Has anybody out there in this great forum ever found info on the current rating of our K bike dash switches?

I'm confident that Duck is the man to help me with this info - are you out there mate? ...... or anyone else.

Cheers

Having dismantled a few and comparing them to the contact area of known Japanese switches, you're looking at a minimum of ten amps for the copper. What I don't know is if the heat of putting ten amps through them will affect the plastic. I'd stick to 5 amps (60 watts) as I'm reasonably confident that would be okay.

OTOH there's always a relay

I've used a switch from the car wreckers (I think it was from a Mitsubishi) for a hazard switch. It works, but I've never measured the current.

Thanks guys.

Dai, I'm normally a relay guy as well but I'm fiddling with my 650 and may want to switch some LEDs directly with a load of only 20 watts so much simpler to just use a switch. Like you I have disassembled and resurrected many of our K bike rocker switches and agree with your thoughts on their contact size/potential rating but just thought I'd look for some support of my thoughts from the forum.

Cheers

Wattage divided by voltage gives you amperage. So 20 divided by 12 equals 1.66666 Amps which is stuff all.
Regards Martin.

On my K...

Hazard has a relay.
ABS has a relay.
Heated grips have relay.
Screen has relay ??

Design ratings may not be high.

Screen has two relays: up and down. All those you've quoted, Olaf, aren't particularly high-current users. Off the top of my head:

Heated grips: 4 - 5 amps
Screen: 7 amps
ABS: deity only knows but it's a 15amp fuse, so probably somewhere in the region of ten amps
Hazard: just under 8 amps. Normally the K doesn't have a relay for this - it's just 'crossed wires'.

Yer standard headlight on full beam is 5 amps.

The biggest problem at those currents are contacts that are dirty or covered with copper oxide until it all just stops working. However, (with the exception of the grips) in their favour they are all intermittant loads with a cooldown period between loading, so overheating is not normally a problem. Having said all that, the inrush/surge current as the screen motor starts up definately needs a relay. Can't speak for the ABS (don't have it) but I'd guess that has an inrush problem too as the motors start up.