Cheap and easy digital speedo

[Sharkride]

So I'm I'm doing a street fighter/ naked build and the stock speedo is a bit big for my project so I was thinking a digital speedo. Are these easy to install. Is it plug and play or so I have to do a bit of work. If all fails I will just use analog....I see that they don't use the stock speed sensor cable. Is there one that does or will I have to change the cable and mount the magnets

[Sharkride]

So why do everyone like Koso? They really high

[DmbShn41]

Koso are good because of the universal (they have a plug and play model for 250) and customizable (color) nature, easily adapted to 250 (plug and play), and the added benefit of water temp, oil temp. Also some are able to add gear positioning aka showing what gear you are in. Pricey, but nice.

Somewhere there is a hack that shows how you can up the mileage on the Koso unit to correctly display mileage that is currently on your analog. Plus, I believe i read somewhere that Koso can program this? May need to check with Koso on that.

[Kurgan]

Originally Posted by DmbShn41

Koso are good because of the universal (they have a plug and play model for 250) and customizable (color) nature, easily adapted to 250 (plug and play), and the added benefit of water temp, oil temp. Also some are able to add gear positioning aka showing what gear you are in. Pricey, but nice.

Somewhere there is a hack that shows how you can up the mileage on the Koso unit to correctly display mileage that is currently on your analog. Plus, I believe i read somewhere that Koso can program this? May need to check with Koso on that.

I remember seeing a few years ago that if you buy the gauges directly from Koso, they can set the mileage correctly. You just have to avoid riding from the time of the order to the time of the gauge installation so you don't offset the mileage.

[dcj13]

The cheap BMW guys use digital bicycle speedometers (with the magnet on a wheel).

[cbinker]

i would like one, but its a little spend for a non performance part.

[InvisiBill]

The cheap Chinese gauges on eBay are very hit or miss. The pics, descriptions, and actual products often don't match up. If you're lucky, it will include a diagram explaining which wires are for which lights/gauges. If not, you'll have to do some testing to figure it out.

It's essentially just a matter of hooking up the right wires from your harness to the right wires on the gauge. They do make some digital speedos that are cable driven, and they make cable/electric adapters (example). To convert to an electric speedo, you basically just have to install a sensor on the fork and magnet(s) on the wheel. Like a bike speedo, the sensor just tracks how frequently the magnet passes by and does a little math with your wheel size to determine your speed.

Koso is expensive because it's high quality, and they have a PnP kit for the 250 available. You're paying for a good product and support, rather than an undocumented, hopefully-what-you-want, questionable-quality cheap thing from China (as with most of the cheap stuff from China that you find on eBay).

https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=189160 might have some helpful info.

[Somchai]

Allow me one word about Koso, the quality of the products could be better. As long as they work they are fine, when anything happens you can throw them - I guess you know where...
But please remember that this Company is from Taiwan (this is only a little bit better than Mainland China) and the level of service is ZERO (not existing).

[kashun84]

Bicycle computer +1

Cateye is pretty decent

[InvisiBill]

Originally Posted by Somchai

Allow me one word about Koso, the quality of the products could be better. As long as they work they are fine, when anything happens you can throw them - I guess you know where...
But please remember that this Company is from Taiwan (this is only a little bit better than Mainland China) and the level of service is ZERO (not existing).

Thanks for pointing that out. I don't have firsthand experience with Koso, but I got the impression they were pretty good. For the price, they should be...

The random eBay ones are much, much cheaper. But with the Engrish descriptions and random pictures, you're not even sure what you'll be getting.

Summary of some popular options from my other thread:
Acewell makes gauges that seem to be pretty high quality (and priced accordingly). They seem to be somewhat less popular in the US.

The Trail Tech Vapor is a pretty common one for the 500. Their products seem to focus more on ATV-type stuff, but this one works fairly well for bikes too. More expensive than eBay, but cheaper than the other brands.

The Translogic Micro Dash is another nice little all-in-one LCD. They make 250/300 PnP kits for it too. Expensive.

If you don't need a full dash, you can also get GPS-operated digital speedometers. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZPN6UQ/ is the one I picked up to play with. They're completely independent of the bike's mechanicals (which may or may not be a good thing) and do have a bit of lag, but it's one more option.