Upgraded RGS Instruments

Take the win, you earned it.... similar hands here, in the middle of swapping out a Mazda V6 JE series motor, devil of a job keeping hands clean.

The dancing gals like ( insist ) clean hands, as does myself, hard at times without harsh chemicals, mix of soap first and second phase wool wash with eucalyptus oil, and soft scrubbing brush. Free advice not asked for, speciality here. j

I use clothes washing powder, a tad ouchie on cuts, but the caustic soda in it and the grittyness gets them nice and clean.
 
Yep, but I now grow Dandruff instead. Stupid old body stuff you develop is better than more Fatal body issues I suppose.
 
Nice work. I did the same.
Excellent! great minds eh. I'm jealous you found a red reading Voltmeter which is what I ideally wanted to match my red bike. Your replacement tachometer mechanism is a good bit deeper than the one I used so I suspect yours may be a bit better quality or you did it a while ago and technology has moved on a bit. Did your screw holes in the dial face line up with something on the replacement mechanism or did you just stick them back on to keep the authentic look?
 
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Hi Rokka, I cut and paste the below from my post (almost 14 years ago now! Jan 28 2010). I was able to remove part of the tacho, so not as big as it looks in the pic I posted yesterday. The screw holes almost lined up. I remember slotting the holes with a drill bit.

I fitted the voltmeter in 2017.

"It went in fairly easily. I had to slot the mounting holes in the original tacho face a little, and I had to cut a small hole in the rear of the tacho mounting to get it to sit right. I wired it to the same connection points the original one was wired to, so that part was pretty easy."





 
Hi Rokka, I cut and paste the below from my post (almost 14 years ago now! Jan 28 2010). I was able to remove part of the tacho, so not as big as it looks in the pic I posted yesterday. The screw holes almost lined up. I remember slotting the holes with a drill bit.
Still a lot bigger than mine. Mine was barely 1.5cm deep and that's including the lighting which was just a few LED incorporated into the PCB. but the screw holes were a mile out and in fact mine isn't attached to the dial at all just positioned so the spindle comes through in the middle of it. I had to mount the mechanism by cutting off the front of it's housing and screwing the rear part of it to the back of the original space, even then I needed some spacers underneath it to get the spindle to protrude far enough for the Veglia needle to press on fully.
An unrelated question Chappo if you don't mind. How high does your temperature gauge get during a long run, a bit of cleaning of the contacts and the previously very pessimistic fuel gauge has started to play ball but the temp gauge has never got higher than about a quarter up the gauge I wondered if it's a cool running engine generally or if my gauge is just lazy; also I'm pretty sure my speedo is under reading it's at least 5mph under what the sat nav is telling me. Maybe I'll have to find a replacement mechanism for that next!
 
Temperature gauge sounds about right, it’ll get hotter when you run it hard or if you’re stuck in traffic. My speedo reads about 10% high, which I think is pretty usual, so you might have a problem there.
 
Keep in mind that the purchase price of the Chinese items, while of great merit and use, their actual service life can be alarmingly short, the price an item leaves China, can be much lower than the sell price in the western world.

Bought several low cost items over recent years, one was a blue tooth mouse, about AU$40, when it stopped working i assumed a mechanical issue, not so, endemic failure of the low cost semiconductors, suspect the manufacturing process was not usual clean room standard. Wafer fabrication an issue, perhaps, will never know. What i do know, these low cost devices fail after 12 months, some better than others. Not even possessed of the mind, that purchasing several of said same device for inclusion in the electronics of a Laverda, will mitigate the early failure mode, as it may well be time derived failure as opposed to in circuit operation.

Have nos chips here, oldest going back into the 80's ( even 70's ), will use them in non critical repairs, actual fabrication process while clunky by these days "standards", were reliable all the same. Seems this is a modern dictate, whatever the warranty period that is the service life of an electrical or electronic device, win on price, lose on service life. j
 
Just in the middle of re-engineering my Mazda 929 HD series speedo, bespoke ND instrument panel for the most part. Obsolete house numbered ND chips. Repair; from China, air core drive chip for the actual speedo, and a unipolar stepper motor drive ic for the odometer drive. Known semiconductor houses, manufactured source of IC's.

