Heated clothing?

Morning all.....

Got a quick question.... Im planningon fitting oxford heated grips and Klan heated vest to the Honda and wondered if the battery/alternator will cope ok? Electrcs aren't my strong suit!!

Thanks....

I can tell you I used electric heated gloves all last winter and I had no problem. I am told that the alternator puts out more than enough juice to handle it. I was considering heated grips but the idea of heated gloves made more sense to me.

Jesse in Atlanta

With the Givi screen you may not need heated grips. It all depends how cold it gets up there in the frozen wastelands!

Cheers,

tarmacburner2 wrote:

With the Givi screen you may not need heated grips. It all depends how cold it gets up there in the frozen wastelands!

Cheers,

cheers all.......Fred........pretty cold my friend!!!!

As I am new to the concept of heated clothing but can imagine the benefits here in the frozen north, can any one tell me how they all connect to the Swings electrical system. In other words if you had say gloves, vest, boots etc. do they go through a hub or do they all connect to the battery separately. Can you use a single controller to control all items?

I got 5 heated things hooked up no prob

x

Bigbird has listed a great example of where you should start! We all encourage this method and it protects the Silverwing electrical system. DennisB makes some great products also.

I use a Gerbing Jacket liner and a set of gloves and it works fine. Somewhere in these pages one member breaks down the the watt usage for the silverwing systems and what is left for "extras". If I recall correctly is was approx 10 amps.

Gerbing wattage chart:
Gerbing

Fuse block diagram:
Fuse Block

My Block:

I have the main fuse that came with my Gerbings gear directly connected to my battery, the other end is a pigtail that connects to my jacket and my jacket has outlets for pants. My jacket has connectors that come out of the zipped pockets of the wrist area to connect to gloves. My pant liners also connected from outlet of jacket has also pigtails from ankle area to connect to heated socks or insoles.Hope that helps

Thanks for all your replies, most helpful. I will also check out DennisB's supply as suggested.

Tank, is your thigh-bone connected to your knee-bone, too?

When you buy the Gerbing equipment, you have a choice of a either one or two zone controllers. The controller plugs into a short fused connector that goes directly to the battery. The dual controller will allow the vest to have a different setting than the pants or however you decide to hook things up. I highly recommend the two zone controller if you are going to run more than a coat liner.

At the Gerbing website, there is a FAQ section that will take you through every known question about the gear.

I have the vest, pant liner, gloves and boot inserts. When I am riding the Silverwing, I use the vest and gloves the most often. A well charged battery is the key to success with heated clothing. If your battery gets weak from age, get a new one.

Once upon a time I added up everything that I could think of for electric usage on the Swing. I think it only came up to a little over 200 watts PLUS whatever the fuel injectors/injection system uses. The alternator puts out 440 watts at 5000 rpm. This leaves you plenty of room for heated gear.

Gerbings jacket liner runs 77 watts, their T5 gloves run 27 watts. I am not sure what the pant liner or shoe liner use. It all runs off one connection to your battery or 12v outlet so you don't have cords dangling from everywhere.

I've run some cheap WalMart driving lights for two years (100 watt total) and never had the battery discharge on me. I've only had the heated gear since early October, but I tend to leave the driving lights off if I'm running the heated gear. One day I will get a voltage meter to see if the battery discharges if I run all of it at the same time.

The Gerbings stuff is very good quality. Any heated gear you get should fit you snugly or it won't feel very warm.

I bought a battery powered vest that runs on 8 aa batteries and it does a very good job. It was only $20 so I thought I would take a gamble on it. It lasts approx 3-4 hours and since I always use rechargeable batteries it doesn't cost anything for me to run.

I was surprised that it works so well for the money. I just did a search on "yahoo" for "battery powered heated vests" and there are quite a few with one lasting up to 21 hours, but at a lower heat temp. The highest heat temperature is 156 degrees and it says it lasts 4 hours.

If you don't have an outlet or don't want to put one in you may want to think of one. You can also use it just walking around or at football games and things.

Chilliwing: i'd recommend the two controller. I use the Gerbing jacket liner (its really a light jacket) and glovers. When i tried them on only one controler I found that I needed a lot more heat to my hands than my body so now I run them separately. In contrast, a buddy uses only one controller and says his hands stay perfectly comfortable. I bought and tried the socks several years ago but find that I don't really need them so they just lay in the drawer unused. A pair of Carhart merino wool socks work well for my climate.

On this subject, a group of us toured Gerbing's new plant here in N.C.
I'll post this story in the General Chat section.

What would happen if your heated stuff was too much for the bike? If the battery was to discharge while riding would it just stop, or would the head light dim? How much of a risk is it to use the heated stuff while riding less than 5000rpm, lets say just moseying around town, stop and go for a period of time. the 5k only happens when you stay at 60 mph or so. I have used Widder heated vest/arms/gloves/leg chaps for years. I always turn it off when I am coming to a stop or going slowly. Do I have to? Does anyone know the output of the electrical system at lower rpm? Thanks Dan

You could monitor the battery with a volt meter.

