electrical power question

[dean owens]

i'm curious to know how much "extra" power there is on these bikes and what can be added on. i started wondering when i saw that people who did the dual headlight mod (that left the dim on when the bright was on) that their batteries got drained to the point of not being able to start their bikes.

here's what i have/want to do...
- previous owner installed a hookup for a heated jacket liner (wouldn't mind looking into getting one for colder months)
- dual headlight mod (not the one that turns the dim off when the bright is on. plan to do that later... i just don't turn on the bright)

- to this i wouldn't mid adding heated grips
- maybe down the road a plug for something like a gps or a cell phone charger.

i can't imagine that it matters much... but would switching my turn signals to led's free up enough power to even worry about?

also, would it be worth the trouble of hooking up a battery tender to this bike? i already have a tender jr from my previous bike.

thanks for your help guys.

 

[wrightme43]

Where did you see batteries getting drained untill the bike wouldnt start?

I have had the double low, and high for 28,000 miles and have never had a single problem ever. I ride at night alot.

Now this has been discussed the amount of extra power. Its not alot, but it is there. Its not like a Wing or anything but there is a bit of wiggle room. I have not tried a heated liner yet but I see no reason why it wouldnt work, just cant say for sure untill I do it for myself.
I plug my bike up to a tender as soon as I get home, less than 10 minutes later it kicks back over to green.

 

[jazzpaintball]

Most electrical components made for bikes usually dont draw much power due to power restrictions of a smaller battery and a smaller alternator. Although i think that the dual headlight mod and the 12v cigaret lighter mod whould not do too much to the power at all due to a low wattage output. The heaters though, both the jacket and the grips, would take more power due to having heating elements. heating cores naturally use up more electricity than most other appliances of the same size. I am sure that the bike can take the grips, headlight mod, and the 12v powersource, but the liner heater may be much. just find out how many watts it uses up. the generic max for a 600cc bike is about 400 watts of extra power unused. 55w for the headlight, what ever you plug in (cell phone is about 30-80 depending on how powerful it is) and the grips are about 100w. that still leaves about 200w to play with.

my appologies if my numbers are not exact.

I hope this helps you

 

[SovietRobot]

Most electrical components made for bikes usually dont draw much power due to power restrictions of a smaller battery and a smaller alternator. Although i think that the dual headlight mod and the 12v cigaret lighter mod whould not do too much to the power at all due to a low wattage output. The heaters though, both the jacket and the grips, would take more power due to having heating elements. heating cores naturally use up more electricity than most other appliances of the same size. I am sure that the bike can take the grips, headlight mod, and the 12v powersource, but the liner heater may be much. just find out how many watts it uses up. the generic max for a 600cc bike is about 400 watts of extra power unused. 55w for the headlight, what ever you plug in (cell phone is about 30-80 depending on how powerful it is) and the grips are about 100w. that still leaves about 200w to play with.

my appologies if my numbers are not exact.

I hope this helps you

I'm not busting balls but the cell phone figure is wack.
Most cellphones charge at 500mA, and at 5V, that's less than 3 watts, which is nothing.

400Watts for total power is a good guess, but you have to realize that's total output and every electrical component on the bike requires power, ECU, electronics, lights, ignition, etc.
This leaves about 200W or less for accessories. Adding dual lowbeams takes away 55W, so you don't have much to play with in regards to heated grips/gloves/vests.

Like I said I'm not calling you out I'm just trying to get some facts out there :thumbup:

 

[SirIsaac]

i'm curious to know how much "extra" power there is on these bikes and what can be added on. i started wondering when i saw that people who did the dual headlight mod (that left the dim on when the bright was on) that their batteries got drained to the point of not being able to start their bikes.

According to this post you only have about 50 Watts to spare if you do the bd43 headlight mod.

i can't imagine that it matters much... but would switching my turn signals to led's free up enough power to even worry about?

