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Brand new CDI for Hondamatic CB400A/CM400A/CM450A

Here is pictures of the Change Relay Schematic and PCB. Q1 and Q2 are really just a BJT/Darlington, can be replaced with a MOSFET which I intend do in a week or so when I go order more parts from Digikey. Don't want to waste my time buying mystery ones from Amazon and hoping they work. The PCB is larger than the original, not optimized design. This is just to make it easier for me when I'm wiring up some perfboard to test it out. Once we figure out something that works I'll optimize it down, get a few boards made from China. Just like the CDI.

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CM400A_Change_Relay_PCB_Rev1.jpg
 

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STATUS UPDATE 06-20-2022 PART 2:

* 3D Printed prototype lines up the same on the frame, clears the gas tank. So, need to find the right grommet or readjust the design for more common grommet.

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Are you talking about a rubber grommet to install onto/into your fabricated HondaMatic CDI case, one for the wiring to pass thru and which closes/seals the CDI's casing hole to keep out moisture and insects ?

I can't help - I arrived at this thread and read thru it from a curiosity standpoint only... ..Sucks for the manually-shifted bike owners (me included) that your invention can't be used on them even though their metal casings look identical. Different Honda part numbers for the CDI units of the CM HondaMatics and the CDI units of the CM400/450 C,T, and E models - as you likely knew already.

Anyway, glad you've accomplished what you 've accomplished - keep with it !
 
Yes, that grommet. If we have to change the hole size to accept a common grommet we will.

You can still buy brand new CDIs for the manual. Theres cdimagician on eBay who sells them from time to time. And a place in the UK as well. I forget their name but I'm sure someone here can chime in on that.
 
Boosted said:
Are you talking about a rubber grommet to install onto/into your fabricated HondaMatic CDI case, one for the wiring to pass thru and which closes/seals the CDI's casing hole to keep out moisture and insects ?

I can't help - I arrived at this thread and read thru it from a curiosity standpoint only... ..Sucks for the manually-shifted bike owners (me included) that your invention can't be used on them even though their metal casings look identical. Different Honda part numbers for the CDI units of the CM HondaMatics and the CDI units of the CM400/450 C,T, and E models - as you likely knew already.

Anyway, glad you've accomplished what you 've accomplished - keep with it !
Click to expand...

@Boosted: The other company is Rex's Speed Shop in the UK. Here's a link: https://www.rexs-speedshop.com/product/honda-cb400-cm400-cb450-cm450-cdi-unit/
 
STATUS UPDATE 06-21-2022:

* Revised the CAD file to work with an easily sourceable grommet. Will be 3D printed over the next few days.
* Quote of CAD file sent to multiple manufacturers. One has come back, waiting to hear from the others.

Capture.PNG
 
Boosted said:
I can't help - I arrived at this thread and read thru it from a curiosity standpoint only... ..Sucks for the manually-shifted bike owners (me included) that your invention can't be used on them even though their metal casings look identical. Different Honda part numbers for the CDI units of the CM HondaMatics and the CDI units of the CM400/450 C,T, and E models - as you likely knew already.
Click to expand...
You would think they would be the same and the big differences would be in transmission lower end and the associated control, and not the firing of the plugs. So strange. And Maraakate, you talk about epoxy and I assume you are talking about potting the things same as the original. Which maybe is a wonderful idea, but maybe not, you know if you or anyone wanted to fix the circuitry. Just saying, something to consider. I have seen use of less forever potting material used to protect circuits, like something that could be scraped off easier than a hard epoxy. Just throwing out an idea for you to ponder.
 
The schematic and PCB layout files will be available upon completion of the project. There are succession plans already in place if I got hit by a bus tomorrow. The knowledge will not be lost, this I promise. But, in all fairness, I would like to be compensated a bit for my work, which I think is fair. The potting compound will help it stay sealed for many years, decades to prevent moisture from ruining components and helps keep the PCB in a more controlled environment and also vibration that could cause components to short out or develop cracks. The units I have successfully repaired usually were from intermittent connections due to long term vibration causing cracks where the harness leads into the board. The other failure points is typically the large capacitor itself, and maybe one of the SCRs going bad possibly from the capacitor and/or the stator killing it.

Personally, if you're at the stage where you're doing what I did... dipping your CDI in vats of thinner, checking it a few times a day over a span of a couple of weeks you already know what you're doing and could fix and/or reverse engineer it as well. I also sell this as a kit, so you can solder it yourself, pot and mount it however you want. If you hate soldering, but just wanted the kit already soldered and test by me and want to figure out the mounting yourself I already sell this kit as well. I'm making an option for everyone so they can do it however they like. And yes, the kits are substantially cheaper than the complete plug and play unit will be as metal manufacturing and the proper potting compound intended for electronics (NOT CLEAR RTV!) will drive up the cost.

