Modern Vespa

Thanks to Ponydrvr's great work (as always), for which I am most appreciative as it freed me to work on some other things that needed to be done, among other things my HID kit and Flash2Pass are now installed. All I can say is "wow!". The HIDs definitely make a difference, as attested do by a nice ride through a nice, dark winding park road.

Also, the Flash2Pass is great, and I wanted to note, for the record that yes, you can tap it into pretty much any live 12V feed with an added default open momentary switch, and it will work perfectly even if it would give you problems on the headlight line with ballasts installed for the HIDs. In this case I have mine tapped into the horn circuit so it is only live when the bike's key is turned or the bike is running, and it works like a charm with two taps of the momentary switch.

Any chance you could post a pic or a link to the momentary switch you are using and where/how you mounted it? I just added HID high beams, and I'm still using my F2P, but I want to get it changed so I don't burn out the ballasts in a year.

Nothing special about the switch. Just a standard default-open (IE, the circuit is open until you press and close it) momentary switch sold at Radio Shack. Came in a 4-pack with two each of red and black.

I just added a small hole on the bar shroud plastic and it's installed there, a couple inches in towards the center from the switch box on the end. Installed so it points directly at the rider to help make sure any water on it doesn;t run down onto the contacts and short.

Pictures would help us visualize the install.

Thanks, SideCutter, I think I got the gist of what you've done. Sounds like a simple job for a rainy day.

I wired my HIDs as per instructions, on the low beam lead; left everything else intact. Now I don't use the high beams, except with the stock flash to pass switch, which leaves the low beams (HIDs) on and adds the high-beam briefly.
How is this damaging my HID ballasts? Or did I miss something?

I don't think you missed anything, sir. My setup is different in that I have HIDs on both my low and high beams, so when I click the F2P, it turns my high beam HID ballasts on-off-on, which will reduce their working life. Sidecutter I believe has the same setup, which is what led him to using a separate momentary switch for the F2P. Oh, and we are talking about 400's, which have a single high, and a single low beam. The 500 headlights are a much better setup IMO, but the problem would remain if you put HIDs in place of the 500 high beams.

My F2P did not like the HiD high beam. It worked so so after the install. Seems that there is some voltage bleeding off the ballast so the F2P does not see the 12v, 0, 12v pulse. Just using a key fob remote for now will add a relay to provide clean pulses later.