Recreating a vintage motorcycle flasher unit

[Norman Woollons]

I have recently had a 1970 motorcycle returned to me after it was stolen. It was an ex-police machine made by the Rickman brothers. All the role equipment has been stripped and the bike is unrecognisable. I want to get it back into the condition it was in when it was stolen in 2011.

Rickman Motocycles no longer exist and I don't have a manual or wiring plan. Their police bikes were really one offs with only around 60 made.

The piece I need to recreate is the control board for the blue light, two tone horns, indicators and regular horn.

The various components were all mounted on a piece of galvanised steel, hidden inside the fairing. The bike is 12 volt negative earth, with front and rear direction indicators, a single Lucas L724 blue light in the windscreen and a pair of FIAM electric high and low note horns. These worked in tandem for the standard horn and in alternating high and low notes when used as emergency warning.

Everything was worked from the Lucas handlebar switches, via a multi pin connector from the fairing to the bike.

Rickman were way ahead of their time in creating a bespoke and very neat system for the electrics. I don't have a photo or plan and wonder if anyone could suggest what components I would need to recreate a neat unit to:

Make left and right indicators flash
Make dual note horn work
Make blue windscreen light flash
Make horns work in alternating high and low mode
Make headlamp main beam flash

Any suggestions would be most gratefully received, meanwhile I am still trying through other forums to get a picture of the unit - but very few of these bikes still exist.

Thanks for reading

NW

 

[Squid]

Have you tried,

Rickman Motorcycles - Parts and Prices - http://www.rickman-motorcycles.com/parts-and-prices.php

 

[Norman Woollons]

Thank you for responding. Yes I have. This company has bought the Rickman name and licence to trade, but having contacted them, I have not had any success in getting an electrical diagram.

Derek and Don Rickman ceased trading in 1975, 50 years ago and with the special racing frame being worth far more than the whole bike, I have yet to find an example to copy because they were stripped to get the frames.

I have also tried the VMCC library too.

 

[SparkyChick]

How original do you want to make it?

 

[Norman Woollons]

Thank you for replying. Good question. How original is original? I've had this discussion with collectors very recently and you have extremes, the Rivet Counters at one end, and the Aesthetically Functional at the other.

I am going for the aesthetically functional. Once someone strips off the original role equipment and substitutes other stuff, it ceases to be original. If I could get hold of a wiring diagram, I would make up a replacement board. I have sufficient confidence and competence to read a circuit diagram and get the bits.

The problem is I do not have the knowledge, without a drawing, to design a wiring diagram to make the bits work.

I'm not bothered about using 1970's vintage parts, even if I could get them. I have the external bits, horns, lights etc, it would be nice to get them working again.

 

[SparkyChick]

Ok, I was just thinking about how I may solve it... microcontroller and a little bit of software.

Do you know, or can you find out (by testing) how the switches are wired.... for example... does pressing one connect the switched side to 12v or 0v? How many wires do you have entering this 'control board'? How do the various switches affect them?

If I had the bike here, I'd happily work all that out and take it from there with a big dose of google

 

[Norman Woollons]

Sort of an Arduino on steroids?!

The answer is simple. When the thieves took the kike, they tried to disguise its past, so disconnected everything and cut the wires off. When I saw it on eBay, I didn't recognise it. It was only the engine and frame numbers which gave it away.

The switches are handlebar mounted using a standard Lucas LU39595 and LU39596 left and right switch. The indicator "up" activated the blue light and headlamp flash. The indicator down, just the blue light. middle was off. Top button was 2Tones on, bottom was off.

The opposite side did the regular indicators left and right and the horn.

 

[Strima]

Have you tried this lot? HPMG - http://policebikes.org.uk/

They might have access to workshop manuals etc or someone may know. A long shot but worth a try.

 

[Norman Woollons]

Thanks for searching and replying. Yes, belong to them. The problems is there were so few made and because the Rickman frames are still in demand for racing bikes, few if any remain in their "police" form. So I am left with the next best option, of trying to recreate something similar.

As I said in my reply to Sparky, the moment "original" equipment is stripped, the 'thing', whatever it is, ceases to be original. Like the "original Blacksmiths hammer" which after 5 new shafts and three new heads, is still totally Original!

 

[SparkyChick]

Sort of an Arduino on steroids?!

The answer is simple. When the thieves took the kike, they tried to disguise its past, so disconnected everything and cut the wires off. When I saw it on eBay, I didn't recognise it. It was only the engine and frame numbers which gave it away.

The switches are handlebar mounted using a standard Lucas LU39595 and LU39596 left and right switch. The indicator "up" activated the blue light and headlamp flash. The indicator down, just the blue light. middle was off. Top button was 2Tones on, bottom was off.

The opposite side did the regular indicators left and right and the horn.

I was thinking Arduino actually... sure I could design you a custom PCB and write the firmware for a PIC based solution, but an Arduino you can get off the shelf and there are lots of web based resources and shields (I think they call them) to help you along the way.

The issue about the switches is... if they simply connect various cables to the chassis (i.e. zero volts or ground), then interfacing to them is a doddle. If you can arrange for that to happen, then it really is straight forward. Depending on the load, you may be able to switch everything with power transistors, and if the load exceeds that, it's easy enough to drive a relay. Again, loads of resources on-line with examples etc.

I was thinking about how you could achieve this using off the shelf parts and unfortunately I don't know enough about what's available to offer help readily.

 

[Norman Woollons]

I've read about Arduino, but have never dabbled in that area of electronics.

The switch is simple, it takes power in from the battery diverts it to the selected resource(s), which are then grounded.

As all the "bits" are in or on the fairing, the multicore cable runs from the switch to a multipin female connector. The fairing has a multipin male, from where wires go to the board, Arduino or whatever, and then to the output which is connected to ground so the circuit is complete.