Katana Owners Club U.K.

Following on from my previous post ( http://www.katanaownersuk.club/forum/vi ... 781#p39781 ) where I went through the steps of testing a dead box and building a replacement from scratch, Fossie asked if I would do a write-up of the steps involved in rebuilding an original pop-up headlight controller box, so here it is -
The assumption is that you have a dead original box and want to rebuild it in the original casing.

Before worrying about the controller it seems worth checking that the motor itself is working correctly.
Remove the fairing so that you can get to the motor and wiring.
Unplug the motor connector.
Test the motor by connecting pin 1 to +12v and pin 2 to ground.
The motor should run and the headlight should cycle up and down continuously.

Test the limit switches. There are diodes built into the switches so you cannot just slap a continuity tester on there unless you make sure that the common connection (pin 5) is positive with respect to the switch outputs.
So, either connect pin 5 to +12v and a test bulb from either pin 3 or 4 to ground, or use a multimeter with a 'diode test' range.
Now as you manually raise and lower the headlight using the red knob below the motor you should see pin 3 go open circuit when the headlight is fully down, and pin 4 go open circuit when fully up.

Hopefully all is good. If not you need to fix the motor before continuing. There are other posts on this.

So on to fixing the control box. Take the lid off the box and see the solid block of yellow epoxy which has to be removed to extract the electrical connector that you need.
The way that I did this was to drill out most of it (1/4" bit, slow speed), being careful to not drill straight through the box itself as it is just soft plastic.
The original circuit board is just above the base of the box, and thats where you stop drilling!
After drilling out as much as I dared I swapped over to the Dremel and gouged out some more around the base of the connector (see pics s1-s3).







Now you should be able to cut through or break off pieces of the circuit board until eventually the remains of the board and the connector should come free from the box.
Hacksaw around the edges of the connector and clean up the solder joints as you will be reusing them (pics 4-5).





That was the difficult bit. It took me a good couple of hours and there is (for me anyway) a significant risk that you can end up drilling holes through the box or your fingers.

The components needed to rebuild the controller circuit are cheap standard off-the-shelf items from ebay, Maplins or similar.
You need two general purpose 1A diodes and two minature 12v 10A SPDT or SPCO (single-pole double-throw or change-over) relays.
Like these -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3V-5V-6V-9V-1 ... 2749.l2649

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1N4001-1N4007 ... ZBPqZ7rhYg

Check (by googling the part number) and make sure you can identify the relay terminal pins.

Solder up the circuit by following the diagrams from the original post (pics 6-9) and then temporarily squeeze everything back into the original box with a little bit of hot glue to hold the connector in place (pic 10).











Now temporarily reattach to the bike and make sure it works!

The last step is to encapsulate/protect the components from the elements. The correct way is to use electronic potting compound (like Suzuki did) which is a two-part liquid epoxy -
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Potting-Compo ... SwNSxVXxHk

or if you are in a hurry/cheapskate you could just use lashings of hot glue (pic 11).



Finished (pic12).



Total cost about £10 and your popup will do so for evermore.

Wiring diagrams -

Absolutely fu##ing brilliant.

Well done, I don't own a pop up myself but it's well written, informative threads like this that make these forums so useful

Cheers even I understand it. Thanks for taking the time.

can you not disolve the epoxy with acetone? i recall a problem with yamaha cdi units on xs1100's from some years ago, the diodes were replaceable and to do so the process involved using acetone to disolve the resin that the cdi was sealed with.

Acetone... Hmm, never tried it. A possible issue is that the plastic that the box and connector are molded from is pretty soft, so it might dissolve more quickly than the epoxy.
I have seen paint stripper suggested, and apparently it is possible to get actual epoxy removing goop but I have never seen any.
If anyone has another dead box then the acetone could be worth a try. I would still drill a few holes into the epoxy to hurry up the process.

Great information. The part is available from Suzuki but cost $300 Canadian. This is very possible for me to do and with this information it won't be to hard.
Cheers!

I think that the Canadian models had slightly different connections between the wiring loom and the control box (pins A,B,C,etc), so double-check before getting the soldering iron out!

This is true , there were 2 models of control box , 1 for general use and 1 for E28 market...(Canada).
The difference is the placement of 1 of the pins which is an earth I believe.
.

There is a way of rewriting the short wiring loom from the main loom to control box to alter it from an E28 box to E1 box, so all is not lost. Do the Canadian model bike actually have a light switch on the right handle bar , or does the headlamp come up with the ignition key.