23,000 Volt Shocker!

Well HID


There's a lot going on at the moment and I'm not getting any day-light to play with my new HID light, which arrived of Ebay late last week.



I've now read and re-read the instruction and I'm a little nervous about its fitting: I need to remove much of the fairing (or, cowling if we get technical) and I have to fit the bulb in the tightest of spaces. It's all the unknown - this is serious mechanicals in the spirit of Farkles.

There's an offer to use the garage at the back of our family mechanic's home (thanks, Gregg), which Ka is pushing me to take up but she fails to read the hormonal undertones in this challenge. I'm a bloke and I need to do this stuff without support to be have any chance of riding with my head still held high. She doesn't understand and even chats to the 18-month old next door on the off-chance she might be able to lend me a hand with the dangerous art of swinging a spanner. (Cow. (Ka, not the 18-month old next year, to my immediate knowledge, anyway)).



But. It looks technical. The instructions mention connections to the battery, which as we all know contains electricity that can be very dangerous. There's a warning sticker with "23,000 Volts" on it - enough voltage to eclipse a train's 3rd rail, isn't it? And then there's the fairing removal, the squaring away of the Farkle's odd-shaped ballast, black box and (other) black box gizmo thingy.

I've quizzed the Internet and there are interesting discussions about whether I should or shouldn't fit such a beastly to the bike at all and only one with photos of their own attempt to fit the gear - but they've a menu of almost hundreds of Farkles under their belt. ( This LINK.

The boxes and cables are all over the shop, though. They don't seem to have been designed for the ST at all and I can already see from my recce that I'll be needing to bundle the bits together carefully if I'm to have sufficient cable to reach the battery - and now I can also see the battery is not an easy run - thus I may need to take of the tank and all manner of gubbins to get the bugger in place and fed with sufficient juice to fire up.

What have I bought?!

Perhaps I should spend a couple of my available hours on Saturday fitting the Bike-Quip risers instead?

But then, Gregg seems keen to help. Perhaps I shouldn't disappoint him?

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