Powerlet wiring?

[Scarecrow]

The wires pulled loose on my battery tender. I was able to open up the powerlet plug easily and reattached the wires. And then I realized, oops, I have no idea of which wire to attach to which post. I'm assuming the connector end has some standard which has the positive either on the exposed metal, or the one that's 'buried'.

Which way do I need to wire it? Does the wire from the bare end go to the middle of the powerlet plug, or to the rim?

TIA,

[Firefight911]

Green arrow to red tip. This is the positive side.

 

Beauty of the Battery Tender is that it is reverse polarity protected, if you were to really oops it up.

 

Hope that helps ya out!

[Scarecrow]

Excellent! Thank you Phil.

 

Do you mean the Battery Tender will even protect against disaster if I wired it wrong? Nice, but I like knowing the way it should be wired. Thanks again,

[Firefight911]

Yes, it will but as you said why push your luck.

[hopz]

Beauty of the Battery Tender is that it is reverse polarity protected, if you were to really oops it up.

 

Not on a Triumph ... DAMHIK...

 

Wired my battery tender with just such SAE plugs on it to my 955i, PING... there goes the fuse.

 

Got to testing and following wires... what I found on mine is that each SAE junction caused the + to switch from one wire (and pin) to another.

 

Long story made much shorter is that all the previous posts are correct if there are no intermediate SAE plugs or junctions in your wiring stream. Test before wiring.

 

Basically I rewired my plugs to come out correctly and now I can use the battery tender on either bike- and I do.

[T__]

 

Scarecrow, I have a battery tender running on my battery bench right now so went down & measured the polarity,, I show a different polarity than mentioned in the post above..

 

The polarity coming from my battery tender is per this picture..

 

No big deal if you hook it up wrong as it just won’t charge (won’t have the correct charge lights on the tender).. If you get that just reverse the wiring & try again.. It won’t hurt the charger or blow any fuses..

 

Twisty

 

 

 

Twisty

[Firefight911]

Interesting Twisty. That puts your + lead exposed whereas that one is typically "protected" by the surrounding sheath to prevent arcing/shorting in case it touches something that would send it straight to ground.

[T__]

Interesting Twisty. That puts your + lead exposed whereas that one is typically "protected" by the surrounding sheath to prevent arcing/shorting in case it touches something that would send it straight to ground.

 

1bmwfan, but on the other hand it protects the one coming from the charger..

 

I would imagine the polarity of the connectors supplied by the charger company would take precedence over anything coming from the vehicle as not all vehicle applications are the same & the charger company would probably be concerned about their end & properly protecting their own equipment than the bike (or other vehicle) side..

 

 

Twisty

 

[Firefight911]

That's a good point.

 

I have always viewed my circuits with a "flow" from the energy source with any "protections" in place relative to that.

[T__]

Phil, actually after reading what I wrote above, what I wrote is probably not correct.. The pig tail from the bikes battery would have the B+ protected terminal (in my picture)..

 

I have a number of older fused & non fused pig tails that hook directly to the battery that have the SAE connectors on them & all are wired to have the non-ground (B+) terminal covered..

 

With that being said it looks like maybe Deltron just wired their stuff to work with older existing pigtails from early heated gear & older battery chargers..

 

I suppose the original idea was to have the in place (B+) terminal covered as that pig tail remained on the bike & could be shorted to ground if the (B+) terminal was exposed.. (just a guess on my part)

 

 

Twisty

 

[Michaelr11]

The SAE lead coming from the bike's battery or from a powerlet lead should be wired so the exposed SAE terminal is the Negative and the protected terminal is Positive.

 

This is also how Deltran wires the SAE lead that they provide with the BT. Deltran also says that you should connect the BT to the battery before you plug it in. I believe that the BT will not go into charging mode if it is not connected to the battery.

 

Michael

[T__]

The SAE lead coming from the bike's battery or from a powerlet lead should be wired so the exposed SAE terminal is the Negative and the protected terminal is Positive.~clip

 

 

Michael, that is what my picture above shows & would be correct..

 

 

Twisty

 

[Scarecrow]

Scarecrow, I have a battery tender running on my battery bench right now so went down & measured the polarity,, I show a different polarity than mentioned in the post above..

 

The polarity coming from my battery tender is per this picture..

 

No big deal if you hook it up wrong as it just won’t charge (won’t have the correct charge lights on the tender).. If you get that just reverse the wiring & try again.. It won’t hurt the charger or blow any fuses..

 

Twisty

 

 

 

Twisty

 

YES! I just found this out. I wired it the other way around this morning, plugged it all together and the battery tender lights blinked red-green-red-green... I reversed the wires (they now follow your diagram) so the exposed pin is in circuit with the outside brass ring and the protected pin goes to the center plug. Plugged everything back in (and I always connect first, then plug to power) and it's back to normal.