Just to put in perspective, I believe the completed units will be about $150-$200. It seems to ring true as I reach the end of the project. For example, to get galvanized steel or stainless steel cases from China is about $35-$40, not including shipping and this is factoring in if I order 5, 10, 50, 100, etc. at a time. The price break is not large, and I assume this will about as cheap as I can get it, but I wait for the quotes from additional vendors to make certain of this. The potting compound, of the proper and rated kind, was quite expensive and should take care of about 20 units, factoring this in and my time to assemble these by hand and personally test them on my bike then we're at the price points I've mentioned.

There is work involved in locating the right manufacturers to make the PCBs. Getting the right vendors who I can trust to deliver genuine components (just so we're clear I am not ordering the cheapest resistor kits from Amazon to save money) and so on. There is also a lot of time I've personally invested in the evenings such as: pouring over datasheets to find the right drop-in replacements for components that are NLA due to COVID/obsolete part numbers, conversing with fellow EE friends who were generous to help me when I got stuck at determining which components are the proper ones when the numbers are missing from them and also looking over the schematic I came up with for any mistakes, learning how to use KiCAD to layout a schematic and then also use it to layout a PCB, building multiple prototypes and road testing them, optimizing the PCB size to be the same as the original (which looks easy now that I have done it, but it was more difficult than it appears, ND got that board about as small as you can reasonably get it. I might be able to trim another mm or two but wasn't worth the effort now that its the same size), I also spent a great deal of time with parts catalogs to hand pick automotive AEC grade resistors at 1% for increased reliability and stability -- the new CDIs will have substantially less drift compared to the original, though the values are the same. This means the bike may start easier in different situations. It certainly has for me! The only corners that have been cut in the design is that I am not paying a manufacturer to make a custom grommet the same as the original. I don't think it's worth it when I can source something more common and slightly tweak the case design but will mount all the same. Currently, the corners are not rounded on the case. We're unsure if this will drive up the price substantially, but we will get quotes for rounded and unrounded corners and make a decision based on that. It may end up costing the same, and if it does we will do rounded corners like the original.

Sorry if I sound a bit rude, I am not trying to. I just feel that if you're trying to rip it apart then you already know what's going on and I don't want to split hairs over some clear potting compound or one that can peel off easier so you might/maybe be able to fix it. That's why I'm selling the kits in different formats, specifically for the people who want one they can mount however they want and play with it however they want.

With all that said, the 400A CDI could probably be used on the 400T with some modifications to the pinouts and a few other odds and ends, but I don't have a 400T to test. However, I could reverse engineer the exact circuit of the 400T series if someone wants to donate a few broken ones for me to find out the differences. I'm unsure if there's different resistor values for the part of the circuit required for the advance pickup coil (as the ohm rating is a bit different between both bikes) or if it will run just fine. Most of the values on that older equipment is not as critical. I think if you bypassed the part of the change relay to "fool" the 400A to thinking it's always in gear then this will use the 15 degree timing and the advance pickup coil should handle the rest. This is all theory though, I can't test it. But, if someone else wants to test it let me know. If this is the case, I can probably make a small add-on module for a 400T that forces the CDI to always work in the 15 degree mode and this would prevent people from having to pay the big bucks importing it from Rex's Speed Shop in the UK.
 
kbongos said:
You would think they would be the same and the big differences would be in transmission lower end and the associated control, and not the firing of the plugs. So strange.
Click to expand...

Remember, on the automatic there has to be an adjustment of idle speed for when the bike is put into gear so it's safe for all levels of riding ability and experience. Since the bike is carbureted (as opposed to computer controlled injection), there's no easy way to lower the idle speed except to back off the timing advance so the bike doesn't lurch forward and potentially get away from the novice rider.
 
Maraakate said:
Sorry if I sound a bit rude, I am not trying to. I just feel that if you're trying to rip it apart then you already know what's going on and I don't want to split hairs over some clear potting compound or one that can peel off easier so you might/maybe be able to fix it. That's why I'm selling the kits in different formats, specifically for the people who want one they can mount however they want and play with it however they want.
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't think you're being rude at all, in fact quite the opposite. You've been very forthcoming about the ongoing development and the steps you've taken to assure solid proper functionality and long-term reliability, and you've spent far more time sharing all the effort and research you've put into it. In my years of forum involvement, I can't recall anyone investing any more time and effort into any specialized project for a niche portion of our vintage Honda twins owners than you have, only Jay's DOHC 450 replacement gear-type oil pump could be similar if not equal. Most of us have some concept of the amount of time one can spend working on the most minute details of a project to make sure the end result is both exactly what we'd hoped for as well as reliable, producing good quality results takes time, effort and dedication to an idea and you should be compensated fairly for it.
 
