Winter arrives rather suddenly

I ran full heated gear on my previous Honda and never drained the battery, its alternator only had maybe 50 watts more available than the NT does.

It's kind of annoying, but it involves some basic math and common sense usage of the gear.

The NT's alternator produces 438 Watts at 5K RPM. This is at or below highway cruising speed where you'd feel the need to turn up the heated gear, so I feel safe using that as the number for the total available power.

An * denotes estimated, everything else is values straight from the NT manual.

55w low beam
55w high beam
21/5w Brake - Tail Light (x2)
21w turn signal front (x2)
21w turn signal rear (x2)
5w position light (you could pull this and save 5w)
5w plate light
60w fuel pump*
50w ignition*
60w rad fan*
25w ECU*
3w instruments*
45w horn*

Intermittent loads like the horn, turn signals, brake lights, and even the radiator fan as it probably isn't coming on in those temps, you can leave out of the calculations.

So that leaves the NT riding the highway with low beam on using about 213 watts. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the front turn signals when in their dim mode, but I doubt they're drawing 42w. (low beam + 10w combined tail + position light + plate light + ignition + ECU + gauges + fuel pump)

Turn on the highbeam for night riding you're now at 268 watts.

438w available - 268w used = 170 watts left over if you're running High Beam
438w available - 213w used = 225 watts left over if you're running Low Beam

If I add up all my heated gear (pants, jacket, insoles, gloves) that comes out to about 150W on highest setting. I typically don't run everything on highest setting, so the actual draw for the gear could be 3/4 or even 1/2 that 150W rating.

Now the common sense stuff. If I'm hooking up some heated gloves, I'd leave the grips turned off. I'm not going to be idling at a stoplight with my high beam, aux lights, and gear set to full blast as alternator output drops with RPM. I've got a cheap Voltmeter fitted, so if I exceed stator output and start draining off the battery I should see it.


Feel free to chime in if my math looks off. Does anyone know the exact Wattage of the honda line grips? I'm assuming it's anywhere from 20 - 50 W. I see a bunch others at 48w, guessing it's the same that would be around 175 watts with pants, jacket, insoles set to high . From my experience, heated gloves are more effective. So even more reason to save 25ish watts and leave the grips off.
 
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ASK said:
i saw some jackets with their own removable rechargeable battery for heating, good enough for 4-8 hours of heat...

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Click to expand...

I think you'd be just fine plugging to the bike, just be smart about it. I did a ride recently in the low 30's, cruising backroads maybe at 4K RPM. I had the jacket around 50 - 75% and the grip heaters near max. High beam used as normal. Was out for an hour or so, and no indication I was draining off the battery. To be a bit more specific, Low on the pants/insole combo was what I settled on. Those two items are rated for around 55W at 100%. My gear, and I imagine most on the market, use PWM as means to control temperature setting. There's three settings on this particular pants controller, so figure "Low" is a 33% duty cycle.

If there's still concern, there's plenty you can do to give yourself more breathing room. Reduce wind with deflectors and high windshield. You could gain 5W by removing the position light. Although I'm not a fan of doing this from a light control aspect, you can free up 40 - 60W by swapping the headlight halogens for LED drop-ins. That's a huge gain, enough to run a garment or two. Fit a voltmeter to keep an eye on the charging system. The better insulating your outer layers are, the less you'd need the electric heat. If your riding suit makes you look like Randy from "A Christmas Story", you probably don't need the electric gear set to high.
 
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Your math looks good to me. The Honda grip heater control works as a voltmeter of sorts. When you're in a low-voltage situation, the indicator lights blink. I need to get a voltmeter wired back in to be able to track voltage accurately.

I've run with the heated jacket on full and the grips on 4/5 without any issues while running high beams and driving lights.
 
We received 4-5" of snow last night and flurries are supposed to continue this morning but they won't add much to the total. The daytime high will only reach into the low-20s so not much of it will melt.

ps. I have voltmeters on my two current bikes and also my PC800 that I sold in 2009. It's the only way to know what's going ON as you ride.
 
Road home in the rain last night. It was 55. This morning it's 20 and the cars in the parking lot have a covering of snow. Very unusual for Nashville especially this time of year.
 
Okay Officially Winter sucks for much of the northern states. Especially when it arrives so early. I saw many vehicles in various locations off the road yesterday, first real snow in Michigan. High temperatures are late January, dogs that would play outdoors are day, are in and out (when you have over 40, it takes time).
Lets hope for an early spring.
 
Our weather took quite a turnaround also. Sunday the high was 65 deg. Yesterday it rained (no snow right here) as the cold front pushed in and the temps dropped. This morning it was in the teens. This is more like our mid January weather.
We still have leaves on the trees. As the front came in the wind picked up a bunch and it started raining leaves. I looked up in the air and leaves were just swirling around the sky. I was hoping the wind would blow them out of my yard but that didn't work out so well.

