Heated grips

[timboellis]

As never had them before do they draw a lot of power or not and do i just use them when i really need to or they okay to be on most of the time

[Kickstart]

Hi

Not a massive amount of power. Most seem to use a 3amp fuse. Should be fine to leave on most of the time.

I would suggest wiring them up using a relay taking power directly from the battery and using a switched power feed to trigger the relay (for example the rear brake light switch feed).

All the best

Keith
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[Teflon-Mike]

Been checking the specs I can fnd to get some for Snowie.
Oxford sportgrips claim to draw 4a max, means they are about 50w. So draw about as much juice as a head-lamp bulb.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[flumpy7]

Couple of variables. What type of grips do you want? What type of bike have you got?

IMO not worth it on a very small bike due to risk of overloading the battery. You certainly wouldnt wanna leave them on all the time. For a small bike i would just get some handlebar muffs/guards, some thermal inner gloves and some decent winter gloves.

For a bigger bike deffo recommend them, iwouldnt be without my oxford wrap-around grips. These are handy cause they literally just wrap around the bars and can easily be removed (in seconds) when you dont need them. I use them in conjunction with handlebar muffs to protect the outside of my hands = TOASTY. Dont look very though.

You can also get more permanent grips that take a bit of fiddling to install tidily, but once installed they are the biz and you can just activate/deactivate them when needed via a switch stuck somewhere on your dash/bars/yoke. Cant see why you would want to leave them 'on' all the time, would be unbearable in summer .
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2012 Sinnis apache

[timboellis]

Well the bike i am picking up the morrow has them, so just curious

will be on the Triumph Trophy, so i so not flatten the battery etc,.

[kingsknight]

[ms51ves3]

I got a set of these:

Clicky

Not fitted them yet, but will do over the weekend.

[Blue_SV650S]

[flumpy7]

[guitarcarfana...]

[Kickstart]

[Tonka]

[Teflon-Mike]

We're plotting to fit heated grips to Snowies CB125.

Bikes, in general have much smaller generators than cars, & littler ones often pathetically so. Snowies CB125 Super-Dream is actually quite well endowed for a 125, it has a 150W alternator. Many dont even make 100. But that's its 'peak' power rating, at low engine speeds, it'll be making significantly less juice.

Did some sums for Snowies bike, the other night. The highest load scenario is sat at a junction, in neutral, engine idling, brake covered, tail lamp on, indicators on, headlamps on dipped. On snowies bike, that adds up as follows:-
3.4W = Indicator Neutral lamp
21w = Stop Lamp
5w = Tail Lamp
4w = Side light
40w = dipped beam
6.8w = instrument illumination
24w = Indicator lamps (half time)
3.4W = indicator tell-tail (half time)
Totals up to 94W, while the generator might only be knocking out 30w or so, putting quite a hefty drain on the battery. Though, I was rather aghast to realise that the back-lighting for the clocks draws more juice than the tail-lamp!

Anyway, on a little bike, there are a lot of things working against you, becouse most 125's are all year round commuters, hacking daily accross town in all weathers.

Means that they're much more likely to spend much more of thier time, sat at junctions, or coasting to them, the generator not delivering maximum power, but with indicators and lamps drawing a lot of it, a lot of the time, especially if using headlamps permenenantly for conspicuity. And in that kind of use, they wont be getting much chance for sustained speed to recharge the battery, which will be a small one to begin with, and if its an electric start bike, and used for short hops, theres a good chance that the generator will never quite manage to keep up and keep the battery charged.

Again, bikes have small batteries, to save weight, and smaller bikes have smaller batteries still, and lead acid batteries do not like being heavily and repeatedly discharged and recharged, why bike batteries tend not to last as well as car batteries, but also explains why a small commuter bike battery is likely to go 'weak' very quick!

Heated Grips, in my book are a very useful thing, and on an all year commuter, more than a luxuary, and, keeping minds from numbing pain, and feeling in the fingers, can make riding in the colder whether when you need most wits about you a darn sight safer.

And I dont see ANY reason why small bikes shouldn't warrant them. Bottom line, a 125 can often still do the national speed limit, and are as much a propper bike as a 1000cc bruiser, just 'cos most have L-Plates on them, dont make them a 'toy'.

But, that power consumption is a concern. Battery in snowies CB125 is a 9Ah capacity. That will deliver 9a for one hour, continious draw. So a 4a pair of heated grips would, without any other load on it, (or any recharge), flatten a fully charged one in a little over two hours.

Most of the electrical power consumption is drawn by the lights, and a pair of heated grips on a 125 is almost as much as the lights draw on top, and there isn't really that much spare electrical power to play with.

BUT, depending on the way the bike is used, it could be maneagable.

If the journey times are longer, and have more main road work, and higher speed sections to give the battery a chance to recover, then theres a good chance that the system could cope.

If side-lights are used for daylight running, instead of dipped beam, that would help, but not a practical option if you are commuting in the dark, or bad weather..... when you really want heated grips!

So, for Snowie, who also wants to uprate the lighting on her bike, and power her sat-nav, as well as have heated grips, been looking at how we can make the most of the power we got, and a big part of the solution looks like its going to be LED lamps.

Found some LED bulbs to replace the back-light and idiot lamp bulbs. Load is only o.1w a bulb!
Just that change frees up a significant amount of watts, putting less drain on the battery, and aiding recharge time.

Going the whole-hog, replacing all the bulbs bar the headlamp, and fitting an electronic flasher unit, that also saps less power, drops the combined total for the earlier scenario down to around 40w! Less than half the power draw, and not much more than what the genny is likely to be chucking out. Its almost like doubling the generator output!

That should be plenty to compensate for the added load of heated grips! But it isn't cheap.

And while this may be irrelevent for bigger bikes with bigger generators, actually, it MAY be worth some thought.

CB750 doesn't exactly have a small generator, but with a twin head-lamp conversion sucking 100w of power instead of 45w.... the margins are getting close. And on more modern bikes, with electronic brains, and low consumption LED lighting already fitted, the margins might be a lot closer, and there may be less scope to make savings. So its still a worth while question to ask.
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[MinhDinh]

Teflon Mike sure does like to type in detail

I have just ebayed a pair of HotGrips. The cold is coming and they were OK on the RS apart from they would turn off if I didn't rev enough.

The 636 should hopefully have enoguh power to be on all the time.
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Hit the G spot.

[Kickstart]

[N cee thirty]

my LED tail light is very bright indeed


mike you wouldn't know if the cg gives out the same amount as a cb or more would you?
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'00 Aprilia RS50 > '92 Honda CG > '99 Yamaha Fazer > '91 Yamaha RXS > '79 Suzuki X5 > 01' Honda Cg > 07' Honda Cg > 82' Kawasaki Z200 > suzuki gsxr 400 gk73a > honda vfr 400 NC30 Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[Pernig]

[Kickstart]

[N cee thirty]

fml its straight off the crappy generater

not much good from the battery either as thats the size of 2 rubix cubes
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'00 Aprilia RS50 > '92 Honda CG > '99 Yamaha Fazer > '91 Yamaha RXS > '79 Suzuki X5 > 01' Honda Cg > 07' Honda Cg > 82' Kawasaki Z200 > suzuki gsxr 400 gk73a > honda vfr 400 NC30 Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[Pernig]

[Teflon-Mike]

[N cee thirty]

[The Artist]

Hijack time.

Soooo, anyone got a spare control unit for some heated grips.
e.g. wires from battery, control box and buttons and output wires?
I have heated grips on my bike but the control unit is buggered.

[ms51ves3]

[Kickstart]