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[SwampNut]

Also reference this thread:  https://www.electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=10280.msg121505#msg121505

The SR/S and SR/F have a negative on/off wire to the brake light, with constant 13.8v on another leg.  So you can add lights if you can negatively switch them, but I wanted to add a combo light with a shared ground.  Meaning that the tail and turn share grounds, so you can't switch that lead.  Here's what I did, which was pretty cheap and easy.

[Specter]

I see this tactic in a few companies products.  GE is notorious for this garbage too. It's a pain to work with, causes more headaches overall and when you DO have ground issues, ho boy do you have ground issues!! due to the 'everything hot' and the ground being applied to complete a circuit, instead of applying power, to activate the circuit.  But then they can soak it to you by selling you ground isolators and other crap to eventually BTFU and need to be replaced too!!  It makes you seriously question WHY they design it this way, unless it's to intentionally guarantee money down the road on parts and fixes....like GE does.

Aaron

[SwampNut]

I have no idea how Zero would profit from this.  It's weird, but I can't see a money motivation.  It's not a big deal, and I'm not sure I'd wire anything directly to the lights on a Zero or some other modern bikes.  The $2 part is a very cheap safety device.

[Specter]

If it prevents most average people from working on it, because they burn stuff up, and you MUST take it to their dealer, then yes, they make money off it by designing it this way, so ONLY they have the know how to work on it at 70 dollars / hr or whatever they want to charge you.

Aaron

[SwampNut]

It's sad to run into nutty conspiracy ideas everywhere you go.  Sheesh.  You might be shocked to learn that many modern cars need isolation and special care to add lights.  It was clear that on my Tesla I needed an isolated trailer controller and not just a generic harness to the stock lights.  I didn't have time to build something like this, so I had to blow $90 to get a premade one.  This is not unusual, evidenced by the fact that there are a whole lot of options to buy these devices for modern cars that don't want you cutting into wires like you did on your 56 Edsel.

I forgot to get a video, but that plate light is SUPER obvious at night.  I don't know if it's the location or the pinpoint LEDs or what, but it's a big jarring, which is good when the cagers are all asleep/texting.

[atomicdog]

Active low switching is actually common in lots of electronics.
A transistor (PNP) to pull the signal high used to be bulkier and more expensive then its NPN counterpart that would pull the signal to ground.

[karlh]

Remember that on the SR/F and SR/S the lighting is powered through the Power Distribution Unit (PDU).  It's not a simple battery to switch to light to ground setup.  Without a schematic, it will be difficult to tell how the system is actually wired.

[SwampNut]

Remember that on the SR/F and SR/S the lighting is powered through the Power Distribution Unit (PDU).  It's not a simple battery to switch to light to ground setup.  Without a schematic, it will be difficult to tell how the system is actually wired.

I assume this is true of every modern motorcycle (outside of cheaper dirt bikes and cheap Chinese clones).  My 2020 KTM certainly didn't have any direct connections like that, but it wasn't a negative signal to the light itself.  The days of battery-wire-switch-wire-light are well past.