By joining you will help ensure that we can continue to provide this service
JOIN HERE!
Katdash for your R90S
- Darryl.Richman
- Posts: 2138
- Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:00 am
- Has thanked: 1 time
- Been thanked: 9 times
Katdash for your R90S
The originals are no longer available, and they're a weak link in our bikes. The circuit board is a T shaped sheet of flexible plastic with traces on the surface and contact pads that power the lights. Light bulbs are installed in little plastic bases and inserted through holes cut the board. These holes are cut to leave triangular pads in the hole, that are then bent 90 degrees away from the surface. When the bulb and its holder go through the hole, the pads act as contacts to provide power and ground to the bulb. If you allow the tabs to be bent more than a few times, they can break off, and if you bend other parts of the plastic sheet, the traces can delaminate and break. Soldering is very difficult because the plastic can melt before the solder does.
The Katdash works just like the original, except better. All of the lights are LEDs, so probably they will never fail. There are no little tabs to break off. Once installed, the board should never need to be messed with again, so it shouldn't get bent or folded. And the Katdash has three separate LEDs each lighting up the speedometer and the tachometer, from three different points, instead of the single bulb that each gets from the stock unit.
[img=800x600]http://katdash.com/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 24x687.jpg[/img]
The original /6 unit is on the left and the Katdash is on the right.
They did not forget, BTW, that the Airhead charging system relies on the resistance of the charge lamp to excite the alternator. Now it's just a resistor on the board. And this leads to the one place where you can tell that the original unit is no longer inside (I mean, besides the better lighting for the gauges): when the motor is at or just above idle, that point where the charge light would produce a soft, glow and gradually going out, the Katdash charge light flickers crisply, faster as the motor speeds up, until the alternator is charging the battery and the light goes completely out. It's sort of like clock on my R90S, which failed and in which I had the later, more reliable, quartz movement installed. Instead of the smooth sweep of the original electric clock, it goes tick tick tick as the seconds hand jumps from hash mark to hash mark.
The Katdash is only $115 plus shipping, and so far I think it's a great piece of work!
- schrader7032
- Posts: 9058
- Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:00 am
- Location: San Antonio, TX
- Has thanked: 3 times
- Been thanked: 36 times
Looks like a well thought out
http://vintagebmw.org/v7/node/13994
'78 R100/7 '69 R69S '52 R25/2
Fast. Neat. Average. Friendly. Good. Good.
Katdash
All the effort to make these was well worth it in the end - the market's been crying out for something like this for years.
-
- Posts: 71
- Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:00 am
- Been thanked: 1 time
Re: Katdash for your R90S
President, VBMWO
- srankin
- Posts: 1085
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:45 pm
- Location: Spencerport, NY USA
- Been thanked: 21 times