Cannot recall the Laverda speedo meter movement configuration, taught band, spiral spring or air core, doubt air core of the era, maybe wrong there. Have in stock 2-3 RGS pods here, check them for speedo meter movement. Chip substitution from the iis Mazda development bench a possibility.

The iis LM2917 substitution for the RGS Tacho has worked to my uncertain knowledge going back more than 20 years, National semiconductor nos here, TI now re-issues some National chips, helpful at times.

Fairly straight forward stripping the oem pcb and sprinkling new LM2917 and passives on the old pcb, about the same work as above lads and clever notions. The actual tacho meter movement is robust and on par with any meter movement of the day, then and now. FSD accuracy was about 2-5% or better, in anycase the iis incremental ignition test allows the tacho to be confirmed for any error at 1000 to 10,000 major scale positions. Never more, for the most important real riding rev span, than few hundred rpm difference. HTH j
 
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Keep in mind that the purchase price of the Chinese items, while of great merit and use, their actual service life can be alarmingly short, the price an item leaves China, can be much lower than the sell price in the western world.

Bought several low cost items over recent years, one was a blue tooth mouse, about AU$40, when it stopped working i assumed a mechanical issue, not so, endemic failure of the low cost semiconductors, suspect the manufacturing process was not usual clean room standard. Wafer fabrication an issue, perhaps, will never know. What i do know, these low cost devices fail after 12 months, some better than others. Not even possessed of the mind, that purchasing several of said same device for inclusion in the electronics of a Laverda, will mitigate the early failure mode, as it may well be time derived failure as opposed to in circuit operation.

Have nos chips here, oldest going back into the 80's ( even 70's ), will use them in non critical repairs, actual fabrication process while clunky by these days "standards", were reliable all the same. Seems this is a modern dictate, whatever the warranty period that is the service life of an electrical or electronic device, win on price, lose on service life. j
Only sale price imports so as to sell the greatest number to the greatest number of people.
Quality is secondary.
It's a consumer society that we've all supported. Maybe it's reaching its limits, or we are.
Paul
 
How high does your temperature gauge get during a long run?

Hi Rokka, it sits on about 50c with normal riding. The highest I've seen it get to is 75c, when I am up it it for the rent, on a hot day.

Keep in mind that the purchase price of the Chinese items, while of great merit and use, their actual service life can be alarmingly short,

I bought a Chinese regulator/rectifier in 2017, still going strong.
 

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Silly me, the speedo is an eddy current movement, carried away with electronics for all.... if anyone does decide on electronic speedo, need an impulse encoder on engine or wheel hub, did the rear wheel hub, ring of magnets, post a piccy later, driving a Kwaka instrument pod... Laverda gods will not be pleased....i am however... grin j
 
Chappo, did well on the RR, luck is on your side... easy to replace RR's all the same, your voltmeter will let you know when time is up on the RR, then you know all that, already... used the oil light on the kwaka pod, feed by iis battery voltage monitor, indicated high and low battery volts. Saves looking at numerals while riding. j
 
I bought a Chinese regulator/rectifier in 2017, still going strong.
Ha Ha liking you more and more Chappo, I put an identical looking item in my son's Gas Gas JT25 about 7 years ago, also still working well.

iis iis I have no idea what you just said as I'm a bodging mechanic and machinist, making things fit is my thing, other experts such as yourself have to deal with the workings of circuits etc. One thing I gleened from your posts; that really cheap chinese gear is less likely to work for the next twenty years than quality electronics from more reputable manufacturers, ( with the exception of Veglia mid 80s electronic tachometers it seems by most accounts ) I already assumed before purchase. This is a risk you take when buying cheap and I have to accept that it could result in a shorter service life to the parts. I have a pack of 5 of the voltmeters, the tachometers are easily and cheaply obtained and the job of replacing either, ( now I've done it once ) is easy. I will report here any problems or failiures as time passes ( more and more quickly it seems to me).
 
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