The New Modern Motorcycle Wiring System - Ctrl MC

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]This video series is sponsored by JLC PCB. Welcome. I have some great news for you. The control MC system is finally working. This is prototype number four.

[00:00:12]It's finally done. The hardware and the software. That's why it's 2 months since my last video. I've been doing system development on every evening. But now it's here. Software, hardware prepared for my first demo. To simplify this test, I've just connected up the horn so far. What can you see here? This is my power supply. I'm turning it on.

[00:00:32]Powering up 12vt to the system. System is booting up. You can see here I have connected the horn and the wire that goes to the horn button. This is my wiring simulator. So, this simulates all the stuff you find on a typical motorcycle. And now I'm going to press the horn button.

[00:00:54]And it just works. And I've even made a timeout function so it will never signal more than three seconds. Let's say you get water or damage your horn switch.

[00:01:04]You don't want the horn to stay on forever. So listen to this. I turn it down now.

[00:01:13]And there it goes off after 3 seconds.

[00:01:15]There is a timeout. But this is not so impressive. Let me now show you.

[00:01:20]Everything here now is connected to my controlMC input output unit. Let me just move this horn over to another port. Let me use the auxiliary port number two. And now if I press the horn button, it's just this green light that lit up because my plan here is to use several of these units placed around the motorcycle where you want them. So, let me put in the second one here. And what you will see right away is some blinking patterns on these boards. This is unit number one.

[00:01:53]It blinks one time each fifth second.

[00:01:56]While this one blinks twice, indicating it is unit number two. And this is the canvas. This is the only wire that goes in between of these units. Let me plug it in.

[00:02:09]Then let me connect this to the horn.

[00:02:11]And now, crossing my fingers, this is actually going to work.

[00:02:19]Fantastic, isn't it? Maybe I can just put it to the park light. The sound is a bit annoying. So, you can see now I press this button. Two of the lights are shining up because now I have connected the horn output to two different lights.

[00:02:34]That means one unit is sending data over to the other unit which is performing the action. And this is a very flexible and good system. Can add as many units I want to and it's fully configurable.

[00:02:47]This is a great milestone. The system is more or less done. It's working. But maybe you're not even aware of what I'm talking about here. What is it for?

[00:02:56]What's the purpose of this? And how did it all start? If you've been following along this video series, you know all about it. Then you can skip ahead some few minutes. But if you're new here and you're actually curious about all of this, let me give a very quick recap.

[00:03:15][music] [music] First of all, I got to give a shout out and a thank you to the sponsor of this video series, JLCPCB.

[00:03:32]Without them, this had not been possible. Everything what you see here is made by GNC PCB. Well, no, that's not true. This one, this one is actually bought. This is a standard microcontroller development board with a STDM32 microcontroller on it. But the other three parts here, they are fabricated at JLC PCB. So, I have designed these PCBs on my computer. This was the first one. This is a power module. takes 12vt input and outputs 3.3 volts to the microcontroller and 5 volts to a canvas transceiver that's also built in here. So this was the first design I made with assembly from JLCPCB and I got to say JLCPCB has made it very easy to order either only the PCBs or PCB with assembly where you actually get all the pieces put on the PCB. The next part I designed for this project was this module and it is a power module. So it has Infinion smart switches here.

[00:04:42]Pretty nice. And then of course the biggest and nicest PCB I have ever made is this uh wiring simulator. And here you can see the quality you get from JLC PCB. I even have a affiliate uh code.

