Heated vest and headlight mod??

[zixxerboy]

I posted this in Technical but it likely belongs here.

Anybody running an electric vest with the BD43 headlight mod?

Sounds like you end up about 25watts short of having enough juice to run these both at the same time.

Just added the second low beam and now I fear I need to add a switch in the line to turn it off when I want to plug in my vest.

Anyone actually had experience with these two running at once?

 

[(none)]

I mentioned this in a post a few weeks ago, short answer is it isn't advised. I have a Tourmaster heated jacket, it's 150w on high, most vests are a bit lower. But i am also running 35w HIDs (so i save 20w with just one light, 50w with both on). With one headlight on and while moving, the system can keep up pretty easily even with the vest on high. Both lights on (especially if you are still running halogen lights) and hte vest will really tax the system. Either way, at idle it can't keep up but above 3k rpms or so you are ok using only one or the other.
If you really want to do the dual headlight mod, i'd suggest doing what i did, install a switch to you can turn the other low beam on or off on demand and just have it on when not using the vest.

 

[Dennis in NH]

Pretty much what he said. HID to save 20 watts and dual headlight switched to off during Winter.

I'll add that if you wear a back protector over the heated vest, it will press the heated jacket onto your back and make heat transfer more efficient -- meaning you can run it lower and use less power. That's what I do -- also have a jacket liner on top of that and then the rest of the jacket and I stay warm.

Dennis

 

[VEGASRIDER]

I just have the regular headlight mod, nothing fancy. But I always have been running them plus my heated Tourmaster Vest, always on high, never had an issue with the battery.

I'll be running a GPS for the first time for my trip up north tommorow night, I hope the GPS won't have any effect on drawing too much juice. But I'll also be running at 7000-8000 RPM for 18hrs so I'm not anticipating any battery drainage.

 

[chimneydoc]

I have. See my reply in the other post. I have been running a Gerbings jacket liner with BD's mod for two years w/o a prob. I also use a battery tender to keep my batt fully charged. I just finished installing a Autocom to use with my GPS, radar detector, and sat radio. I use these when I'm on the freeway so my rpm's are above 6k. If you are using the heated vest it would draw less power then a jacket liner. Doc