Wiring

My heated gear arrived back in early January. This consists of a jacket liner, pant liner, glove liners, and socks that have electrical elements in them that I can plug into the bike to stay toasty warm. Considering the temps we can expect in Alaska, Chile, and Argentina, heated gear will be a definite boon.

I'd been thinking about it for quite some time. Heated gear, of course, requires a decent chunk of power, and one downfall of the V-Strom is the weaker generator. With a max output of 350 watts at 5000 RPM, there aren't many watts to spare. To help things out, I swapped my OEM halogen headlights for LED headlights. This took me from 110 (low) to 120 (high) watts for the pair to 50 watts. I picked up a few more spare watts by swapping my OEM brake lights (21/5 watts x2) for LED lights. During my search for headlights, it seemed that most products were aimed at folks who wanted to increase brightness rather than save wattage, but I finally decided upon the Nighteye 8000 lumen LED bulbs. They've done a nice job, were super easy to install, and have cut way back on my wattage.

Here's the ride I did to test the new headlights out right after installing them:

I also stuck a voltage meter on the bike so I could keep track of how well things were running as I added components. As part of the project, I installed a relay -- a first for me -- so that the volt meter would only come on when the bike was on.

And that brings us back to this month, when I'm finally getting around to installing the heated gear. I elected to follow in the footsteps of other ADV riders and install a separate fuse block for the various accessory gear I'll be installing. After some hemming and hawing about loads and fuses, I elected to give it a 30 amp fuse overall and wired it with 10 gauge wire...a bit of overkill, I suppose. I pulled the relay from the volt meter (since it would now run through the fuse block) so that the whole fuse block would be switched. The relay is now tied into a single connector with the taillights and license plate light. Soldered all connections...good practice if nothing else...and got it all buttoned back up last night with the irreplaceable help of Sarah.

Here's a view looking down at the bike (seat off) from the handlebars. Battery toward the bottom of the pic. I'm holding onto the plug that will go to the heated gear, and you can see the new fuse block in the background:

The one accessory still running directly off of the battery is the 12v cigarette lighter-style plug. I'll be installing a new USB outlet that will be switched, but thought it might be useful to leave at least one accessory plug unswitched in case I wanted to charge my phone with the bike off or something.

So, that's all back together. Still a bit more figuring to do for the auxiliary lights, but I think I'm about ready to place an order. Time to get a cold front through KC so I can test out this heated gear!