3 Circuit Solution & Heated grips

I am looking at installing a 12v outlet for my GPS, where have you guys installed yours? I had a quick look today, not much room to mount one out of the way.

radianguy wrote:

I am looking at installing a 12v outlet for my GPS, where have you guys installed yours? I had a quick look today, not much room to mount one out of the way.

Get yourself one of these and connect it to your battery. Run the plug up to where the AIS used to be mounted and tie strap it to that bracket (or somewhere in that area under the left shroud if you still have the AIS). Now take the other end of the quick disconnect plug and splice on a cig lighter socket and keep that in your tailpack or where ever. When you want to charge your GPS or cell phone, plug in the quick disconnect with the cig lighter socket up under the left shroud and you are good to go. Another advantage to using this quick disconnect is you can plug it into your Battery Tender when the bike it being stored. It comes with a 3 amp fuse, but you could add a larger one if needed, depending on what accessories you are plugging into the cig lighter socket. 3 amp ought to be plenty for charging your GPS or cell phone though.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I am looking to mount a permanent 12v outlet and leave my GPS plugged in all of the time. I hate charging up batteries for every ride.

I haz one of those and I use the plug for my vest and my compressor. Works like a hot damn.

If I were you I would cut the big fat plug off and put an RCA connector on the power wire and a female on the bike side, this would allow you to get rid of a few feet of wire at the same time so it's neat and tidy
You could put another female on the plug you cut off so you can plug and play if you want to use it in the car
RCA connector's are relatively waterproof and real easy to find

radianguy wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply, but I am looking to mount a permanent 12v outlet and leave my GPS plugged in all of the time. I hate charging up batteries for every ride.

Then buy a second charger cord for your GPS and wire it permanent to the bike. Cut off the plug and wire it with a an inline fuse holder direct to the battery.

Been about half a year - no issues with the set-up I pictured in the first two posts. I know the fuse block behind the headlight shroud has taken more than a few direct water(mud!) hits, countless downpours, and subsequent hose/car wash shots, LOL!

However, with a dab of dielectric grease upon installation of components/fuses, all stays dry, un-corroded, and freely pumping electrons to my heated grips & GPS! Very happy with the results - wish bikes would come pre-wired exactly like this (relay to fuse block) right from the factory...

I got my grip heaters wired up and used them on the ride home last night, wonderful!

Sarah

Nice! Hope ya used a relay. I can't believe Dual Star's instruction recommend getting power from any old circuit, including the headlight!?!?!????

BTW - test your relays! The first one I installed didn't function correctly - it stayed switched "on" all the time. In other words, instead of shutting off power when the bike was off, it kept sending power to the accessories in key-off position. Luckily I caught it when I noticed the heated grips were still on about an hour after shutting the bike off.

A relay swap and all was well.

+10 on the relay. I run a Bosch on mine and all my acc's including the seat heater run thru it.

Yep, got a relay and working good. Thanks again.

Sarah

Some concerns in this thread are valid, but overstated. This bike has plenty of left over power to play with. As mwakey points out, there are about 275W leftover to play with after the bike is started.

40W is ridiculously conservative. My ZX6R which had 100W less to play with (but no FI) could power heated grips, a heated vest, and a GPS with high beams off idle and still charge the battery. Kympex/Dual Stars heated grips pull up to 50W and IIRC a vest pulls about 60W.

What this bike does NOT have is battery CCAs (cold cranking amps). That little battery has very little reserve. I would recommend turning off everything besides iPods or other little electronics when starting the bike.

The battery is charging when the system is idling. My voltmeter read 13.9V when idling.

The FI will start the bike as long as the battery voltage is at least 11.7V, but it's not happy. It turns out the biggest drain on my system was my voltmeter so it got run down a bit. Since corrected.

I'll run to Autozone and look at that fuse box and relay. Right now I've got in-line fuses running directly off the battery. The WR has a 10A fuse on an accessory output, but it's always on. Please keep us posted about how waterproof your box is. It's a much cleaner solution than running wires from the accessory fuse at the fuse box back underneath the seat and then forward again. That would leave wires running around the gas tank exposed to the elements. Nothing on this bike is particularly waterproof. I miss my full fairings sometimes.