Maraakate You are way over my head. I know what the parts do but have no idea how they do it. A year or so ago I tried to use a 400 T CDI with the 400 A stator. I put a 400 T CDI on a running 400 A and had no spark . Put the 400 A CDI back on and the bike ran fine. Just thought I would let you know. Just for info. T model idle at 15 degrees 1200 RPM. A model idle 1250 at 7.5 degrees and 1250 RPM at 15 degrees with motor in gear. The OHM values between the T and A model stators are different . So maybe trying to use your new CDI on a T model might be harder than just building one for the T model but like I said you know way more about this than I do.

Again I would like to thank you for all the work you have put into this project.


Bill H
 
The colour of wires on the 6-pin connector are a bit different, the ohm rating of the advance coil is different too. However, I think that 50rpm difference for the 15 degrees is minimal and would work in a pinch. But, I'd need to look into it harder one of these days and someone would have to be willing to test it. I think changing the wiring out of the 6-pin and fooling the change relay circuit would be enough.

If I remember correctly, you can disconnect the light blue wire coming from the change relay and the sidestand jumper and wires from the CDI and change relay and the bike starts. I have to verify it again, but I think I discovered this when working on the change relay circuit last week. If this is the case, it should be possible to build a small adapter that is essentially a change relay that is just always wired to be in gear since the starter circuit is different on a T. The timing might be just slightly off because of the RPM requirement, but probably not enough to really matter except on a dyno.
 
I would imagine with an experienced rider the idle advance difference wouldn't be a big deal but as Honda has always done, it was designed for safe operation by anyone from beginner to seasoned rider.
 
I might be confusing you, but I'm referring to taking my 400A CDI and making it work on a 400T. Which has no special idle circuitry. So that circuit is a moot point for safety in that particular bike, imo.
 
Yeah, I was actually thinking of the reverse application where the timing retard was not present for the A model. Not knowing squat about them, I should just shut up now. :rolleyes:
 
The timing does retard in Neutral on the hondamatics. That's the main purpose of the Change Relay. The change relay also grounds the starter button if not in neutral. It grounds the CDI if in gear and you put the sidestand down.
 
Maraakate said:
The timing does retard in Neutral on the hondamatics. That's the main purpose of the Change Relay. The change relay also grounds the starter button if not in neutral. It grounds the CDI if in gear and you put the sidestand down.
Click to expand...

Those parts I know, I was thinking that if the manual trans CDI could be used but without the retard action it would still be okay for the experienced rider who could compensate for the slight leap forward when putting it in gear. That's all I meant.
 
Ah, yeah. Well what likely would happen if I understand the circuit correctly and you want to use a manual CDI is that you'd have to fool something on the output for the light blue wire. I haven't tested it, but I think if you just disconnect that wire entirely it will force the CDI into 15 degrees mode so it might be useless or maybe I have it backwards. I don't know, I have to do more testing with that sometime when I get a chance.
 
Quotes are coming back from the various sheet metal fabs. It appears total price will be somewhere around $200 for a fully assembled, tested and plug and play unit. Turn around time will be about 6 weeks for the initial run. Who is interested and how many are you interested in? I can start setting up a pre-order for this as there will be a decent initial investment on my end to get a minimum amount of the cases made. It's only worth it for me to order at least 10 at a time. Otherwise the price goes up significantly.

Will need to wait on some sheet metal samples as well before I go ahead and pull the trigger, so it might be an additional week or two lead time to get that and assuming no fitment issues I can start working on them.
 
Maraakate said:
Quotes are coming back from the various sheet metal fabs. It appears total price will be somewhere around $200 for a fully assembled, tested and plug and play unit. Turn around time will be about 6 weeks for the initial run. Who is interested and how many are you interested in? I can start setting up a pre-order for this as there will be a decent initial investment on my end to get a minimum amount of the cases made. It's only worth it for me to order at least 10 at a time. Otherwise the price goes up significantly.

Will need to wait on some sheet metal samples as well before I go ahead and pull the trigger, so it might be an additional week or two lead time to get that and assuming no fitment issues I can start working on them.
Click to expand...

Count me in.
 
Pre-orders are now available for the complete plug and play CDI. Total price is $250 shipped to the US. International customers please E-Mail me to discuss options. Current lead time is 6-8 weeks from metal manufacturer.

You can pre-order here.

I know the target price was around $150-$200, but the price of the cases and shipping various things to me in small quantities to build it has driven up the cost a bit more than I anticipated, but I feel this is still a great price compared to paying $200 for an unknown used unit that is ready to fail on you at any given moment.
 
