So the supper wimpy OEM horn on my 2013 Cross Country Tour finally took a crap… time for an upgrade!!!!
Did some research and saw all the crazy places people are putting compact air horns on the Cross bikes. Under the rear fender, in the fairing, behind the rear jug, in a lower, etc…
I wanted a stealth install, hidden and out of the way, facing forward, not blasting me. So I decided to install something next to the battery, looks like there’s a good amount of space, right? Wired up a relay, taped, loomed, and zip-tied the wires so it looks like the relay is supposed to be there.
Well, I found there is not enough room for a compact air horn next to the battery… or a Fiamm Freeway Blaster, or a Wolo Big One, or any snail type horn I could find. Ended up buying a Wolo disk type that is barely better than the OEM.
I get everything back together only to find that every time I hit the horn button the cruise control light flashes and all my blinkers flash. Actually it happens every time I release the horn button.
Damn… Inductive kickback. For those who do not know about this, when a relay coil is disconnected from the battery, the collapsing magnetic field can generate a very short duration voltage spike. Apparently it was large enough to freak the damn computer out. The first relay I used was a cheapo, so I tried a better one, but that didn’t help. So I had to tear everything back apart and install a diode across the relay coil.
Problem solved.
So after 10-12 hours I ended up with a horn that is just barely better than the OEM.
Did some research and saw all the crazy places people are putting compact air horns on the Cross bikes. Under the rear fender, in the fairing, behind the rear jug, in a lower, etc…
I wanted a stealth install, hidden and out of the way, facing forward, not blasting me. So I decided to install something next to the battery, looks like there’s a good amount of space, right? Wired up a relay, taped, loomed, and zip-tied the wires so it looks like the relay is supposed to be there.
Well, I found there is not enough room for a compact air horn next to the battery… or a Fiamm Freeway Blaster, or a Wolo Big One, or any snail type horn I could find. Ended up buying a Wolo disk type that is barely better than the OEM.
I get everything back together only to find that every time I hit the horn button the cruise control light flashes and all my blinkers flash. Actually it happens every time I release the horn button.
Damn… Inductive kickback. For those who do not know about this, when a relay coil is disconnected from the battery, the collapsing magnetic field can generate a very short duration voltage spike. Apparently it was large enough to freak the damn computer out. The first relay I used was a cheapo, so I tried a better one, but that didn’t help. So I had to tear everything back apart and install a diode across the relay coil.
Problem solved.
So after 10-12 hours I ended up with a horn that is just barely better than the OEM.