Igo
Guest
This is a good thing. Mine get the fix Saturday morning.
I hope to come in from underneath and only have an SAE extension end living full time in the pocket. Your advice make me caution that I leave enough slop under the box to be able to pull the box without it hanging up on the cable like a fish on a line.Word of advice: if you put them in the pocket, mount them down low or they'll interfere with getting the pocket in and out.
Good advice sir.Word of advice if you are mounting the Powerlet in a front pocket - mount it at least one inch off the bottom on the front side of the pocket. I mounted the Honda power jack in the right pocket, glad I put it and inch and a half up. After ridding 2 hours in a really heavy rain on a trip last summer, I had water in the bottom of both pockets. More than the drain hole could keep up with (hole may have even been the source), there was a couple of drops in both of the side Panniers as well. My tool bag under the seat on the lock area was soaked. The tool bag is now in a water proof bag.
I restore antique radios and use De Oxit regularly. On aluminum connectors, sometimes that is all it takes to revive and 70 year old radio.But if it's just surface water, a few drops, and there are drain holes, water will find its way out again.
On the V-Strom I installed a complete exposed bus-bar type thing for power, velcroed to the inside of the fairing where I could see it from the rider's seat. I had a fuse upstream between it and the battery, and smaller fuses downstream between it and my devices. I never blew a fuse on either side, and the devices attached to it never gave me a lick of trouble. All the care I took was to make sure there was no place for the water to pool, that it couldn't touch anything that would be a short, and I sprayed it with De-Oxit every time I had it out, to keep it from corroding. After five years it was still good as new. I suspect it would corrode over ten or twenty years if not maintained, but with maintenance it was fine.
And look at the wiring harness in a stock bike. Water can get into most of the connectors. But the problem isn't the water - it's the corrosion.