Small quantity orders are expensive. It's the setup cost that adds so much, once the setup is done then the cost of it gets spread across the entire order.
So a $50 setup fee spread across 10 pieces is $5 each but spread over 100 pieces becomes $.50 each.
 
Yeah, unfortunately I doubt I could secure 20, 50, let alone 100 pre-orders to bring the cost way down. I'll likely only be able to do batches of 5 or 10 at a time. I just don't have that kind of money to spend $5000 (more or less) to secure everything for 100 units. Considering the niche nature of it, I don't think it's worth trying to get a loan for such a thing.

With that said, I think $250 is still a pretty good price considering used units with no guarantee are hovering around the $200 mark these days. And it's still substantially cheaper than the Ignitech offering. If you're really strapped for cash (and we've all been there) the complete DIY kits are still pretty affordable so if you got some basic soldering skills and can follow instructions you can save quite a bit that way.
 
Oh, economics of scale I do understand and yeah a loan for 100 pieces isn't feasible. This is a niche market and as such it becomes more expensive than usual. I think the $250 price point is good and when considering the options it heads for the great.
 
Yeah, it's hard to say how many people are interested, but I'll be surprised if I sell 10 or 20 units a year. I may try and talk with 4into1 and similar vendors about buying a few units from me for sale on to their site. That would obviously drive up the cost for a customer, but unfortunately not everyone knows about VHT or the FB groups and it might be their only way to ever get the bike working again. The last thing I want to see is someone just ditching the engine and scrapping it because they can never get it to run then chopping up the frame and ruining the bike. And that seems to be an unfortunate trend with all these older bikes. Especially from people my age (I'm in my 30s).

One positive thing is that on the e-commerce page I am linking to the thread with the Ignition Test instructions so that should help raise some awareness to VHT for others who stumble across the CDI. I also plan to mention links for help/troubleshooting in the literature that will be distributed with the kits and units.
 
Maraakate said:
...I am linking to the thread with the Ignition Test instructions so that should help raise some awareness to VHT for others who stumble across the CDI
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I just looked at the page and it looks great, and I appreciate the idea of linking to our ignition diag page. Unfortunately, at the moment the VHT link goes to a page that says "blocked"
 
Thanks for letting me know. It was a problem in the HTML when I did a copy and paste in the WYSIWYG editor. Should be fixed now.
 
Already got naysayers scoffing at the price on fb. Not a big fan of the Honda groups on fb for various reasons. But probably pointless to explain that after I but the parts and spend an hour or two soldering and wiring it up, then testing it and finally potting it and charging for that time im really only making 50 dollars on this.

I want to be clear that I am not making out like a bandit on these. This is a labor of love for this particular bike. It was my first street bike and I still have it. Put over 20k miles on mine. Before I owned it it sat in a garage since 1994 and was started once a year to make sure it still ran. I know the frustration of the CDI being an Achilles heel on this bike.

If I was a large outfit that branched out into parts for many bikes, then yes I could have had 100 units pre-assembled and tested with certificates of authenticity from the manufacturers and save me the time of hand building each one. But that would end up making this thing cost about 450 to 500 dollars to make some profit. Nobody wants to spend that if they don't have to.
 
Maraakate said:
Already got naysayers scoffing at the price on fb. Not a big fan of the Honda groups on fb for various reasons. But probably pointless to explain that after I but the parts and spend an hour or two soldering and wiring it up, then testing it and finally potting it and charging for that time im really only making 50 dollars on this.
Click to expand...
Face Book keyboard warriors, they know everything because they have the Internet or You Tube Certified Mechanic sticker. :lol:
master-tech-insta_1000x1000.png youtube-certified-master-automobile-technician.jpg
 
Maraakate said:
Already got naysayers scoffing at the price on fb. Not a big fan of the Honda groups on fb for various reasons. But probably pointless to explain that after I but the parts and spend an hour or two soldering and wiring it up, then testing it and finally potting it and charging for that time im really only making 50 dollars on this.
Click to expand...

The truth be told, they are just jealous that they are not as capable, nor as optimistic that the value of this will be recognized. Pretend frugality is just a way to hide these shortcomings.

Cash flow is nice, have faith. You've done something here.
 
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Maraakate said:
Already got naysayers scoffing at the price on fb. Not a big fan of the Honda groups on fb for various reasons. But probably pointless to explain that after I but the parts and spend an hour or two soldering and wiring it up, then testing it and finally potting it and charging for that time im really only making 50 dollars on this.

I want to be clear that I am not making out like a bandit on these. This is a labor of love for this particular bike.
Click to expand...

