Relay for headlamp

Hi all,as I am not the Einstein of electricals could someone more with more knowledge please explain if the fitting of a relay on the low and high beam of the headlamp will help to lower the load on the charging system especially at lower speeds in town? Much appreciated.

Fitting a relay won't lower the load on the system, but what it will do is make sure the maximum amount of current reaches the headlamp. Instead of taking the tortuous route through the ignition & headlamp switches, plus the associated cable (which introduces resistance & thus lowers the current available to the headlight) using heavier rated cable it goes straight from the battery, through the contacts of the relay & then to the headlamp, meaning it can be as bright as physically possible -a good mod if you do a lot of riding at night.
But if you are worried about load on the system in traffic then you could make sure you first have a decent battery (Motobatt very highly recommended), get rid of the plug between the alternator & reg/rectifier & solder the wires together (mine had started to melt, causing intermittent charging problems), check your alternator output to make sure it's healthy & one step further is to fit a modern Mosfet type reg/rectifier, which unlike the original gives a bit of a charge at idle & starts to charge earlier in the rev range.

Great advice from Phil & I saw a post some years ago from him relating to the Regulator Mod, which was excellent & very worthwhile on our 1300's

Phil,
If you still have the post I saw, could you put it on this site ?

Pete F

Pete, unfortunately it was posted on the original Z1300.co.uk message board before it was converted to the existing site, so has gone now
But I can answer any questions relating to it if need be

Edit: I've found some old pics in my Photobucket account:

Showing the melted plug between the alternator & reg/rectifier:





Showing the soldering & heatshrinking of the wires:





Showing the Mosfet type reg/rectifier, a Shindengen FH012AA or FH020AA as fitted to '06-onwards Yamaha FJRs & '07-onwards R1s as well as a few others. Can be bought 2nd-hand on Ebay, I think I paid about £40 for mine. It runs a lot cooler than the original type as well. When installing, the brown ignition supplied wire that told the original reg/rectifier to 'wake up' isn't needed on the new one:





And this reading was taken at idle with the headlights on:

Thanks Phil.
Impressive stuff that !

Pete F

Thank you very much for the excellent explanation Phil,I am going to do the modifications asap!