 pin coil on the relay.

But you can also just ground that 2nd coil pin and ignore (cut off) the extra ground wire on Autoswitch. Autoswitch gets ground from the other BLACK wire, it uses for its own circuit.

We hope this has helped those who are electrically challenged and we welcome comments and changes to this text.