Aftermarket Fiamm Horn wiring snafu

[QuickHX]

I'd mounted up a pair of Fiamm Freeway Blasters, but they're sounding more cow moan than blaster...
Not being an electrical whiz, I need a pointer as to how to get them to... blast.

EDIT, with the resolution:
The problem was NOT having the horns 'free floating'; bolting them solidly to the fairing bracket muffled them.
I attached them to the *supplied* metal brackets, then bolted them to the fairing so the horns can vibrate freely. See post #5....
Back to the orig thread:

The 2 orig wires to the horn are attached to terminals:

86 'switch (trigger)' + 85 'ground' in a standard horn/light relay
Hot = 30, direct from the battery + side, with a 25A inline waterproof fuse holder.
Siamezed leads to the 'front' terminals on the horn are from terminal 87;
--87A is left empty
Horns are mounted on the exposed fairing stays on either side, and have a ground from the 2nd terminal to the lower fairing mounting screws.

So... what's wrong?
Images for reference:



Thanks,-

Quick

[DanV990]

When you say Siamesed I assume you mean the wires from 87 are run in parallel to the horns. Did you try just one horn at a time hooked to the relay? To eliminate the possibility of the horns being defective did you test them with a brief direct connection to the battery, one at a time and then both simultaneously? If the horns work fine when briefly connected directly to the battery, it sounds like you have a voltage drop somewhere or you have the horns wired in series instead of parallel. A voltage drop could be a bad ground. Did you measure the voltage coming out of pin 87 under load to your ground and to another known good ground, like the negative side of the battery?

[QuickHX]

When you say Siamesed I assume you mean the wires from 87 are run in parallel to the horns. Did you try just one horn at a time hooked to the relay? To eliminate the possibility of the horns being defective did you test them with a brief direct connection to the battery, one at a time and then both simultaneously? If the horns work fine when briefly connected directly to the battery, it sounds like you have a voltage drop somewhere or you have the horns wired in series instead of parallel. A voltage drop could be a bad ground. Did you measure the voltage coming out of pin 87 under load to your ground and to another known good ground, like the negative side of the battery?

Ah, like test stuff... that'll be this afternoon, thanks.
Apparently, though, the current (no pun intended) connections sound Ok, due to the lack of input on what I've plugged in, right?

They look bitchin, and I have the same ones on the SVT, and they've been a life saver on previous bikes.

[QuickHX]

Sooooo.... I double checked everything, soldered one connector as it appeared wambly, hooked every thing up, leaving the horns dangling.

GLORY!

Bolted them back in, good'n snug... MooooT!

It appears that it's distorting the housing somehow, yet the only mounting screw is dead center.
So... totally weird.
There were washers I added to span the gap in the fairing stay, so I'd a thought that'd take care of it, but that was apparently my original problem.

Guess it's time to talk to the Fiamm folks.

-Quick, the backyard modder!

Edit: quick innerweb search advised that the horns need to vibrate....
I'll mount them on the (supplied) brackets so they can do their thing and try again...

[QuickHX]

haha, that did it- I grabbed the brackets that came with the horns, mounted them on the lower fairing screw with a longer bolt
- washer against the plastic (same size as the shoulders on the screw), then bracket, star washer/washer/bolt head
Set the bracket perp to the floor, so the horns are a bit forward, but still under the fairing.

plugged everything back in....

SHEET, yeah, boy howdy!!
That's more like it, I love having people pop back into their lane and look for the semi that they were about to merge into.

-Quick

-Oh: The set of Fiamm's I ended up using are grounded by the horn mounting stud/horn body - so I didn't have to wire up a ground wire, resulting in a much cleaner install.
For reference, there is only one terminal on the horn, the other is just a nub.