Listen, you've been very clear and forthcoming about all of this since the beginning and we here at VHT get it. I've been on a couple FB groups and I'm on Reddit as well trying to help save some poor souls who don't realize that not everyone on the internet is as smart as they think they are - hence Jim's funny YT and Internet Certification jokes, SO true - but the hatred is huge out there for anyone disagreeing with the self-proclaimed internet geniuses or for trying to point out the proper way to do things for our bikes. I've learned that you can't tell anyone anything they don't want to listen to, I've been railing on many of Common Motor's backyard hacks for years but their videos have brainwashed a huge segment of the vintage Honda twins world.

WE know what you've done is legit, and why you've done it - and the reason VHT itself exists is basically the same. We enjoy helping people, we want to see people have success and we want them to do it the right way so that success isn't accidental or short-lived. You're doing the same thing with your effort on the CDIs and you will always have an ally and an outlet here. So we don't care how the others feel, because you can lead a horse to water.... and it's their loss if they aren't smart enough to drink.
 
Thanks for the kind words. It must be weird seeing such things as compared to 20 years ago with so much bad advice and experts.

We've all learned that just buying the cheapest crap is usually a short lived fix. Might be OK in a pinch if you're dead broke and your bike is the only running vehicle you have or you're on some long adventure and you need a part and need it now, but intended to fix it for real as soon as possible. So many people just buy whatever is the cheapest garbage on amazon or ebay then wonder why it fails 2 months later. It took me a few times over the past decade or so to finally understand that and to not be seduced by that.

I've never watched common motors. Honestly, I mostly don't bother with repair videos on YouTube theyre usually pretty bad advice and/or confusing advice or even conflicting advice. I still get amazed at how many people who own the older bikes don't own a copy in some form of the FSM and don't even read it. If you're serious about these bikes to ride them then you need to read it, multiple times, even for repairs you're likely never to do. You have to become your own mechanic. I think goofs like that think because its a bike it's easy and its not. Even sending out things to get machined is a gamble because the tolerances are much tighter compared to a car. Seen too many threads over the years where people don't listen and get some unknown kit and send it out to a local shop who doesn't specialize in this stuff and wonder why it smokes like mad after 100 miles.
 
Maraakate said:
Thanks for the kind words. It must be weird seeing such things as compared to 20 years ago with so much bad advice and experts.
Click to expand...

Just stating the facts as I see them, and to me it's HT's loss for giving you the corporate advertising treatment when it's obvious you're simply an enthusiast who wants to offer a better mousetrap for a niche situation. This alone proves they don't really care about the community, and when you see the short and often useless answers offered by the admin there you know he's as big a part of the problem as the corporation itself. As for the difference 20 years ago... for me, that fell during a 19 year period where I was out of bikes entirely due to divorce and child support, so almost 7 years ago I started rewinding my brain to start resurrecting long-forgotten knowledge that faded into the back of my mind while only dealing with cars to maintain and drive as well as life, and a new career that began as a hobby.

Maraakate said:
I've never watched common motors. Honestly, I mostly don't bother with repair videos on YouTube theyre usually pretty bad advice and/or confusing advice or even conflicting advice.
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Honestly, it's a damn shame that they don't offer completely accurate information and procedures as outlined in the FSMs they actually have available for download at their own website because their video production and quality is very good, which IMO is the primary reason so many buy into their methods, sadly many of which are backyard hack practices. Unfortunately, their popularity is so strong that you can't explain to anyone on FB, YT or Reddit anything about how bad their methods are, you'll get shouted down and called names. I do it anyway because somewhere, someone will listen.
 
Maraakate said:
Already got naysayers scoffing at the price on fb. Not a big fan of the Honda groups on fb for various reasons. But probably pointless to explain that after I but the parts and spend an hour or two soldering and wiring it up, then testing it and finally potting it and charging for that time im really only making 50 dollars on this.

I want to be clear that I am not making out like a bandit on these. This is a labor of love for this particular bike. It was my first street bike and I still have it. Put over 20k miles on mine. Before I owned it it sat in a garage since 1994 and was started once a year to make sure it still ran. I know the frustration of the CDI being an Achilles heel on this bike.

If I was a large outfit that branched out into parts for many bikes, then yes I could have had 100 units pre-assembled and tested with certificates of authenticity from the manufacturers and save me the time of hand building each one. But that would end up making this thing cost about 450 to 500 dollars to make some profit. Nobody wants to spend that if they don't have to.
Click to expand...

