General Wiring Question - Directly From Batt

[The Crimson Knight]

I believe this to be a generic electrical question, though this will be applied to 1st gen Venture...

 

want to add a 12v accessory plug, directly wired from the battery through an on/off switch.

 

(1) Should negative be grounded to the bike or should it be run back to the negative batt terminal on the battery? (i'm sure both would work, but what is best?)

(2) As far as switches go, how do I make sure and get one that can handle the load. I'm sure they are rated and I know it's 12v but I think amps is what I should be looking for?

 

Ya, electrical stuff, even the simple, has always eluded me. I would rather look ignorant and ask than look stupid after I fry something

[flb_78]

You might get a slightly better connection at the battery, but any ground will be fine. I would not run more then a 15 amp switch. You should also have a fuse as close to the battery as possible. That way if the wire comes into contact with ground, it'll pop the fuse. You want it as close to the battery as possible so that no wire between the fuse and the battery can ground out and become a heating element.

[BradT]

The cheap switches may not say how many watts or the amp rating of the swtich so be careful. I would run the ground to a part on the bike as I hate having too much connected to the battery.

 

Make sure you know how much power the device will draw.

 

Amperage = Watts divided by Voltage eg. Lights are rated in wattage. So 55 watt bulb divided by 12 volts = 4.58 amps

 

Or Volts times the amperage = watts

 

Also you can run an relay on the cheap switch and not worry about the rating of the switch. If the switch is energized the this power goes to the relay which will close the contact and allow the higher current (eg lights) to pass through the relay with the electrical power bypassing the switch all together. (Hopefully this makes a little sense)

 

Brad

[The Crimson Knight]

Yes, that all makes perfect sense to me. I will use a fuse. I like the idea of a relay, and understand how it works... However, I'm sure there is more than one kind of relay and I'm sure they have their capacites. How do I know what to look for for that type of application?

[GigaWhiskey]

I guess this means yer riding a 1st gen. CONGRATS

[The Crimson Knight]

I guess this means yer riding a 1st gen. CONGRATS

 

Ahh.. no, not yet... I'm going out with MasterGuns tomorrow for both of us to ride test and he can give me the low-down on the way back. If it looks good then Tuesday I'm going to get off work early, get a ride from the wife, pickup my 89 Honda Hawk from service shop and sacrifice it to get the Venture...

 

I have a ride planned this coming weekend for our 2nd anniversary (posted question about Ft. Davis, actually). Supposed to leave this friday afternoon. No way I can spend 7 hrs without tunes, or my GPS... So I'm getting a list of 'critical' upgrades i need to do in that 48 hour period... Music and navigation being the big ones. It's gonna be tight...

 

Needless to say, hope I do get it or I'm gonna have some big problems on my hand!

[Dano]

Go to Autozone and ask for a 30amp 12volt relay and some connectors. Make sure you get a couple of ring terminals to fit the screws/bolts you're gonna put the ground and hot under. Need a pair of wire strippers and crimpers. Quite easy to do.

 

Good luck,

 

Dan

[The Crimson Knight]

Go to Autozone and ask for a 30amp 12volt relay and some connectors. Make sure you get a couple of ring terminals to fit the screws/bolts you're gonna put the ground and hot under. Need a pair of wire strippers and crimpers. Quite easy to do.

 

Good luck,

 

Dan

 

Will do. Thanks.

[KiteSquid]

IMHO the best place to connect to the electrical system is NOT at the batter, but at the point where the alternator connects to the charging system. this is normally where the battery's red and black cables connect to the bike.

 

It is usually a better electrical connection and it makes replacing the battery easy as there are less wires connected to it.

 

Less chance of a corroded connection from battery acid fumes too.... not much of an issue with the sealed battery we have, but it is a good practice to have.

[The Crimson Knight]

IMHO the best place to connect to the electrical system is NOT at the batter, but at the point where the alternator connects to the charging system. this is normally where the battery's red and black cables connect to the bike.

 

It is usually a better electrical connection and it makes replacing the battery easy as there are less wires connected to it.

 

Less chance of a corroded connection from battery acid fumes too.... not much of an issue with the sealed battery we have, but it is a good practice to have.

 

Makes sense! Will this only provide power if the engine is running?

[V7Goose]

You do not ask about the two most important things!

 

You must know in advance how much load you intend to put on this circuit, then select the correct size wire and fuse to protect it. The fuse is there to protect the WIRES, not the load (or whatever you are plugging in). There is nothing wrong with having wires too BIG, but they must not be too small. This is why you NEVER NEVER put a larger fuse into an existing circuit just to keep it from blowing - your wires will burn up instead.

 

General guideline - for a 20A circuit, you will need at least 14AWG wire, and 12AWG would be better (depending on the length of wire). For a 15A circuit, don't go smaller than 16AWG.