[00:04:59]So, if you're going to buy something from them, you can support my project and this channel by adding my link to your order. Okay. Now, back to the explanation here. This wiring simulator, this is replicating a motorcycle. So, think of this as your motorcycle, but your motorcycle has a problem. It doesn't work. The wiring is bad. This typically happens with an old motorcycle. The the cables uh the wires get brittle. They break. the connectors get uh corroded. It just doesn't work anymore. And what you need then is just to strip it all the wires, all the cables from the motorcycle and rewiring it. Build up a new wire harness. And that is quite a task. And that is what I'm going to help you with. Simplify your process. And I could have shown you how to do it on my wiring simulator, but I think it would be even better if I make a tutorial using a proper motorcycle. I have a cafferessor build in my garage. I'm going to use that one as the first project to really test out this system. So for now I just want to fast forward and um just connect up all the cables without going in depth yet with this system. First I'm just going to disconnect everything here like this. Okay. So now I have my simulation motorcycle here. all of these pin headers here. Can think of that as all the connectors you have on your motorcycle for all your lights and all your buttons. I'm just going to fast forward so you can test out the complete system. I promise you I'm going to make some proper tutorials on how to do this later on. So now it's just checking the software. Does the software work with my simulator? Here we go.

[00:06:58]And just like this, everything is wired up. Well, it's actually 3 days later and at least 30 hours with the work. Not not because of the wiring. Hooking up these cables goes pretty fast. That is not the big deal. And you can see it's not that many cables either. This is almost almost wiring up a complete traditional classic motorcycle. Some few parts are not supported yet. I'll come back to that. But here on the right side, I've swapped around on the units. By the way, this is now the front unit. That is now unit number one. That is connected to all the handlebar controls, all the buttons here. If you operate when you are riding the motorcycle and it's connected to all the front lights, the rear unit is connected to the rear equipment and to some switches. Why did it take 3 days? Well, of course, as a system developer, might happen you do a mistake and I found some bugs and I started to bug fix it. Now, when I finally attached all the equipment, then I could see all the mistakes I've done. And I also made some improvements to the framework. I've made this sketches along the way trying to find a good design also to know how to connect to what. Since these units are very universal, it can be used on any motorcycle on any configuration on any equipment. When you set up the system, you need some installation guide. More like a list where to plug what. I think that's a good solution. Makes it flexible and easy. But okay, it's time to power it on to see if it uh even works. Like this 12vt turning it on.

[00:08:49]Let's test the horn. That should still work.

[00:08:54]It does.

[00:08:56]Then the next thing I can test, let's see the neutral switch.

[00:09:02]Exactly like that. So, when your sensor for the neutral position is uh grounded, then this uh lamp lit up on your dashboard. That's the only instrument I've hooked up, by the way. Let's turn on the lights. See if we can get the lights to work. I have a light button here.

[00:09:22]One press. This is a toggle switch. One press and I turn on the park light and the rear lights shine up. Pressing one more time, I toggle on the normal lights. This is low beam. And then I use this button to toggle on high beam. So now it's high beam. One more time. Back to low beam. If I press the light button one more time, I turn it off. So the way this works is that um I I can configure the system in two ways when it comes to button. Either as toggle switches. This is like the touch button style. So each button are momentary switches. If you have more like a classic setup with buttons like this, this has uh these are permanent switches I call it. They are on off and like this one it's uh lights off, lights on park mode, lights on normal position. And this one is uh high beam, low beam. So when you switch the the switch, it stays there. also the turn signals right and left. It's absolutely possible to use a switch uh like that instead of these momentary switches. It's just a configuration. So this system can be tailor made to exactly what kind of switches you want to use. But for my test bench here now for my wiring simulator, everything is set up with a touch button. And I also have made a test here. This is typically how I will test it out on my capacer. So I can just press this button and have different functions for each of uh these. And uh I like these kind of buttons. They are very nice and smooth.

[00:11:12]I'm not sure really. I do like the classical style of buttons as well.

[00:11:16]Let's see what fits best on the bike. I can now just do a slight configuration and switch out the switches. Yeah, but let me continue the test here.

[00:11:30]Let me turn back on the lights and maybe the low beam. And what about the turn signals? These buttons are configured.

[00:11:39]How here are the right side turn signals and this one is the left side. And I can just press it one more time to turn it off.

[00:11:50]Also, I can actually press both of them at the same time.

