Stebel Nautilus 2nd Gen

[SlashWylde]

I've been wanting to fit a Stebel to my bike for some years now. After recently finding out about FastBikeGear.co.nz and how good their prices are on these horns, I decided to get one.

Ordered on a Thursday night and the unit arrived at work the next day. Wow! that is fast bike gear.

Didn't have time to install it last weekend but I hooked it up to a car battery to see how it sounded. Yup, it's loud allright.

Today I bought the fuse holder, cable and QC terminals I needed to install the horn and set to work.

The unit is bigger than I expected and it just wasn't going to sit right anywhere on the outside of the bike. After some deliberation I decided to mount the horn under a side cover of my bike - see attached pictures. I tested it in this location with the cover on and it sounds fine.

I figured I might as well leave the factory horn in situ to keep some forward firing sound, so I piggy backed off the connections to the existing horn to drive the Stebel's relay coil in parallel to this.

The install was very straight forward, the only issue I had was that once I had it all wired-up and ready to test, the horn sounded as soon as I inserted the 20A fuse into its holder. I checked the contacts of the relay and they appeared to be Normally Closed (NC) regardless of whether or not the coil was energised.

I pulled the relay out and removed its plastic cover. It was then apparent that the male QC terminal had been pushed into the body of the relay when I connected the lead from the battery, and it had caused the relay contacts to make permanently. All I had to do to fix the problem was to pull the terminal blade back out till the switch contacts were Normally Open (NO) again. This fault wasn't the result of excessive force on my part, as it did not take much pressure or manoeuvring to displace the terminal in the plastic base of the relay. I eventually secured all the leads by PVC taping them together and to the relay housing to provide some strain relief.

After reassembling the relay everything checked out and both horns sounded out loud and clear when and only when, I pressed the horn button.

Took her for a quick spin around the block to see how it sounded whilst riding - loud, but not deafening inside my helmet, so no worries there.

All in all I'm very pleased with the result. Fast Bike Gear have these units available for a good price. The unit was delivered very quickly. The product's performance exceeded expectations. My only criticism is that the quality of the relay was disappointing and could have been better - not sure if this relay is sourced by FBG or if it comes packaged with the horn from Stebel.

Thanks to the good folks at Fast Bike Gear.

[FastBikeGear]

I've been wanting to fit a Stebel to my bike for some years now. After recently finding out about FastBikeGear.co.nz and how good their prices are on these horns, I decided to get one.

Ordered on a Thursday night and the unit arrived at work the next day. Wow! that is fast bike gear.

SlashWylde Hey many thanks for the very positive post. I hope you don't mind I have just posted some pics of your Stebel installation on the FastBikeGear facebook page.

SlashSylde we have just secured the distribution in New Zealand for another really good product the TUTORO Chain oiler and given it's very inexpensifve price we think it is going to prove every bit as popular as the Stebel horns have.

[kiwigjt]

Hey I am looking at getting one of these horns but have read some bad press about them, some have lasted less than a year etc. How are you getting on with yours? Have you had any problems with it since installation?
Cheers.

[FastBikeGear]

Hey I am looking at getting one of these horns but have read some bad press about them, some have lasted less than a year etc. How are you getting on with yours? Have you had any problems with it since installation?
Cheers.

We are the New Zealand distributor for Stebel and I can say that over the last four years we have had very very few warranty claims. I have had the one in my bike ever since we became the distributor and ist is till working perfectly. The only thing that seems to kill them is if you suck water or grit into the compressor. The key is to make sure that you follow the instructions and mount the compressor withing 15 degrees of vertical. (unless you mount it completely out of the weather e.g. under the seat in which case you can mount it horizontal if you want). We sell different versions depening on where and how you want to mount it. For under the seat compressor mounting we recommend the classic version for out in the weather installation i.e. on the side of the bike or in front of the radiator we recommned the 2nd Generation version. Call me if you have any quieries just call me. Oh and of course we offer a full factory warranty in the very unlikely event you did have some issue.\

You can read lots of our customers reviews on them by clicking here to see how they found reliability, etc

Liam Venter
0275 985 266

[awayatc]

Had gen 1 ...which died prematurely.
have got a gen 2 stiil going strong.

Next time I will just get electric horns ....
not quite as loud but still loud enough
smaller, easier to install, more robust and cheaper.

[shafty]

Just bought 2 chrome compact Stebels while in the US, $US64.95 each