As a test, stick a volt meter on the battery and start it up. Once warmed up at tick over you may notice the voltage is below 13v and when you slow increase the engine speed you should see the voltage rise to 14v. Ideally you want to keep that voltage about 14v so that its charging the battery.

Now try the same with all your heating clothing. If it dips below 13v at tick over you may want to adjust the tick over a little higher or just hold the revs a little higher with the throttle until you are moving again.

The idea here is try to run the heating from the engine rather than using up your battery. Fitting a volt meter on the dash would allow you to keep on eye on things.

The Silverwings alternator is rated at 441W/5000rpm according to the service manual.

I also use 5-Gerbing items for the last 4 years with no mishaps

mdumas72118, do you shut off the gear when stopped?

I use the Keiss x5 heated vest. It has outlets for Gloves and insoles inside the vest. I use the temperature controller i got with the vest. I just connected the terminals to the battery and ran the cable under the seat so the outlet is easily available. I've been using the vest, insoles and inner gloves with no problems.I normally use the midway setting, it has low, midway and high. The controller hangs just under my jacket so you plug in, set the temperature(after starting the engine) and off you go.

No, you just unplug one connection, as needed all items connect together and one duel controller keeps all items at desired temperature.

So what happens if you overload the charging system? Does the bike stop ?

Where do you get the kind of voltmeter people are talking about how do you hook it up?

Try hear.
Harbor Freight Tools:

http://www.harborfreight.com/7-function-multimeter-98025.html?ccdenc=eyJjb2RlIjoiNzQ3MDI5MzAiLCJza3UiOiI5ODAyNSIsImlzIjoi
Mi45OSIsInByb2R1Y3RfaWQi%0D%0AOiIzOTE0In0%3D%0D%0A&
utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4612a&utm_source=1003

That looks good, only 5 bucks, but I would not know what to do with it. The only thing clear on this subject is that it's unclear. No one seems to know what happens when you overload the system, or what the charging rate is at lower rpm than 5k. I'll just have to continue to hope I'm not going to end up with a dead battery:)

I ride in heated pants / jacket and gloves everyday and never have had a problem. At idle the bike puts out about 14.1 volts, with all the gear on high mine drops to 13.7 volts until I take off and its back up over 14 again. The Silverwing has no trouble keeping up with my stuff. You will know if your overloading the system as the lights would dim severely at idle and you would have a dead battery in short order. But some heated gear isn't going to hurt the Silverwing. I have a set for my wife to and we've both run it all day on some rides and even then it didn't have any issues.

But my voltage measurements were taking at the battery terminals with all heated gear on high.

Is this the info you were looking for?

That's pretty reassuring, thanks. BTW what brand of gear do you use? thank you! Dan

Sedici line of heated gear from Cyclegear.com

It's the best I've ever owned. Check on there site because they have local stores to and they might have one near you. I buy everything from them now, love that place.

Still can't get over seeing my picture at the top of the site every time I come here

It's a good picture!

DuggleBogey wrote:

It's a good picture!

Thanks!

I think one of the greatest trips we ever made was from Atlanta to Lake Placid, NY on the Silverwing. We put just shy of 3000 miles on it in 8 days Both our big butts on it every mile. Adirondacks are amazing to ride through and we rode up to the top of White Face which was beyond amazing. I can't wait to take the Silverwing back there next summer.

I have the Gerbings jacket liner and G3 gloves that I've used for four years on my Goldwing. The work just as good on my Silverwing, in fact this morning I connected up before going off to my Tuesday morning geezer breakfast. The Silverwing has a stator power rating about the same as a Goldwing 1200. Prolonged idling with heated gear will run down the battery but it would take awhile. You'd eventually run down the battery with nothing but the headlight on if you let the bike idle long enough.

EasyRider SilverWinger wrote:

tankyuong wrote:

I have the main fuse that came with my Gerbings gear directly connected to my battery, the other end is a pigtail that connects to my jacket and my jacket has outlets for pants. My jacket has connectors that come out of the zipped pockets of the wrist area to connect to gloves. My pant liners also connected from outlet of jacket has also pigtails from ankle area to connect to heated socks or insoles.Hope that helps

Why the quote? Are you reminding us of this post, or do you want to know something pertaining to this post?

I think that EasyRider SilverWinger has accidentally placed his post in the subject heading.

One for Admin to rectify.

I posted a question to tankyuong yesterday but in the subject heading so let's see if this dispatch gets through.
I am about to order Gerbings jacket and gloves for my 2009 Swing and wonder about the best way to route wiring to battery and not pinch any cables. I added driving lights last year using Denise B's excellent bar and connectors and ultimately connected through back of battery with wiring so no room there. Not having Gerbings cables etc yet I wonder if the connect to battery cables to controller can come out under seat without pinching.
I don't have a power outlet in lockable box as some do. Any advise would be appreciated except for that long walk off a short pier kind.
Easy.................I wish it were true.

I ran my cable for heated clothing direct from the battery. I did make a cutaway both sides of the document pocket to run the cable, it's only plastic so no real problem. The outlet is perfect just under the seat for making the connections