Modern Vespa

Hey guys,
Installing a Vape ignition on my wife's double-yellow Px.

Thinking of two possible options:
Connect the two yellows and headlight purple (through a Trailtech ac regulator) to blue from the stator. Two yellows go to the SIP regulator in tandem. AC headlight.

Connect to one yellow and back-feed the other for DC to the purple. DC headlight.

Any advice appreciated.





Last edited by Ray8 on Sun Aug 07, 2022 2:38 pm; edited 2 times in total

Basically, bind all the old circuits together and put them on the out side of the SIP regulator. Not much else to do than that.

Are you staying AC or going DC?

What he said! If it were me, I'd also add a dedicated ground wire to the screws holding the regulator to the frame.

Thanks!
Everything except the headlight is DC off the battery already.

If I back-feed one of the yellows to the headlight purple at the engine junction box it could be a DC headlight.

I think you have the plan right there

Will do!

Just talked a bit ago to Matt at Scooter Mercado. Two awesome guys there!
The back-feed yellow needs to connect to the white flasher wire, so the headlight connection is controlled by the key switch.

So black to black(ground) at the junction box, blue to a continuity-tested yellow at the regulator. The other yellow (now dc) goes back to purple from the flasher relay. Awesome.

Follow-up notes:

AC sealed beams work off DC.

Vape install and wiring took 45 min. Most of the time spent was changing the original connections to males and some head scratching. Also half the time I spend working on bikes here is looking around the garage for tools.

Started it up with no battery. Turn signals worked. 12 to 13v dc off the SIP regulator at idle. Trickle charging the battery now before install.

The Buzzwangle is a beautiful thing for those with age-related math stupidity.

I'll never install another non-Vape ignition.

Update to the update:

Installed the battery. AC headlight REALLY works now -- no flicker at all at idle. It's like a MV headlight. Turns on with the key, before kicking it. 2+ hour ride hasn't blown the H5006*... yet.

Forgot to mention...
Connect the back-feed yellow for the headlight wire(purple) at the engine junction box to the purple wire off the blinker, the one that used to be connected to the C terminal on the stock regulator. Connected to white as mentioned, the headlight will blink

*Grind down some nubs in the back to fit:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CR3UXA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So what was purple connected to in the end?

The purple wire on the battery side is already connected to DC power via the switch(green-white) -- almost as if the original wiring was made for this

Ah… so just a loose end at the junction box…

The yellow connected to the purple off the flasher connects at the junction box to the headlight purple.

Connects to both yellows?

No. Sorry, the pic's a little confusing.

One yellow (to blue) goes to the Vape dc regulator at the battery. The other feeds back to the headlight purple.

The old stator had two yellow ac wires to the regulator, affording me a spare with the Vape's single power wire. The only wire added here was a 4" green (kill) extension to the coil.

Btw I saw the before/after pics of your Vape conversion. Night and day doesn't do it justice

Walk in the park with the good-enough wires inherited here.

Following up:

So the black wire from the junction box to the old regulator is also grounded to chassis at the tail light, at least according to the wiring diagram. Anyway, there's continuity between the black wire and the chassis here.

For full wave charging of the battery I had to run a new wire isolated from chassis ground, between the stator black and the Vape regulator black. Not a big deal, but if you don't do so the battery will slowly die. All good now.

Still have your double yellow stator? I like to use those for ac conversions, I'd probably buy it if you wanted to sell.

actually, looking over at scooter mercato - those seem to fetch money - new ones $250 if you can find them. I'm better off with the px AC stator and letting you hold on to that.

That's for a working rebuilt one.

That's pretty close to what I paid for the Vape. So why?

I don't get it.

I guess hard core restorers? I wouldn't go there at that price!

That'd be my guess, too. Same mindset as people who still run 6V Balanced AC systems. They're not doing it because it's the best (or even a good) option, but because it's original/authentic.