 

Thanks for all the comments...

 

[Firefight911]

Glad it worked out. Sorry I had it assbackwards.

[Scarecrow]

Not a problem. For once I found something I could easily work on! It doesn't happen often for me.

[hopz]

All of that (above)is X-actly why it took me several hours to figure out and rewire the Battery Tender to be compatible with both the R12 and the Triumph- (which also has a Powerlet socket)

 

I think all who employ SAE plugs should stop and think before setting up a "system"

 

For instance... I wanted a 'Direct to battery" Powerlet Socket in the spot under the passenger seat. BUT, I also wanted the line from the Powerlet to the Battery to have a junction of SAE plugs so I could power the traveling Air Compressor from the plug if needed (which I did need in Torrey year before last).

 

To further complicate the matter- my Battery Tender cord already had an SAE plug on it to match into an SAE plug on my Harley- back in those days. So, the issue is that every time you pass ""juice" through an SAE plug it goes from one side to the other.

 

Positive may be on the enclosed side coming out of the charger, then to the exposed side, back to the enclosed etc... back and forth.

 

The advice is... you cannot just assume that Positive is on one side or another... you have to draw it out... think it out and then measure it out.

[T__]

All of that (above)is X-actly why it took me several hours to figure out and rewire the Battery Tender to be compatible with both the R12 and the Triumph- (which also has a Powerlet socket)

 

I think all who employ SAE plugs should stop and think before setting up a "system"

 

For instance... I wanted a 'Direct to battery" Powerlet Socket in the spot under the passenger seat. BUT, I also wanted the line from the Powerlet to the Battery to have a junction of SAE plugs so I could power the traveling Air Compressor from the plug if needed (which I did need in Torrey year before last).

 

To further complicate the matter- my Battery Tender cord already had an SAE plug on it to match into an SAE plug on my Harley- back in those days. So, the issue is that every time you pass ""juice" through an SAE plug it goes from one side to the other.

 

Positive may be on the enclosed side coming out of the charger, then to the exposed side, back to the enclosed etc... back and forth.

 

The advice is... you cannot just assume that Positive is on one side or another... you have to draw it out... think it out and then measure it out.

 

hopz, I guess I don’t understand this unless someone makes up a strange harness themselves or changes a factory one..

 

The B+ is always in the same place if the pig tail is set up correctly coming out of the battery.. Any factory harness should have the exposed (male) pin on one end connected to the covered (female) on the other so any direction or way the harness is installed it should pin out correctly..

 

 

Twisty

 

[hopz]

"hopz, I guess I don’t understand this unless someone makes up a strange harness themselves or changes a factory one.. "

 

That's the rub. People wire things all the time and if you buy a pre-owned bike you never know.

 

All I am saying is that none of us should take it for granted that B+ is one side of the SAE plug or not.

 

B+ going into an SAE plug ought to come out on the covered female side of an SAE plug, but that goes into a matching plug and the B+ is now on the other side... that may cause confusion.

[T__]

 

Hopz, it shouldn’t be confusing as the (+) covered (female) terminal is ALWAYS on the battery side all the way through to the load or battery charger.. If it changes polarity somewhere along the line someone made a mistake in their wiring..

 

 

Twisty

[hopz]

Aye, matey, there's the rub.

 

If some fool went down to the NAPA auto supply store and picked up a couple of blister packs of SAE plugs what they would have is the plug with a pigtail about 8 inches long with bare wires hanging out.

 

what they do with those bare wires is the rub.

 

Again my message is (only) do not assume you have B+ on one side or another... test and trace.

[Peter Parts]

The problem is: it is an inherent problem. You can't swing both ways because sourcing and powering (the drains such as Gerbing's versus the charging such as BTs) will be opposed.

 

But you must always ensure that the B+ is not poking out of an exposed pin - ever.

 

OK, maybe you prefer living on the edge in which case you don't have to - just be sure you can mark stuff clearly. And don't let your Gerbing's coax chassis-side-shield contacts touch the chassis.

 

The solution is that you have to make a "gender bender" as Twisty1 suggests (but there is much to be said for giving things their proper identifying name). Remember, a gender bender is the "opposite" of an extension cord.

 

This was familiar practice in Ancient Modem times when for the very same reason, sometimes you had devices coming and sometime going to your computer and so had to be handy with gender bender connections.

 

I can't off-hand think of a readily at-hand polarity tester or polarity sensitive appliance around my bike (aside from multi-function testers or diode-gizmos, of course). I guess just hitching a pig-tail bulb to a known reference would be OK. Anybody?

[johnlt]

What Peter Parts says. You can't have it both ways when "both ends are a power source". One end is the battery and the other is the charger. Pick one and protect it and make precautions for the other.