New or Used...and Some Questions

[Phil Tarman]

I did what Tim did and used a Fuzeblock to power my GPS. And my Denali D1 driving lights. I had the dealer install Honda's heated handgrips and the mechanic hooked a power lead from the harness for the handgrips to the powerlet outlet on the Motorcycle Larry clamp that I got with his risers.

 

[Phil Tarman]

One of the good things about the Fuzeblock is that you can have switched and unswitched circuits. I've got my GPS on an unswitched circuit because I want it to track stopped time during a daily ride and because it lets me do routing without running the engine. My Denalis are on a switched circuit because I don't want to forget about them and let them drain the battery.

 

[charlie b]

A cheaper alternative to the Fuzeblock is to go to autozone and get two of their smaller fuse blocks (4 fuses positions each). Wire one up with a relay as a switched block. The other one direct to battery. Less than $40 total. That was going to be my solution until I realized how few items I needed to power and how low their current.

For all of my 'forward' needs (heated grips, phone/GPS charging), and LED running lights, I just run a line off of the Honda supplied power connection on the left side under the fairing. It has a 10A fuse so is good for those things.

The only need I have for power in the back is charging tablet or such while on the road. I installed a cig lighter receptacle in the left pannier and ran a fused line directly to the battery.

 

[tawilke46]

How are you powering the GPS? Are you using a 12-volt receptacle in the forward fairing somewhere? Or something else?

Chris

I wired mine to the Fuzeblock under the seat. GPS mounted to a ball mount on the handle bar. Wire run to the Fuzeblock is fairly easy. You can pick switched or unswitched, which ever you prefer. Or if it doesn't get too crowded, you can run direct to battery........make sure it is a fused connection. Another option is to connect the GPS to a handle bar cigarette outlet.

Personally I prefer using the Fuzeblock.

 

[RedLdr1]

Chris,

If you just want a 12VDC power point Motorcycle Larry makes a nice handlebar clamp with a Powerlet, RAM ball mount, and a power cord to reach the battery. You can see it Here. You will also need a Powerlet to "Cigarette lighter" or USB adapter.

If you are going to be adding multiple accessories is when a FZ-1, or other fuse block, makes more sense.

 

[elizilla]

You can put a USB power port in one of the pockets, fairly easily. The problem is that there's a pin in a USB port that some devices use to determine what they've been plugged in to, and both Garmin GPS units and Motorola phones don't like these USB ports you can install on your bike. When I feel in the mood for conspiracy theories I speculate that they want to force you to buy their high dollar name-brand mini-USB cords.

For a long time I coped with this by just installing a cig lighter plug instead, and then I could plug in the car chargers that are widely available for these devices. But carrying a bunch of over-long coil cords with cig plugs dangling on them, and installing an oversized cig lighter outlet, on a motorcycle where your space is constrained, always annoyed me. Especially since I want the USB port as well, because I use it to charge my e-reader and my MP3 players. Well, I eventually found an adaptor at powerlet.com, that is a 4" mini-USB female to mini-USB male with the adaptor stuff in it, so you can put it in the end of a normal mini-USB cable, to make your GPS or your phone take a charge from a bike-mount USB outlet. This allowed me to reduce the size of my bag o' cords by half.

 

[DirtFlier]

["...How are you powering the GPS? Are you using a 12-volt receptacle in the forward fairing somewhere?..."]

Most or all of the Garmin units have their own special plug with a teeny inline fuse and the wire ends are typically bare so I solder connectors to them then connect to my key ON accessory fusebox. The current demands of GPS are too small to justify plugging into my Powerlet which is used for my electric vest & on rare occasions my electric gloves.

 

[CommuterNT]

Chris, you should PM me and we could set up a time to meet. I live really close to you. You can take a look at my bike, a 10 with ABS, knuckle guards, lower fairing, heated grips, top box, Fuze Block, Denali lights, bike viz lights. I'm also short myself 5'5'. Let me know, also are you riding back all in one day on Friday?

Kyle