On my ZX, I ran most of the electronics off the parking light. It was a dim 5W or so third light bulb on the front of the bike with a 10A fuse. Even if I did damage the main circuit and lose that little light, I did not affect functionality. BPG is right that you should not run anything off critical systems including primary lights. OTOH, I don't care too much if I lose a turn signal or the horn for one ride.

Since the airbox mod, I have plenty of room for the relay under the seat. I tapped into the license plate light.

Sarah

1moreroad wrote:

Some concerns in this thread are valid, but overstated. This bike has plenty of left over power to play with. As mwakey points out, there are about 275W leftover to play with after the bike is started.

I agree, this bike has more available amperage than many streetbikes - and even a few touring bikes!

1moreroad wrote:

What this bike does NOT have is battery CCAs (cold cranking amps). That little battery has very little reserve. I would recommend turning off everything besides iPods or other little electronics when starting the bike.

Yip - good reason to use a relay tied into a key-on circuit... Otherwise you risk running the battery down w/ your GPS or whatever accessory if you accidentally leave it on. So long as the relay is working, you CAN'T drain the battery when you use a relay, as illustrated in the first few posts.

1moreroad wrote:

I'll run to Autozone and look at that fuse box and relay. Right now I've got in-line fuses running directly off the battery. The WR has a 10A fuse on an accessory output, but it's always on. Please keep us posted about how waterproof your box is. It's a much cleaner solution than running wires from the accessory fuse at the fuse box back underneath the seat and then forward again. That would leave wires running around the gas tank exposed to the elements. Nothing on this bike is particularly waterproof. I miss my full fairings sometimes.

I had the same worries - my main "other bike" is also fully faired. Again, a dab of dielectric grease does wonders for avoiding corrosion. I can look right in at, and access the fuse block I installed behind the headlight, and I know it does get wet. But, no problems after 6 months of abuse. Also, re: the wire runs - I popped the gas tank up a few inches and ran the power wire for my fuse box and 12V outlet with the other (factory) wires & cables through the frame (easy to see & understand this routing w/ shroud off/tank propped up). A tight squeeze to get started, but there is enough room for a few wires in there

1moreroad wrote:

On my ZX, I ran most of the electronics off the parking light. It was a dim 5W or so third light bulb on the front of the bike with a 10A fuse. Even if I did damage the main circuit and lose that little light, I did not affect functionality. BPG is right that you should not run anything off critical systems including primary lights. OTOH, I don't care too much if I lose a turn signal or the horn for one ride.

Fair enough - I guess I'd rather not take out a circuit, and therefore the attached accessory, if I don't have to. A relay is only like $4... It'd suck to have heated grips go out (along with horn/taillight/etc.) on a cold night ride...

This was my setup for my DeLorme GPS PN-40 with a USB connection...
Get it here $44.95 plus shipping... http://www.powerletproducts.com/product/mini-usb-battery-harness/258

SpaGuru wrote:

This was my setup for my DeLorme GPS PN-40 with a USB connection...
Get it here $44.95 plus shipping... http://www.powerletproducts.com/product/mini-usb-battery-harness/258

I like that. Nice idea for mini USB power.

If anyone needs a full size USB power source, check this out...

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powerjolt-dual-universal

Great thread to bring back to life. These are things I've certainly been thinking about lately.

First, it must be stated that it's not a wussy power option if you install it yourself.

However, it's not my but that needs warmed this time of year but my hands. I use a towel from the dryer to thaw the seat in the morning before my commute.

If you're worried about moisture issues, you could try coating the entire relay including connections in liquid electrical tape. I've used that in spots on vehicles where normal 'splash proof' connectors fail with good success. It's a bit of a PIA when you need to remove said parts, but seems to work.

I've been running heated gloves and a heated jacket liner (not vest) with a Gerbing pigtail bolted right to the battery this fall. No problems so far. I always make sure to start the bike before turning on the heated gear.

