The dilemma here is that unless I can pick up a used set at a reasonable price I don't want to pay £400 for genuine lights that are simply not worth the price. There are aftermarket sets that are better quality and more modern technology for the same price, or cheaper sets that are as good or better. The only real benefit of the DP ones is the ability to just plug them in and use the standard switchgear and dash warning light. I know however that the DP ones can't be that complicated, and even if they are and I can't figure it out myself I have a team of design engineers at work who'd rather be working something like this out that doing what they are supposed to be doing, designing military and civil aviation electronic systems and lighting. The main thing I need to find out is what output is coming from that third pin in the connector, but to do that I need to get to it and test it with the bike powered up. That means creating an extension loom to plug in and have the ends available to test with the tank etc back on the bike. I don't want to power up the bike with the tank off or leave it part dismantled for any period of time whilst I source the connector. If it was a 5 min, or even 20min, job to access the connector I'd have been in there by now, worked out what it is then ordered a couple of mating halves. But as anyone who've ever changed the Air filter on one of these knows it's a long and frustrating process to get the tank off, not helped on my bike by ham fisted previous meddlers overtightening the screws for the fasteners that attach the secondary side panels to the tank, so the captive nuts moulded into the tank now just spin, so it's a case of forcing the cover off over the heads of those fasteners that don't undo. It's madness how long it takes to get the tank off to access the Air filter. This is a bike that in theory should be used for long off-road adventures where the Air filter should be readily accessible to change at the side of the trail with a limited amount of tools. In my opinion Ducati got this aspect of the bike very wrong. I suppose the point of the semi-rant above is, does anyone know what the spec of the connector is? I was hoping it was a standard Superseal as used by Ducati a lot, and I have loads in my garage, but from my vantage point it doesn't look like one.
This is the connector. I can’t help with the signal output as that bike is awaiting a new dash unit from Ducati, plus he doesn’t have fog lights. It’s a 1260S, not Enduro, but at least you can see what the connector is. I’m fairly sure it’s called a Sumitomo connector - 3 pin.
It's possible to unplug the blanking dummy and plug in the small aux lights subloom without removing the tank. Well, on a regular 1260 anyway. Have done it twice. It's a complete PITA though, lots of fiddling a swearing involved as well as a curved pointy nosed pliers that I inherited from my dad. Pretty convinced they're from a 50s dental surgery but they've been pretty useful. Father wasn't a dentist but a military man and then a farmer but had a large workshop, he died 44 years ago today.
