Denali CANsmart review with D2 lights (Hex ezCAN) | BMW & Harley-Davidson electrics

Hi and welcome to Bike Social, I'm Jon. Today we're going to talk about the Denali CanSmart. So what is it? Well, put simply, it's an electronic power controller for your bike. So it allows you to add accessories and the power gets to them when you turn the ignition on. Now if you've ever wired in things like spotlights for you, you know that you need to find that feed and you need them to switch on only with the ignition. On older bikes that used to be relatively simple. Now like these Denali D2s, I've had these for a good four years or so. They've been on a Versys 650 and the KTM 1050 Adventure before I fit them to this, the S1000XR. Now before you just wire all the lume in the control unit and then pick up from the main beam light where when you flash on main beam it would notice the extra power there and put these on to full intensity, which is clever. On the KTM 1050 Adventure I did the same thing but it turned out when it went on to full beam they started flickering and that was because it was a CAN bus equipped bike and as you probably know CAN bus carries data signals around various parts of the lume to allow the ECUs to talk to each other. It makes for fewer wires and cleverer electronics but it makes wiring a proper nightmare. So when you went on to full beam they started flickering. It turned out it's because the crank position sensor data is sent along the main beam light on the KTM Adventures. So I've now got them on this BMW. Now BMW is obviously our CAN bus equipped. Using the CAN smart I've got full control of the lights and I haven't had to touch the lume at all. Now the brilliant thing about this is you simply connect it to your bike's battery using the normal screw terminals. It's got a normal 30 amp fuse on it there and then from there on this bike you plug it into the alarm. So if you haven't got the alarm fitted it doesn't matter it just picks up that plug and from there it gets switched live so it knows when the ignition turns on and it also takes CAN bus signals. Let me show you what it does. So pretty cool how they fade up and as you can see if I go there if I flick on to main beam they go full brightness but they've got some other clever little tricks. Now if I flash the headlights three times you get that strobe. That's pretty cool actually I might turn that off because you find if you do flash three times you end up strobing a car later but setting up is so simple. Now as you can see I've mounted my lamps right next to the indicators. I spent a lot of time working out where to put these and had to machine the brackets slightly to get them to tuck in just behind the indicators but I really want them there. The problem is any car drivers are probably not going to see the indicators when they come on but it's a simple button to switch in the app that you download on a Mac or a PC and when you plug into the CAN smart it's really simple to change. So now when I indicate see the lights go off so you can see the indicators which is genius and the lights come back on and I love the way they fade up. If you put the hazards on see how they flash in turn so it creates even more attention and if I do the horn you get that strobing. So it's very clever and I've had to do nothing complicated to get all that it's simply plug it in connect up the lights you could do it in a good hour or so. I spent five nights because I wanted to spend ages getting my perfect wiring and working out exactly how to mount the lights but really it is genius. Now one thing I noticed when I was first riding in the dark I was getting pretty well every car was flashing me saying the lights were too bright so first I went down just tilted them down a little bit I was still getting loads of hassle. All you have to do while you're riding is simply hold the jog wheel for three seconds you see they flash and then you can adjust the intensity and by doing that I was able to set the lights at a position that nobody complained and they were still working. So the other clever thing is you can have different settings for the intensity of those lights when you're in dip and main and they're different depending on whether it's night or day because obviously the bike knows because it switches between its lights so that means I adjusted the intensity of the lights for night time but it didn't adjust them for daytime so I still got them at 50% for riding in the day which attracts attention really well and at night they're at 30% when I go into main beam in day and night I've got it set that they go to 100% and let's have a look now at what they're like out in the dark and you can see that the S1000XR does have a really good headlight I'm really impressed but when I turn on the Denali lights here in dip really gives an extra flood around the near the wheel now I could point those up a bit but like I say they do kind of annoy drivers you also get diffusers so you can get a different spread of light and get a wider spread of light that reduces their intensity slightly now if we're going to main beam it's huge the light with them off it's still a very good headlight but with them on it's just so bright so brilliant safety feature having the spotlights allows you to be seen easier during the day and it gives you a better view of the road at night it doesn't matter what bike you put them on Denali stuff isn't cheap they're expensive lights but I've had these four years and they're still as good as new so they're proving to be a very good investment the CanSmart again it isn't cheap but it's as if these lights are a factory fit now of course they also allow you to plug in the Denali sound bomb there are two channels for lights one is maximum of 10 amp one is maximum of 4 amp these only draw 1.6 amp at full beam so I've got these on the lower channel and I could use the other channel if I wanted to later you also have a 4 amp channel which you can use for the auxiliary brake light now that is clever that will detect when you're decelerating and can flash if you want it to as you decelerate it can flash as you brake you've got so many settings that you can control in this I haven't actually used the sound bomb on here I've rewired that channel to operate my heated clothing I've got it set at its maximum of 10 amps you can actually go up to 25 amps for but my heated kit is 7 amp and 3.3 amp so should be okay but if you do blow a fuse on here or one of the channels it's a solid state system so you simply turn the ignition off and on again and then find out why you why it cut out and if if there's a problem it will just keep cutting out if you blow the 30 amp fuse obviously you've you've done something pretty wrong but the system is very clever it allows you to see what's going on it's got a diagnostic section on there that allows you to see the temperature of the can smart and the current being drawn on average and at peak so honestly I am really impressed I I'm very critical of things I want them to be right I want them to work well and this does it's so clever how it just plugs in and just works and I'm really happy with how these lights are there is an alternative the Denali can smart is made by Hex Innovate who also make the GS911 diagnostic system for BMW they also make the easy can which is basically the same system the difference is that the Denali while more expensive comes with the full bike length looms for two sets of lights so two pairs of lights and the full length loom for the horn and the fly lead to adapt for the brake light now obviously that's specifically made for the Denali kit if you're not fitting any Denali kit then the easy can would make more sense but it doesn't only come with the connectors with pigtails on it short fly leads so you need to be competent with a soldering iron and know your way around heat shrink don't ever think about using crimp connectors or anything on a motorbike because it just don't so if you're happy doing that work the easy can can save you some money perhaps around 40 pound on full retail price my Denali lights are old ones they actually use the old connectors which are in line these new connectors are three pin but they're in a triangle formation there's sumitomo mt connectors so i had to rewire them anyway i got a pair of adapters from nippy normans for two pounds each and it was very simple to do i could have done it obviously because i had to do some soldering with the easy can version but actually having that loom all i had to do was change the connections on the end of the lamps having that loom made the install really easy the loom's not been touched the bike is still exactly as it was everything can be put back up it was if you're thinking about putting lights on pretty well any bmw and can bus equipped harley davidsons i honestly thoroughly recommend having a look at this system because it is brilliant it's it's an expensive investment but it is definitely an investment it will last you many years and yeah i'm really happy with the results now all of these are clever things being able to have these turned on and off but what's really clever is how this system uses the can bus data signal to communicate the let me show you should have done this before and oh piss can't find my key now they got a key