The comment about the EFI not being happy on 11.7 V is interesting. I've found that when I get back from a week or so tour on my Ducati the little bugger is pretty grumpy about starting. I was thinking that maybe it was just being jealous. Maybe it's a partially flat battery. Next time I'll check the voltage.

Something that Volkswagen used to do on the old air-cooleds, which I thought was quite clever, was to put a small light bulb that was connected to the battery and the output of the generator (yes they had generators back then, not alternators). That way if your generator wasn't putting out as much voltage as the battery already had it would glow proportionally to the difference. That means that when you first turned the key on, the light was on bright. When you were running and the generator blew up you would get a whiff of smoke and the light. When you were running too many power robbing accessories the light would start to glow just a bit. At night with the aftermarket halogen headlights on and the stereo going you could actually watch the little light glow in time to the music if you had it cranked. Times have changed. Now the little 250 has more output than some of those cars did. :chuckle: I haven't checked to see if something like that would still work with these modern alternators, but I don't see why it wouldn't.

Eastern Beaver's 3-Circuit install

It's not the most exciting accessory, but it's a wise choice. There is always some electrical accessory you want to add to your bike. Are you going to pile all those connections onto your battery and have them hot all the time, or worse yet, tap into a wire somewhere and hope something else doesn't fry? Smart money runs power through a relay connected to a low-amp switch with every connection fused. EB has 2 3-circuit models available, either 3 key-on circuits, or 2 key-on circuits + 1 hot. I opted for the latter.

The WR250 is a compact package with precious little room for even the smallest additional components. Even the compact EB 3-circuit can be tough to fit. Some people manage to stuff it under the seat, but I'm not too keen on having to unbolt the seat and fish wires out to work on them, so I opted for the battery area. Since the unit is light weight, it doesn't need to be overly fastened down. If you fasten the relay, positive lead, and negative lead, it's got nowhere to go.



As you can see, the big orange wire (positive lead) is short, so it can't be too far from the battery. The negative lead is longer, allowing for a ground connection other than the battery. There is a ground connection on the motor just forward of the rear shock. From this mounting location, the ground wire just reaches. Since it is tightly run over the frame, I wrapped it with heavy coiled conduit. You might want to hire a miniature person with tiny hands to reach in there. Otherwise, you'll need creativity and patience.



For the key-on connections, EB provides a Posi-tap. Posi-tap and Posi-lock connections are the premium way to go. I found the power wire to the license plate light and tapped into that. It's close to the battery and everything can be covered with the factory sleeve. That's it for the connections. The relay can be fastened just below the battery using the screw for an existing component (yet to be identified). The "box" itself is simply tucked under the battery retaining strap and the 3 connectors are shoved into nearby crevices.



Test - A 30-amp fuse is provided for the main power supply, install it. Then insert a fuse into one slot and test that circuit. In this case, the red-wired line is hot, so test with key off. The easiest thing is to use a simple test light. Connect the ground to the black wire of the circuit being tested and touch the pointy-ended probe to the positive side. Move the fuse to each of the other slots and check that they are on when the key is on and off when the key is off. For any unused circuits, leave the fuse out so there is no chance of shorting. If no circuits are currently used (like mine because I don't have any other accessories yet), also leave the main 30-amp fuse out. Tuck everything in and replace the panel. It's a tight fit even with just this little extra componentry.

So now I'm ready for grip heater, 12v socket, and something else

Boondocker wrote:

As you can see,......

No pics?

Try the link at the top of the post. Nice addition!

BPG wrote:

I wanted a neat & tidy way to run some accessories (GPS, 12V lighter socket, heated grips & jacket). Also, to prevent a dead battery I wanted to wire it such that said accessories were only able to run while the bike was on.

My goals are to have a set-up that had minimal wire runs, little clutter, and most importantly doesn't negatively affect the stock wiring.
...

Just wanted to thank you for these clear instructions. I got my grips and driving lights installed last weekend and used these posts extensively. Big help!