[00:11:55]And then, of course, I had to make this hazard function. And if you have this other style of um button, I will make it so if you flick the indicator switch back and forth a couple of times, it will activate the emergency hazard blinking. So yeah, it's possible to program the system to work exactly as you want. What more is there to show? Of course, the brake lights here at the rear. It works on the handlebar front brake and it uh works on the pedal. Both of these buttons are connected into the system. A small feature I made as well.

[00:12:32]If the lights are on and if you're unlucky and your engine cuts and you want to start it again, let's see what happens when I engage the starter motor.

[00:12:42]You see the lights turn off. That's the equipment on the motorcycle that takes most power. So actually both the horn, if you the horn is activated and the lights are activated, it will cut it for a while. This this green light here is just simulating the starter solenoid or the starter motor. And there is probably other stuff I could show you as well, but you got to trust me. Everything works flawlessly here. Now the communication between the units, all the functions works easy to build upon this.

[00:13:14]I'm very satisfied. Maybe I can do an experiment. What happens if the system fails? Let's say an accident happen. You lose power or one of the units lose connection. I can now unplug this one.

[00:13:27]What? Nothing happens. It still works.

[00:13:31]And that is pretty smart with this system because none of these units are made as a master and a slave. They are both working independently of each other. They have both the same configuration and they just communicate each other and distribute the same information. So if something happens the system will work of course limited because now they can't communicate. So what happens on the rear end on the front end will not be sent but as soon as the communication goes back up I would say now it should start working again. And what if an accident happens?

[00:14:10]Well this is a bit better than just having one unit because now at least half of the system can continue to work.

[00:14:16]And if you have a spare one, it should be possible to replace the one if you, let's say, you crash and the rear unit is damaged. You can just take it away, plug in a new one, and it will automatically be configured because each units have the whole overview of what's going on. It will just replicate over to the new one and make it work again. So, um, if you're going on a long trip, you can just bring along a couple of spare ones in case something should happen. I haven't seen any system that is this well thought out as this one. Yeah, got to brag a bit about my own solution here. I'm really satisfied with it. And another thing, of course, if I power it down, take the key, leave the bike, and come back and turn it back up again, then it's reset and it will continue like with the default state. And I also already made so it's storing the information persistently that is needed, not only the configuration, but also the trip counter or whatever information that needs to be persistent on the system, it will also be stored. In other words, the heavy lifting when it comes to the software development is done. The system is working. It will be developed upon further. It's actually made the in a certain way. So, it is easy to expand it. It's made modular using best practices when it comes to software development. Code is of course open source available on GitHub. But I mentioned there were some things lacking with the hardware here. I did not connect all the devices. For instance, the oil pressure lamp, at least on my Honda, there is a red indication lamp on the dashboard that is going to show me if the oil pressure is low. I haven't connected that. And I don't have any more available outputs. I'm using Infinion Profit switches here. They are great. I have six outputs on each of these devices. I need more. That's not enough. That's 12 combined. And since I am connecting, for instance, the turn signals separately, rear and front, I need more. So, I have already designed and ordered and uh waiting for a new set of these switchboard, switch module with more ports. And I'm now upgrading to a newer and even more sophisticated and I hope better type of switch that's called Infinion Spock switches. They have even real PVM dimming on them and uh more features and they are easier to hook up to the microcontroller. They use SPI instead of dedicated enabled pins. A lot of improvements. I think they are more compact as well. Four channels per ship.

[00:17:17]too much to go into here. That will be in an upcoming video. Yeah. And uh another thing of course is I can't have it like this. This is just small modules tied together. There will be no cabling when this module is made. This will be a small hopefully compact tiny PCB.

[00:17:38]Something like this. I would assume it's probably the connector that will take the most place. So on the hardware side, there are still some iterations to go and also I have my motorcycle in my garage which is also needs some work on it. [music] I need to fabricate a seat tray so I have somewhere to put all the cabling and I need to attach either this [music] or this. Okay, I hope to see you again in my upcoming videos about this project and please join my Discord server. Check out [music] my GitHub and all the documentation should pretty soon be updated. I'm just rambling out doing some real job in the garage. Hope to see you again. Bye-bye.