I have been following this thread since the beginning. I think the the price of $250 is fair. I have walked away from 3 400A's because of CDI problems. Now I want to find one just use your CDI. Thank you for all the work and info
 
ancientdad said:
Just stating the facts as I see them, and to me it's HT's loss for giving you the corporate advertising treatment when it's obvious you're simply an enthusiast who wants to offer a better mousetrap for a niche situation. This alone proves they don't really care about the community, and when you see the short and often useless answers offered by the admin there you know he's as big a part of the problem as the corporation itself. As for the difference 20 years ago... for me, that fell during a 19 year period where I was out of bikes entirely due to divorce and child support, so almost 7 years ago I started rewinding my brain to start resurrecting long-forgotten knowledge that faded into the back of my mind while only dealing with cars to maintain and drive as well as life, and a new career that began as a hobby.
Click to expand...

It's been discussed to death here before, but it's a real shame that there's good information on the HT forums from many years ago so unfortunately it always is the first thing to turn up on a search engine. That's how I found it myself.

Glad to hear you got back into it. I've fallen in and out of favour with the bikes myself.
 
CatMan said:
I have been following this thread since the beginning. I think the the price of $250 is fair. I have walked away from 3 400A's because of CDI problems. Now I want to find one just use your CDI. Thank you for all the work and info
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Thanks a lot! They're fun, little bikes. Great starter bikes. I'd say the only real achilles heel besides the CDI is the carb insulators. Otherwise, I've never had huge issues with the bike. It's a bit more cramped than my CB550K, so balancing the carbs can be a touch annoying, but not impossible. Removing the carbs is harder too, but it's all about the proper angle to get them out :p
 
Ah yes the internet .... Maraakate. I have been on several different boards/makes over the years and dealt with the public with sales of products I've made to sell. Same story.

Whiners, criers, crabbers and complainers ..... along with a few other descriptors .... VBG.

I've also bought from folks like yourself who put themselves out there with the simple desire to help others. Respect is all I have.
 
If anyone thinks $250 is too much for specialty custom Honda parts, try doing that for a Harley. It would be 2 - 3 times as much.
 
Maraakate said:
It's been discussed to death here before, but it's a real shame that there's good information on the HT forums from many years ago so unfortunately it always is the first thing to turn up on a search engine.
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Yes, but it's slowly getting better for VHT. The longer we're around giving solid information in significantly more posts per day than HT is doing now (despite their continuing advantage of having a few of our members still giving quality answers there), the more search results we're stacking up. And as time goes by with HT only producing 1/3 or less posts per day (much of which is noob to noob chatter with little value) the fewer new search results from there will be helpful even if discovered first, so the tables will turn eventually despite all of VS's attempts to hold onto their members and audience. I will say that it does piss me off to see new members join at HT and rave about what a great place it is... only because they just don't know any better and took the first option that came along.
 
Hi, was busy over the weekend :) Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, I think eventually people will see that it's useless for actual help (not searching through old posts) and will eventually find their way to an FB group where someone recommends this forum or they find this forum themselves. Unfortunately, just takes time.

The FB groups I have a large distaste for. Most of the time when it is people asking for help the awkward layout of doing a thread longer than a few responses makes it harder to read and follow what is going on. Most of those types of threads don't seem to go past a couple of replies, and even then you get quite a bit where the poster asks the question, doesn't really understand what is going on and that thread just kind of peters off. Not quite sure why that is, but I noticed on a forum people are more likely to get involved, including the bike owner.

On the other hand, the biggest negative on a forum is when people don't reply back if the advice worked. Sometimes it's because they take it apart and something breaks or they need to spend more money and the bike sits for a long time and is forgotten about. Other times it's just a one and done poster. But, there's nothing you can really do about that.
 
Ah man, Harley parts are ridiculous. I don't particularly care for Harley's to begin with and mostly because there's a large amount of "weekend warrior" guys associated with this crowd who like to be obnoxious and give other people who ride motorcycles a bad reputation.

A few years ago I worked somewhere with a guy who had a Yamaha 650 Twin (not vintage) and he tried to put a bunch of cheap crap parts on it. Then at some point he wanted to fool around with the exhaust and I warned him beforehand to really spray those studs down with PB Blaster (not WD40) and let it sit for at least an hour, ideally overnight. Then heat up those studs with a torch and finally try to remove them because usually what happens is they break off from all that heat/cooling cycles right there. So he ignored me, just tried to take it off, it snapped. Then he came crying to me the next day about what to do next so I told him he had a few options. Sometimes you can get enough to file a slot for a screwdriver and carefully try to get the rest out. Sometimes you can keep going up in drill sizes, very carefully, until you can break it enough to get the rest out and replace the studs. The final options are the extractors then time serts. I mentioned to be incredibly careful with the extractor, if it snaps you are in bigger trouble as those require special drills to remove. I told him to go slow, if it feels wrong as you turn, it probably is wrong. Stop and check. He skipped right to the extractor, gung-ho'd it then it broke and so he gave the bike away to a neighbor.