 

For a much more detailed discussion look at post #19 in this thread:

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19698&highlight=wire+size&page=2

 

Goose

[KiteSquid]

Makes sense! Will this only provide power if the engine is running?

 

 

No, hot all the time because it is coming from the battery also.

 

If you want switched hot, then you need to look at the wiring diagram in the service manual. it is the last two pages and is download-able for free in the VR Tech link on the left side of every page here at THE forum.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

OK.

 

First, the knight said he wanted to run GPS and tunes...maybe thats an mp3 player, or CD player, whichever, but no relay is needed for a light load such as these small consumer electronics. Also, since we are talking about small, sensitive, electronics, it is best to wire both the positive and negative wires to the battery posts. You can buy small wiring blocks or fuse panels if you dont want to install multiple terminals under the battery posts.

 

I wont grumble much if you hook up the ground to the bikes frame, but NOPE..dont hook up that positive lead to the output of the alternator/stator. Reason being, there are a few more millivolts of ripple (and possibly induced AC if a regulator/rectifier fails) at that end....sure its connected to the battery positive, but with ANY miniscule voltage drop across that cable, and there IS a drop on it during charging, you have a chance for voltage transients, not to mention alternator whine in audio devices. The battery also provides some 'filtering', some regulation during instantaneous voltage transients on the bike. When it comes to electronics, the source of the purest DC is right at the battery.

 

So...I have to respectfully disagree with you guys on this. If the knight was asking about hooking up a heated vest, or driving lights, or a mini air compressor, all of which draw several amps and are not sensitive electronics, then I would say sure, put in a relay, or hook it up to the bike end of the battery cable.

 

Now...Im not saying a relay inline will HURT anything (assuming you put in the parallel diode, for supressing inductive 'kickback') , but if the intended use is GPS and tunes, then they will most likely draw less than 1 or 2 amps total, hardly enough to worry about a relay, and not enough current to keep the relay contacts clean, anyway. Most relays need curent thru the contacts to help clean them, and noisy, dirty relays are the result of lightly loaded (or overloaded) contacts.

 

For this light duty use, any 5-10 amp toggle switch should be fine, along with a matching fuse....I'd recommend a 5 amp fast-blo fuse if the GPS and the tunes player is all that will be hooked up.

 

My 2 cents...and some years of electronics experience.

 

 

 

 

 

[KiteSquid]

If you go with the above, you might want to ground to the same place the stereo grounds at, as you MIGHT get a ground loop if you don't.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

If you go with the above, you might want to ground to the same place the stereo grounds at, as you MIGHT get a ground loop if you don't.

 

There are a few products on the market to eliminate 'ground loops'...but the easy way to bypass them entirely is to use a cassette adapter on the Venture. Feed the mp3 or XM audio to the adapter, plug it in, and like magic, NO ground loops, and better sounding, louder audio too!

 

On the Venture, it seems the direct method of plugging into the audio port provided less volume, at least on my bike.

 

Of course, with the adpater, you lose the ability to play tapes easily, (SO?) and you also end up with an unsightly wire running up into the little cassette door. Oh well...cant have it all I guess!

 

 

[Dano]

DO NOT connect anything directly to the output of the stator. It is 15 volt 3 phase AC!!!!!! Follow Tx2Sturgis' advice on connecting to the battery. It provides "ride-thru" voltage and current to your devices when at idle up to 1500-2000 prm. The stator and regulator/rectifier only provide enuff when above these rpms. The battery also acts like a "sponge" to smooth out any peaks and valleys associated with switching devices on and off.

 

Hopefully we can "cornfuse" you even more!!!!!!

 

Dan

[Guest tx2sturgis]

DO NOT connect anything directly to the output of the stator. It is 15 volt 3 phase AC!!!!!!

 

Dan

 

I dont think KS was talking about hooking up to the stator output directly, but rather to attach to the 'bike' end of the battery cable, as he stated:

 

"this is normally where the battery's red and black cables connect to the bike."

 

Still...the voltage and current there is not as clean as it is at the battery terminals, as per my earlier post.

 

 

 

 

 

[Dano]

I dont think KS was talking about hooking up to the stator output directly, but rather to attach to the 'bike' end of the battery cable, as he stated:

 

"this is normally where the battery's red and black cables connect to the bike."

 

Still...the voltage and current there is not as clean as it is at the battery terminals, as per my earlier post.

 

I know, I was just making sure everybody understood the output voltage from the stator. It's definately not like an alternator on a car where it's all self-contained and you can get 12v off the back.

Thanks for the reply, tho. Forgot to mention my clarification on the post.

 

Dan

[JimRoberts]

I think I need to rewire the circuit I have in my trunk for the coffee pot and microwave.

[Dano]

I think I need to rewire the circuit I have in my trunk for the coffee pot and microwave.

 

Like your license plate!