Trail Tech Vapor On the way!!! Anyone running one?

[81Rmachine]

Just ordered a stealth black vapor on ebay today for the tecate. Excited to have all the bells and whistles. I've used their temp and tach/hour meters before and since I was planning on having both of those on the Kawi I might as well pay the little extra for everything.

Is anyone else using on on a 3 wheeler? Just thinking of ideas on running the speedo off the rear caliper and since I haven't found jack doing a google search any help or suggestions from you guys would be great!

[El Camexican]

I‘m looking into the possibility of putting an Endurance II on my Tri-Z. All that is holding me back is to check if the magnet can be located in one of the disk holes and that it will pass by an area on the caliper that is suitable for drilling and locating the encoder. The only issue I can foresee is the turning radius of the magnet on my disk. The tire circumference can be programed into the unit, but I think the radius that the magnet turns in is pre-determined by the model.

I have one on my dirt bike that I can use as a reference to start, but if it is not bang on I am assuming that through trial and error I can get the speedo set by adjusting the wheel circumference input.

The Vapor is way too high tech for me. Without a battery I’m not sure you can use all the features either. The Endurance is all I need. Keep posting if you do this, I will do the same.

[81Rmachine]

I've seen em on MX bikes, I believe you just want to run the unit to a regulated power source such as a lighting coil so that "shouldn't be an issue, knock on wood."
The radius of your disc shouldn't have anything to do with calibration if I'm thinking correctly, the only thing the magnet is doing is signaling the computer each rev so it can count the duration between revolutions. So basically the only thing that is important is the tire circumference as this is actually determining the amount of ground covered with one revolution of your axle.
I thought about the Endurance but I really wanted a tach and I would've had 80 bucks wrapped up in buying a temp gauge and tach/hour meter seperate like i did on my xl500.
So this way atleast with the vapor I can have it all integrated into one and even have a few more features. I'll make sure to take pictures and keep posting.

[El Camexican]

I've seen em on MX bikes, I believe you just want to run the unit to a regulated power source such as a lighting coil so that "shouldn't be an issue, knock on wood."
The radius of your disc shouldn't have anything to do with calibration if I'm thinking correctly, the only thing the magnet is doing is signaling the computer each rev so it can count the duration between revolutions. So basically the only thing that is important is the tire circumference as this is actually determining the amount of ground covered with one revolution of your axle.
I thought about the Endurance but I really wanted a tach and I would've had 80 bucks wrapped up in buying a temp gauge and tach/hour meter seperate like i did on my xl500.
So this way atleast with the vapor I can have it all integrated into one and even have a few more features. I'll make sure to take pictures and keep posting.

Your right, its the circumfrence X revolutions, so that's not an issue, thanks! My Endurance runs on an internal battery that is almost 2 years old now and my buddy with e start has his connected directly to his battery. I would love to have a tach and temp gauge, but one thing I did see on the net is that a fair amount of people were saying their Vapors were failing. That was the main reason for getting the Endurance.

I had to call Trail Tech about a light once and they were very helpfull. You might want to call them with any questions before you drop the coin.

[81Rmachine]

Your probably right that may not have been a bad idea but its already on the way haha. Im thinking I should have enough ingenuity to conjure up some kind of way to make it work, Us 3 wheeler guys are masters of that anyways right? sometimes its the only way to keep these machines runnin and the reason why a good percentage of discussion on here is what parts fit what. Anyway I have heard of some issues as well and my temp gauge actually had the battery break free internally, wonder if trail tech would be able to fix anything like that?

[El Camexican]

Your probably right that may not have been a bad idea but its already on the way haha. Im thinking I should have enough ingenuity to conjure up some kind of way to make it work, Us 3 wheeler guys are masters of that anyways right? sometimes its the only way to keep these machines runnin and the reason why a good percentage of discussion on here is what parts fit what. Anyway I have heard of some issues as well and my temp gauge actually had the battery break free internally, wonder if trail tech would be able to fix anything like that?

