Adding power feed for heated clothing

[emseedee]

Hi all,
I ride through the winter unless it's icy, but these days I need something better than the heated grips to keep my hands warm (over the last couple of years I've developed Reynauds condition). I've got a pair of Keiss heated gloves which work great from the bike's 12V system, but I can't decide where to route the power feed - specifically where should the bike end of the harness poke out of the bodywork? The gloves come with a cabling yoke that runs down the jacket sleeves to the gloves and the other end is long enough to reach the bottom edge of the jacket. From there it plugs into a cable that will eventually find it's way to the battery via a suitable fuse.

Anyone else use heated gloves? How did you do it?

TIA

Mike

 

[wspollack]

Hi all,
I ride through the winter unless it's icy, but these days I need something better than the heated grips to keep my hands warm (over the last couple of years I've developed Reynauds condition). I've got a pair of Keiss heated gloves which work great from the bike's 12V system, but I can't decide where to route the power feed - specifically where should the bike end of the harness poke out of the bodywork? The gloves come with a cabling yoke that runs down the jacket sleeves to the gloves and the other end is long enough to reach the bottom edge of the jacket. From there it plugs into a cable that will eventually find it's way to the battery via a suitable fuse.

Anyone else use heated gloves? How did you do it?

TIA

Mike

I don’t use heated gloves, nor do I have a 600/650 Beemer scooter. But I do have a heated jacket liner, and:

- On my last six bikes/scooters, since 2007, I have added a Powerlet (same thing as BMW/Hella/DIN-something) outlet, with a spring-loaded rainproof cover.

- I’ve added all of those outlets below the left thigh, as I find this the optimum location for a heated-gear cord:

1) The gear cords almost always come out the left side of a heated vest or liner (which usually have connections themselves for gloves);

2) This location doesn't interfere with steering, is not near the handlebars, doesn't get pulled on;

3) The cord doesn't rub against bodywork as it goes around the thigh, i.e., it's not between any part of you and bodywork;

4) The cord and plug doesn't interfere with a passenger;

5) You can plug in or unplug the cord with one hand -- your left -- while sitting on the bike (something you cannot do, for instance, with a common SAE plug);

6) It allows you the greatest length of cord, if you forget to unplug while (typically) getting off the bike on the left side.

I have a write-up -- with pictures and captions -- on this I did some years back for the Victory community, which you may find useful. It also describes the only time I used mayonnaise for adding a bike farkle:

Victory Powerlet in Side Cover

I currently have two bikes, a BMW C 400 GT scooter and a Royal Enfield Meteor 350. These are both '23 models, and on both of them I have of course made this mod:





As you can see, I also use that port for hooking up smart-chargers in my garage.

For the heated jacket liner, shortly after I did that first mod I switched to a self-coiling cord, on which I put a Powerlet plug on one end and a heated-gear compatible "coax" connector on the other end; I have a picture of that in that Victory sub-gallery.

The sockets are all directly connected to the battery, with the hot side fused at 15amps. This allows for that smart-charging, of course; with heated gear, you unplug it when you're done riding, before you get off the bike, so a direct connection is not an issue there. And there are no complaints from a CANbus system, because it's not involved in any of this.

I hope you find some of this potentially useful.

 

[emseedee]

That's a really interesting approach. I'll have to take a look at my bike and see what the options are for mounting the connector

Thanks for the idea.

Mike

 

[wspollack]

That's a really interesting approach. I'll have to take a look at my bike and see what the options are for mounting the connector

Thanks for the idea.

Mike

I'd be very surprised if there's not a suitable piece of bodywork on your bigger scooter, under the left thigh. That area is usually pretty devoid of important stuff.

If you want to see how I went about going through the bodywork on my C 400 GT, I have about a dozen pics and captions describing that process in the scooter's gallery, starting with this particular image:

2023 BMW C 400 GT

billanddot.com

And of course I took a slightly different approach in determining the relevant bodywork location on the big Victory, the one that involved using mayonnaise (although I did consider using ketchup or mustard).

Good luck.

 

[KeithQ]

Excellent write up Bill, thanks!

Keith Quigley

 

[wspollack]

Excellent write up Bill, thanks!

Keith Quigley

Thanks for the kind words.

For anyone interested in completeness, here are pics of this mod I've made on bikes, in order, from 2007 - present:











And here's the same coiled cord I've been using for heated gear for 16 or 17 years now:



I also have a couple of cords for the smart-chargers I have in my garage (as you can see in three of the pics). There are a few smart-chargers that use proprietary connectors, but most smart-chargers come with a long stock cord with an SAE connector at the end, and then some shorter cords -- with spring-loaded battery clips, or battery-terminal loops, etc. -- to plug in at the end of that longer cord.

So instead, I just use different short cords, with a Powerlet/BMW/Hella/DIN-something plug on one end, and an SAE connector on the other. (These are available on Amazon, if you don't feel like making your own, but beware that you often have to swap the polarity of such cords, inside the plug, if you buy off-the-shelf products like that.) When I get ready to head out, I get on a bike, just pull the plug out and drop it on the concrete floor, and back out -- really, I've been doing this with Powerlet plugs on smart-chargers for all this time, and haven't broken one yet.

 

[Ceesie76]

C'mon now Bill, we need precision, not vague guesses:

"And here's the same coiled cord I've been using for heated gear for 16 or 17 years now:"

 

[wspollack]

C'mon now Bill, we need precision, not vague guesses:

"And here's the same coiled cord I've been using for heated gear for 16 or 17 years now:"

You make zee joke, non? Well, you made me look:

- I first added that socket to my '07 Burgman 650 Exec in Nov. 2007.

- I couldn't find the email of my actual order of the coiled cord -- the one I switched to later on. Go figure; sloppy record-keeping on my part.

- But I did find an email conversation with a local riding buddy, who was about to follow my lead, i.e., make this mod on his bike. In an Aug. 20, 2008, email, discussing the parts he would need, I had come across a coiled cord, and I wrote:

I think you should get it. Even if it's too long (coiled), we can cut it shorter (i.e., in thinking about it, I don't see any problem hooking up the Powerlet to a coiled part, vs. a non-coiled part). I don't know why I didn't do this. If you get this, and I like your setup, maybe I'll switch.

So let's figure I switched from a straight cord to a coiled cord in, oh, Sept. 2008. That would make it 16 years ago this month.

Incidentally, such a cord is available currently at the newly revived Gerbing company, here:

Gerbing 12V Coil Cord 4 Foot Extension

The Gerbing Coil Cord provides up to 4 feet of cord to help you reach those out of the way spots. Coax male plug on one end female plug on the other end. Provides great range of motion 1 ft length stretches to 4 feet

www.gerbing.com

(Not only did I snip off the male coax part, but also a good deal of the coiled cord itself, because it was much longer than I needed.)

 

[Ceesie76]