Assuming my Terra has the same wiring as the BMW F650 Sertao it ought to have somewhere a spare switched 12v supply that I can connect heated grips to.. ( I have bought the R&G ones as Husky UK cant supply any until June ).. To save me ripping the bike apart can anyone point me in the right direction to find it? If not anyone else already fitted Heated grips can recommend a suitable location to connect them to ( I could do direct to the battery but just know I will forget..)
Highfive did a good write up in the stupid questions thread on the ADV site. I wrote a bit on mine in the mods thread on this site. I don't trust myself to switch of the grips either. On my bikes I find switched power - I used the Headlight cluster on the Terra - and use that to activate a 12v 30Amp relay from an auto parts store. The rest is easy. Ground to Battery, power to battery, and power to grips. I used double stick tape to hold the relay onto the battery where some people keep their stock tool kit.
I don't pick mine up until tomorrow (strada - but I will be doing the heated grips eventually), but I was looking around at some things and saw that the horn circuit should do the trick. http://www.bigdogadventures.com/11HuskyTR650.htm
I basically did the same. 30 amp relay powered from the taillight wire as HF did with his. I stuck the relay on the battery as well.
No it doesnt and nor do most beemers at least not in the UK..its always another couple of hundred quid for them as an extra...but they are nearly all pre-wired....thanks for the replies...I shall have a look this morning and see what I can find..surprised that you need to use a relay as they are very low powered??
On the right side of the bike below the tank taped to the top of a wire loom running forward is a 2 wire switched plug that I assume is the factory grip heater connection. I tapped the hot side to trip the relay in the headlight shell, seems to fork fine.
I think this is the connector you are referring to: The extra black wire is spliced into the hot lead and goes to my grip heaters. It is switched. Does anyone know where to get a connector that presumably goes into the capped plug?
There was the same connector on F800GS. I used it for powering my GPS (zumo at the time) with no problems. In fact there were 2 of them - 12v power socket was connected to one of them.
I knew it'd be under there somewhere! Good work finding this! I bet it'd power a couple of lower powered devices..not sure about heated grips and a vest....but gps and radar should be fine.
My grips draw 40 watt and 3.1 amps. That is much less than I thought. I cannot keep them on high very long or they get uncomfortably hot, so I expect they are drawing half that on low power. Until you have them, you cannot appreciate how just keeping your hands warm helps keep the rest of you warm. I do not know which fuse is on this circuit. I intend to add a wires for my GPS and cell phone since they are flea power, but a heated vest sure would be nice
Your heated grips may very well draw the same amount of amperage whether on Hi or Lo setting. Many of the Lo settings are achieved simply by expending/consuming a good portion of the electricity thru a resistor device (which gets darn tootin hot....be careful where you install the resistor). At least, this is how the cheap wrap-around heat panels work (which I'm currently using). The fancy, high dollar options often use a pulse-width-modulator which can reduce the heat while also pulling less amperage (I think). My 2 pesos worth...anyway. HF
Excellent point. I suppose the HI/LO switch could also have two grids in the wrap around heat panels on each grip, one for high and one for low, maybe with different resistance on each. I didn't see any resistor on mine?? I guess the point is that even in the worse case, 3 amps is not as bad as I thought.
I use Fuzeblocks FZ-1 fuse block w/ built-in relay when space is a concern - like on the TR. There's just not much room under the seat! I'm using a Powerlet Termin-8 pigtail, which is basically an extra few mounting points on a pigtail. I don't know that I need a switched power source on this bike yet. But - a good source of switched power I've used, is to tap into the 5w running light that comes on in the headlight - and is switched. You can also use the headlight wire itself, since the headlight doesn't turn on until the engine's running, your accessories don't get power until the engine is running. No drain just by turning on the key.... did it that way on my FJR and TE 630.
There's another connector like this inside the headlight shell on the right side. Does anyone know what it's for and/or whether it is also 12v switched?
I had been guessing one plug was for the oem alarm and the other oem grip heaters but the voltages don't make sense to me. I am seeing voltage readings of ~5v at the headlight shell plug and ~2v at the undertank plug. Both are switched. My multimeter is a cheapo harbor freight purchase but appears to function normally in other testing. Any thoughts?
you reading ac or dc? any switch settings you using say RMS? what scale setting on the meter u using? Anyways....make sure your meet is on vdc (or dots over dashes) on sum meters) and you reference ground from the frame or preferably the battery.