They might. Never hurts to ask. I had an issue with a kick stand bolt once and they sent me $20 worth of stuff just for the trouble. The phone# is 1-360-687-4530.

[jeswinehart]

Hey Nick.
I learned that Tecates voltage range is anywhere from about 6 volts at idle to 18 volts in the power band.
How I learned that was when I was building tachs using the Hondas NSR 250 internals. Toasted first one as soon as I rev'd my 84/85 half breed up.
I did not learn anything from that one so I put on a very nice vintage Bultoco tach,,,, toasted it too.
I ended up using a double A battery pack to power the tach on my trike.
You might ask the techs about this before plugging into the magneto system on your Kawi.
I did not have any problem picking up signal from the trigger side of coil, just on the "power" side.
Every other 2 stroke machine that has had one of my tachs works fine from their own power source (Tri-Z,250R,Polaris 250, Honda Odessy 250), perhaps better "regulated" power ?

Looking forward to hearing about how this all works out ! john

[MojaveRider]

I ran a Vapor on a CR500AF supermoto street bike. I looked up the circumference of the front tire online, which got the speedo close, then used a GPS speed app on my phone to get it dialed in (zip tied the phone to the handle bar mount). Any place that spins with the wheels (brake disc, axle, sprocket mount) will work fine. The Vapor will run on it's internal battery even if you don't give it a power source, but the backlight is way more useful if you give it power. This bike had a DC battery to power the lights, and I used that to power the Vapor as well.

It worked well for me, and I'd recommend it.

[HairyJR]

It's quite simple to mount on your rear sprocket, the magnet just needs to pass by the pickup sensor each revolution. The down side is if you want to use it measuring distance traveled wheel spin will record incorrect distance. I've used a BMX bicycle setup since '90 xr500 hybrid and just refurbished it. The magnet is held on with double sided tape (see attachment). Yes IK the Trail-Tec sensor is different looking, but I also have one of there sensor's mounted on my quad front wheel brake disc.

[ustin666]

i have one on my 350x and it works good

[El Camexican]

It's quite simple to mount on your rear sprocket, the magnet just needs to pass by the pickup sensor each revolution. The down side is if you want to use it measuring distance traveled wheel spin will record incorrect distance. I've used a BMX bicycle setup since '90 xr500 hybrid and just refurbished it. The magnet is held on with double sided tape (see attachment). Yes IK the Trail-Tec sensor is different looking, but I also have one of there sensor's mounted on my quad front wheel brake disc.

Way cool! That looks so trick! I guess doing wheelies would have just as much effect on the accuracy as wheel spin, so you're good to go.

[81Rmachine]

John, I appreciate the heads up I'll definitely check out the voltage issue before I tap into the trikes stator. I wonder if i couldn't simply add in a universal voltage regulator to the existing system, I had to do this when I put the 125 lifan in my Z50. It worked great for that application and maybe it'd help save the Vapor from voltage spikes.

Hairy Jr, Thanks for the pic I was hoping someone else on the board was running one off the rear. I did take into consideration wheel spin, but hey on the bright side you can see how fast your going while riding a wheelie!

[81Rmachine]

I drilled the sprocket and installed the magnetic bolt and used an existing 8x1.25 bolt hole in the swingarm to mount the pickup. I ordered the kit for a quad so that it had the bracket to mount it behind the front wheel and used that to make this short little mount which I can swing either way to get the two to line up just perfectly.

I used an actual circumference measurement to get me started and it looks pretty darn close on the vapor. I've yet to check it alongside a gps and do the cross multiplication to get it just perfect. Everything else on the gauge seems to work very well and I'm happy with it. Now I'm just working on hooking up auxiliary power so I have a backlight and functioning warning lights. I just finished soldering another wire to the otherside of my lighting coil for a floated ground so that I can hook up a reg/rectifier. Im going to convert to DC so I can run my grip warmers as well and maybe some LED headlights in the future.