After this, he bought a modern Harley because he wanted to push the button and have fuel injection (OK, fine) but then spent literally $800 on a custom seat, and hundreds of dollars to have the dealership program the better ECU curve (?) and thousands of dollars to get rid of the chrome covers, etc. and have flat black powder coated versions of it. There was also some type of HID aftermarket light. Involved some inverter/power supply mounting. It had way more wattage than stock, probably not DOT certified by any means. Cost hundreds and got incredibly hot. I warned him to monitor that because it may melt wires and/or cause a fire because of that.

From all the goofing around with the aftermarket expensive Harley parts he ended up breaking some bolts on one of the side covers. I told him all this stuff, you have to be very careful taking it on/off. Most of this 8mm/10mm stuff doesn't need to be super max torque. Read a manual. He told me that you can't buy a manual anymore, you have to get a subscription through Harley... just to get the FSM! So now the manuals have Digital Rights Management to PDFs that require an app which means you can't print it. Except maybe for a few selected pages.

Harley stuff is nuts; I've never understood the huge appeal around them. Where I live the Harley plant is about 30 minutes away from me, and this is way OT but they did just lay off the entire plant a few weeks ago. No politics (please, I really don't care, I come here to get away from that); but the main issue is just manufacturing. So many half-completed bikes and things like that waiting on parts from various vendors all over the place. And not just electronics, even metal fab parts as well.

Also, I reflect a bit more. That $800 custom seat he bought was custom in that it was aftermarket from a vendor, but was still mass produced. I originally assumed that he went to a local upholstery shop (and we do have some really good ones out our way) and had a one off design made up for him. $800 is still pretty pricey for that kind of work, but would have maybe been a bit more forgivable instead of some aftermarket seat. When he told me that price I laughed and said I could buy another CB550K for that price, running. Might not be pretty, but it would run.
 
^^^Can't disagree with anything you said, especially about Harleys. It amazes me, as much as it does you, how devoted to the marque they are and how much money they will spend on something that is a modernized version of a bike that in some ways is still rooted in the past. You can tell people, but in the end they have to listen and staunch brand loyalty is hard to get through.
 
On the other hand, the biggest negative on a forum is when people don't reply back if the advice worked. Sometimes it's because they take it apart and something breaks or they need to spend more money and the bike sits for a long time and is forgotten about. Other times it's just a one and done poster. But, there's nothing you can really do about that.
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You're all right Maraakete. There is always givers and takers but this forum does, perhaps encourage participation. It's the character of the people that I find the most valuable.

Enjoyed the story of the moped fan attempting to school the harley numbskull.:)
 
Hey Maraakete, thanks for sparking my interest to learn about these CDI boxes. I am learning all about them. These are odd creations, and that switch relay on the the CM400A is odd as well. Kind of pisses me off the called it a 'relay'. It's not a relay, it's a circuit. Kinda looks like like a relay. The CDI's, especially on these old Honda's are very funky. They are a strange analog circuit the way they do the advancing and the voltage waveforms involved. They certainly make the older points look attractive from an simplicity standpoint. Funny that you mention Harley's as I was helping a buddy with his the last few days. I've never worked on one of those. It was not run for a year, but now he put the cleaned up carbs back in and had it running for a day, then it quit running. He's got no spark, so I am learning about this spark system now. It's got a black box, like the CDI, but called a ICM. Probably does the same thing. Of course it's impossible to learn what's inside the silly thing. I was thinking about posting for help on it here on VHT. You know, it is a twin, and one could mistake the H in VHT for Harley ;) Thought that might be good for a laugh, but then I came to my senses and figured I best not. I am doing experiments with measuring my spark, I'll post some details. And if you ever want to try your circuit on a CM400T I'll be willing to try it. Just take it slow and easy, don't take out a 2nd mortgage for the tooling and all.
 
I'm so used to working on older electronics almost exclusively that I don't really think of the circuit on these bikes to be overly complicated. It makes sense for the time. There's two coils, and when the RPM goes up the advance takes precedence over the primary. ICs weren't fully ubiquitous yet at prices for the people so they couldn't do something in code to sense when the rate increases to adjust accordingly.

You're right, the relay isn't the type of relay you're thinking of with actual switches. Rather, it's a more primitive digital relay with diodes and transistors. This is good because there's no moving parts where the contacts could eventually stop working, like your turn signal relays.

If you work on enough CRTs and old hifi amps like I do this stuff is just kind of normal to see. The Harley stuff probably has an IC with code in it to eliminate some of the complexity. If the CDI circuit was redone with todays tech it would have been all surface mount with a big solder blobbed IC that would need decapped. They probably would have the whole change relay implemented in that IC as well and make it one part that mounts somewhere.

