Wiring a sidecar - Series or Parallel?

[owain]

I've had my sidecar on my A10 for a while now but I can't ride it with all the lights or the battery goes flat within minutes. It looks like the battery is charging whilst I'm riding with just the rear lights on but as soon I turn the headlights on the amp meter goes waaaaay negative and headlamps begin to dim within minutes. All the bulbs are 6v and I've arranged the circuitry in parallel....Any ideas how I could solve this? I'm wondering whether I should wire the sidecar lights in series instead i.e. so that the overall circuit is 12v and has lower current?

[Triton Thrasher]

What is the wattage of your headlight bulb?  It probably can’t handle more than 30W full beam/24W dip.

LEDs in the rear and sidecar lamps will use less power.

[lawnmowerman]

Fit 6v LEDs all round including the headlamp bulb and you will be able to leave the lights on all the time - even during the day for extra visibilty.
Wiring filament lamps in series will halve the light output as you will only be dropping 3v across each bulb so is not recommended.

Jim

[RayC10]

Defo not series! I had a sidcar on mine for many years. with a couple of 5w  lamps on the side car and even  with indicators fitted had no probs.. Is there a wiring fault? If not, LEDs if you can get them to work on 6v without flickering. Back in days of old we used to use a small car battery in the chair boot but it realy is limited by the dynamo output. Add up the total lamp watts and compare that to the rated dynamo output.
Does the ammeter go "less negative" when you apply some revs?

[duTch]

 Series is not an option unless 12V battery and want to run 6v lights (but wiring and charging would be tricky )......Best to invest in as many LED lights as you can, I recently added a 6V LED and it works well and from memeory  only draws about ~2A I think the same as 5th Gen one from here;http://www.dynamoregulatorconversions.com/led-bulbs-especially-for-motorcycles-shop.php

 Also having a sidecar you be able to use a higher capacity battery (or bank in parallel ) for extra storage for use at low speed, but would obviously need to be recharged with a compensatory higher speed ride after (or trickle-charge overnight)

 The trouble with tail-light and pilot bulbs with bayonet bases is they are flimsy and fall apart, but this can be rectified by putting heatshrink over the join...my pilot light lost one of the SMD's so now I need  to re-attach the with more micro-solder