Switching the turn signals to LEDs will do virtually nothing - they are not on enought to matter. The tail light, front running lights and license plate lights are all 5 Watts and are on all the time, so switching them to LED could save a little. FYI, I tried several LED tail/brake lights last year and in my opinion they were not bright enough.

also, would it be worth the trouble of hooking up a battery tender to this bike? i already have a tender jr from my previous bike.

Many people swear by the battery tender. In my opinion, they are fine for longer term storage or if you just don't ride that often. But if you have more electrical load than the alternator can supply such that the battery is discharging all the time while you ride, using a battery tender to recharge the battery after every ride is not a viable long term strategy.

 

[agmom98]

I have not tried a heated liner yet but I see no reason why it wouldnt work, just cant say for sure untill I do it for myself.

I don't have the dual headlight mod, but I do have an accessory powerlet installed and regularly run a Gerbing heated jacket liner on my FZ with absolutely no problems with discharge. The jacket liner is rated at 6.5 AMP (78 Watt) and I run it full-on, don't use the Heat-troller rheostat. I also run a Zumo 550 GPS, but that uses very little power. Since I use the Gerbing jacket liner fairly regularly (even in the summer if traveling into the mountains) I am reluctant to add the dual headlight mod.

 

[Motogiro]

Also consider researching to find out what head room you should have.

Keep in mind that if you have a rating of say 400 watts output on a device that may not mean that you should be drawing 100% duty cycle on that device. That rating may be the devices maximum rating. Give it some room.

Max Headroom..

 

[SirIsaac]

I am reluctant to add the dual headlight mod.

Wisely so. If you did the mod, you would amost certainly be in battery discharge mode with your heated liner on. I don't know how you wired in your heater, but it would probably not be too difficult to wire in a switch such that in one position it would enable the headlight mod, and in the other position it would turn the second low-beam off and provide power to your jacket. Just a thought.

 

[dean owens]

hmmmm, doesn't seem to be a whole lot of extra power on these bikes. not that i'm going to do it.... but.... does this all come from the stator? if so, is it possible to put in a "larger" stator? i'm not saying that i would... just wondering if this is something that can be done.

well, i guess i'll see how cold i get when it starts getting cold. right now i'll leave my dual headlights alone. i don't do much night time driving so right now having the dim on isn't any worse than running with my brights on.

is there some place to find out exactly how much juice these systems have? i'm wondering where people are getting their numbers from.

 

[dako81]

hmmmm, doesn't seem to be a whole lot of extra power on these bikes. not that i'm going to do it.... but.... does this all come from the stator? if so, is it possible to put in a "larger" stator? i'm not saying that i would... just wondering if this is something that can be done.

well, i guess i'll see how cold i get when it starts getting cold. right now i'll leave my dual headlights alone. i don't do much night time driving so right now having the dim on isn't any worse than running with my brights on.

is there some place to find out exactly how much juice these systems have? i'm wondering where people are getting their numbers from.

There is a post around here somewhere that someone stated the max output. Try doing a search for stator and words like that.

Also, there's a member with a thread on here about installing HID's that don't require cutting the headlight housings. He claimed something like 45-50 watts you could free up for other gear, maybe more if I remember correctly. That could possibly help.

 

[dean owens]

hmmmm, i'll have to search for that. i assumed those lights used more power since they're brighter.

thanks for that info. do appreciate it.

 

[dako81]

hmmmm, i'll have to search for that. i assumed those lights used more power since they're brighter.

thanks for that info. do appreciate it.

They initially use more power to ignite, but use much much less after that. And the extra power to ignite is taken care of by the ballasts you have to buy to make them work. They are much more efficient than an incandescent bulb.

 

[Fz6Sa]

400Watts for total power is a good guess, :thumbup:

Might be so,- but there is no need for guessing!

According to our manual, the FZ6 outputs 310Watts@5000RPM.

So that makes it even tighter!

 

[steveindenmark]

On the FZ6 the extra power output is really useless. On my Intruder I could boil water, charge batteries and listen to books on my GPS all while stationary and it never went flat.

This is the worst thing about the FZ6.

Steve