Also, slight status update. The Revision 5 boards the engineers at the PCB firm forgot to apply the plated through hole drill file so it only had the two mounting holes. It won't affect lead times for the completed units as Revision 4 boards will work just fine with it. But a bit funny it happened. They working to make it right though.
 
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STATUS UPDATE 06-28-22:

* 3d printed prototype modified for common grommet is good. Going to give metal manufacturer the go ahead.

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One last final update for today. MOSFETs came for Change Relay. Updated circuit works. Beyond that, new things about it will be in the other thread:

 
Comforting to know that someone else (the person who donated the CDIs to me to finish this project) has already taken my work and is attempting to possibly manufacture a competing model.

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Just a bit of background information on this project. I have been working on this off and on for the past 10 years, had a lot of notes, but mainly needed a few more broken CDIs to finish the last bit of this schematic. This guy was complaining about it on a facebook group, I showed him my notes, he had some additional ones that he got from someone else years ago. He sent me his broken CDIs, and from that I was able to complete the schematic, build and test it and so on. The further progress I made he started asking for things I thought were unnecessary for this project. Such as the removable connector. I asked why is this necessary, and he wanted to be able to quick change the CDI in case it fails. I was saying if you're at that point where you are constantly swapping out CDIs and need a quick connector for this then you have a deeper issue that needs solved. I am not doing that and modifying the case design for this purpose. If you want to do such a thing, buy a kit, and put some connector closer to the box or whatever. I added some mounting holes in the 5th revision mainly for him, though I think this is a bit silly.

He doesn't know much about his own bike, he asked a lot of questions, claimed to know somethings about electronics but he was usually wrong or confused when I gave answers to his questions. Maybe he was feeding for more information, I have no idea any more. At some point I mostly stopped answering him because he couldn't even figure out that 1N4002 was a diode. If you can't understand that, you shouldn't be attempting to make these circuits and should buy a pre-soldered kit or the completed unit, in my opinion.

I don't know who this guy is specifically. He has no idea of these forums, just fb groups and does not know how to use a computer very well. I just kind of chalked him up to being a goofy old timer.

But he did mention he was in touch with people from France and elsewhere over the years to try and make a CDI for him and people would ignore him (wonder why?) after a while and he really wanted to get his bike running again. Gave me a sob story about how he loved this bike, and it was a real shame there are no options out there for these bikes.

I don't know who made up this slightly modified board design (I also noticed it's been changed to be a true dual layer board, with a modified component layout, probably to make it dissimilar enough from my version); but I would suspect the guy in France as this guy can't figure it out himself. But I can assure you that if it does come down to a competing version (which I really hope this does not, it should not be like this in a small niche community) that I'm using the proper components and a lot of work has been poured into this to make it everything it should be and you expect it to be.

I'm a bit upset by this as I gave the guy a discounted completely assembled kit (cases are not made yet, he just wanted the pre-assembled kit to mount himself he claimed), even a blank PCB to experiment with (which was the older prototype PCB that was larger). He never used the CDI, I followed up with him as I was excited to hear about someone using my work and being happy that their bike finally runs again. Instead, he said his bike started one night, not the next and he was still playing around with old CDI. At that point, he began shotgunning parts and clipping wires and jumpering them based on bad advice on facebook groups. That's about when I got fed up with this guy. I originally made the detailed instruction thread on what to test for your stator, etc. BECAUSE of this guy. I gave him a word document in facebook and email directly and a link to the thread. He never read any of them, instead just started assuming it HAS to be this wrong with it or THAT is wrong with it and I'd follow up with "did you test the stator?", "did you test the relay?", "did you test the coil?", and so on and he never did. I asked if he needed help with that, but he didn't. He's soldered heath kits back in the day, did some ham radio he knows what's up. So, OK.

And yeah, I know that selling as a kit is a risk because anyone can just buy the kit one time then copy it with some effort. And it may be inevitable. But with something so oddly niche specific I figured it was mostly unlikely. It's not like a CB750 where everyone wants parts for it. If it happened, I figured it would be after I sold a few of these to make up the hundreds of dollars and my personal time on this project. I made the kits an option, at a risk to me, because I know what it's like. Having a bike and no money, it may actually be your only means of transportation. It was for me in my 20s. My wife at the time used my car and I rode that CM400A year round, even in the snow, because it's automatic you can drag your feet and blip the throttle at 3mph in a snow storm and not stall out. I have been there. The kits are mainly intended for people like that.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness story/rant here. Just a bit dissuading.
 
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