Brad
 
I believe in Climate Change. Go many museums and you find that there was the ice age. Glaciers formed the area we live in, Dinosaurs roamed the area. Can climate change be stopped by man, surely not. Do we need to stop Pollution, yes of course we need to do all we can to stop it. I tell snowflakes, I'll stop using my cars, truck, motorcycle and tractor if you can explain how they caused the ice age. People confuse climate change with weather, they are not the same.
 
The fact the climate changes isn't the issue at hand. Yes glaciers formed and receded, over the course of thousands of years and hundreds of generations of people. But the average global temp has seen a drastic uptick since the industrial revolution.

The rate of change is caused by our output of green house gasses. Cargo ships, cattle, autos, industry etc. Humans most certainly can curtail the rate of change. We're in a rush to turn this place into Venus. That's what the scientific community at large is concerned about.
 
NewTo700V said:
The fact the climate changes isn't the issue at hand. Yes glaciers formed and receded, over the course of thousands of years and hundreds of generations of people. But the average global temp has seen a drastic uptick since the industrial revolution.

The rate of change is caused by our output of green house gasses. Cargo ships, cattle, autos, industry etc. Humans most certainly can curtail the rate of change. We're in a rush to turn this place into Venus. That's what the scientific community at large is concerned about.
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The global temp has been found to have been much higher several times in our planets history. At that time there was no industrial revolution to cause this. What then caused this? I don't think we can speak with certitude than mankind is the culprit. I'm a climate skeptic. I have seen too many times in the past where hysteria by (insert the name of the group) has been proven wrong. In fact, I recall the cover of Newsweek magazine in 1979 where scientists said we were entering a new ice age. Still waiting.....

Mike
 
Again, the fact the planet was different temps in the past isn't the issue. Those changes took a long time to play out. The issue is the global average temp has seen an exponential rise with the modern age. I don't believe in coincidence.
 
I'm in agreement with NewTo700V. Looking at what's happening near the Poles, ice-melting off Greenland and changes like that point to climate change. Climate change also changes weather. Evidence from ice-cores taken in the Artic and Antarctica seem to point to extremely rapid climate change related to greenhouse gasses.
 
Back to riding the NT in colder temps. The last two morning commutes were around 20. I was perfectly comfy with pants-insoles set to low, jacket liner at medium-high, and 22W glove liners. My insulated outer layer is just the cheap inserts my textile gear came with. There's been no sign of battery drain. My final recommendation is don't hesitate to run heated gear with the NT if you're smart about it.
 
This is ancient history and perhaps common knowledge but I'll throw in my 2-cents.

I had my '97 PC800 for 12 years and it had a much weaker changing system then the NT700V. Going down the road, it showed around 12.5 v max where the NT shows 14+v. Wearing my elec vest & gloves on the PC800, its battery state of charge was OK while I was riding faster than 35-40 mph but when I got into a town situation, with stoplights, stop signs, etc., The battery voltage dropped to 12.0 v or less so I learned to turn OFF the electrics entering a town and turned it back ON once back on clear roads. And my use of brake lights & turns signals at the same time was noticeable on my voltmeter!

The NT doesn't suffer anything similar but its output voltage at idle or low speeds still drops so you might want to switch OFF stuff when entering a slow speed riding situation.
 
DirtFlier said:
Tonight is Halloween and Old Man Winter decided to make a surprise appearance. It's in the low 30s @ 7 PM with strong winds and large snow flakes are falling. Indy is due west of here by 2-hrs and it's already covered with the white stuff. Overnight lows will dip into the 20s so I brought some firewood inside to have a nice fire with my morning coffee.
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This was the Halloween Snow of '91 here in Minneapolis. You can see the guy on a motorcycle making his way up the hill in this photo.
 

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Lee, this is just my opinion, but I think I'd pick the NT over the PC800. Back in 2000, I rode with three other people from Brian Head, UT, to Mountain Home, AR, during the Concours Owners Group Rolling Rally. Three of us were on C10 Kawasaki Concours and the fourth one was on a Pacific Coast. The Concours were faster and probably better handling, but the woman on the PC kept up, at least partly because none of us were trying to set any speed records. The PC had one major shortcoming: range. 150 miles was her effective limit. From Las Vegas to Texas, that range made it important for her to stop sometimes at 120-130 miles. Our Connies could easily do 250-260 miles and sometimes, she'd fill up twice to our once. The NT gets 200-230 miles fairly reliably. That extra 50-80 miles over the Pacific Coast is significant, especially if you're riding in the American West.
 
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