That same day, my own heated grips on my 2011 URAL Patrol Sidecar Rig, Valencia, kept having the inline fuse blow due to a short in the cabling! Karma? Regardless, that night at home I found where the wiring had developed a bare spot in the insulation and that was that.
Today, while riding to work on my 2006 Suzuki V-Strom/Dauntless Sidecar Rig, the left hand grip was not generating any heat that I could feel. The heater control had power so I knew it wasn't that perhaps. I did notice the thing would not hold a heat setting, though the power LED remain lit the whole time. That points to insufficient power according to the manufacturer's website. I'm hoping perhaps a loose connection on the wires leading to the left grip, as the right grip remained pretty toasty.
Still, things got unpleasantly cold for my left hand's finger tips. Now, with two failures in as many months, I think perhaps the motorcycling gods are trying to tell me something. I just ordered from Aerostich some inexpensive heated grip wraps:
These "temporary" grips will be my redundant heated grip option if/when my primary heated grips fail on any of my three motorcycles. All three motorcycles have the SAE electrical connector pigtail wired directly to the battery for charging, so hooking it up should be easy enough. These will travel in my "gloves bag" which gets transferred from motorcycle to motorcycle.
I picked these not only because its easy to move them between motorcycles, but a fellow Uralista uses them and he seems quite satisfied with them. It's on/off in terms of heat but for a backup heated grip source, they'll do just fine I think.
9 comments:
Dom:
I too like redundancy, spares and duplicates. It's like having an umbrella. They probably won't be needed now, at least, that's the thought
For additional redundancy, you should buy a few packs of those disposable hand warmers, or better yet, those ones that can be "recharged" in boiling water
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
My grip heaters are inside the bars and they take a lot longer before they provide much heat but once they do, they're almost too hot. I believe that they only have one setting, on or off. Even today when it was below 0°F, I had to turn them off as they seemed to get uncomfortably warm.
Those look like a good temporary solution. Is there more than one setting?
Bob those hand warmer things only keep one's palms warm.....I hadn't heard of the ones you recharge with water though, thanks!
Richard, they're just simple on/off....nothing fancy. In fact, am toying with idea to replace controller with simple on/off/on switch if that works for low and high heat.
Dom:
they are something like this
http://www.hotsnapz.com/index.html?gclid=CI2R75X3qbsCFcuSfgod6FsAbA
you can also get them from REI
http://www.hotsnapz.com/index.html?gclid=CI2R75X3qbsCFcuSfgod6FsAbA
Thanks for the links Bobskoot
Update:
It may not have been the heated grip controller after all. Some more diagnostics revealed a weak battery on Yoshie (go figure, she's sat for months without being run or on a battery tender) and a recent addition of a 55W H3 Bulb on the sidecar may have overloaded the electrical system somewhat. The controller is designed to shut itself down when it senses 11.5 volts or less coming in.....I disabled the 55W light on the sidecar for now, topped off the battery overnight and the grips were just fine during this morning's commute. Now to replace the 55W light with a 35W light and try again.
I have the cheap $40 heated grip wraps on Max with the stock grips and Brad says they get hotter than his Oxford heated grips on Lucy. I have high,low, and off on a toggle switch.
Always good to have a back up plan.
Trobairitz, Thanks for the feedback re the cheap grips on Max.....good to hear that.
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