When is Enough Enough?

[kinchy]

This time of the year I tend to run the Valentine, Piaas, GPS and heated vest. It's not heated grips weather yet but getting there. I keep the battery on a slow charger when it's garaged.

 

Should I be concerned about using all these farkles similtaneously?

Would the Centech Fuse Panel provide additional support for the extra demand?

 

Wayne

[ratfink]

On an RT? You could double the accessories you listed and not outstrip your alternator capacity. The centech will not increase your alternators generating capacity and it will not reduce the inherent electrical demand. Don't worry, be happy your RT has a big automotive style dynamo that will run the power supply for police strobes, police radio and radar, no sweat. The load you have pales in comparison. Don't try this on most other bikes however.

[EffBee]

Valentine is about 6 watts, GPS the same. Piaas are 110W per pair. Heated vest about 45. Looks like about 170w or so. Bike has 700W alternator. Takes about 300 to run a fuel-injected bike, so 470w total to be on the road and everything hooked up. You've got WAY more than enough.

[boatzo]

As Ratfink says, the fuse panel won't increase your supply of trons. However, you can run a nice heavy wire from the battery to the fuse block and install proper wire size from the block to handle the individual loads. MHO

[kinchy]

Once again, thanks everyone

[Survived-til-now]

Valentine is about 6 watts, GPS the same. Piaas are 110W per pair. Heated vest about 45. Looks like about 170w or so. Bike has 700W alternator. Takes about 300 to run a fuel-injected bike, so 470w total to be on the road and everything hooked up. You've got WAY more than enough.

 

Can you break that 300 watt figure down a bit because this seems a bit of a simplification - and the other post referring to Police bikes may need to remember that RTP are often specified with uprated alternators....... I am suspicious that BMW would give that much extra capacity for accessories.

 

Lights 1x 55w, 1x 5w tail, plus dash (say 20w for instruments and illuminated switches - so that's 80 watts already, then there's the injection system (electronic?), the fuel pump, the computer and the abs - are they really only 220 watts?

 

He adds his accessory load that you reckon is 170W, leaving an excess of 230w but then from that he must allow the battery drain in starting to make up, the heated grips, the massive draw on any brake servos/abs, main beam, indicators...............

 

IMHO I would have thought the safer answer to the OP was that he should be okay with that load but to remember that lots of short runs can steadily drain a battery so to make sure he keeps the battery tender on the bike between rides unless they are long ones.....

[EffBee]

Valentine is about 6 watts, GPS the same. Piaas are 110W per pair. Heated vest about 45. Looks like about 170w or so. Bike has 700W alternator. Takes about 300 to run a fuel-injected bike, so 470w total to be on the road and everything hooked up. You've got WAY more than enough.

 

Can you break that 300 watt figure down a bit because this seems a bit of a simplification - and the other post referring to Police bikes may need to remember that RTP are often specified with uprated alternators....... I am suspicious that BMW would give that much extra capacity for accessories.

 

Lights 1x 55w, 1x 5w tail, plus dash (say 20w for instruments and illuminated switches - so that's 80 watts already, then there's the injection system (electronic?), the fuel pump, the computer and the abs - are they really only 220 watts?

 

He adds his accessory load that you reckon is 170W, leaving an excess of 230w but then from that he must allow the battery drain in starting to make up, the heated grips, the massive draw on any brake servos/abs, main beam, indicators...............

 

IMHO I would have thought the safer answer to the OP was that he should be okay with that load but to remember that lots of short runs can steadily drain a battery so to make sure he keeps the battery tender on the bike between rides unless they are long ones.....

 

The 300W figure is basically an industry standard for F/I bikes. Things like turn signals (which are not on all the time), brake lights and ABS are not factored in. Certainly the ABS system is at the ready, but does not come on until needed. Fuel pump (a BMW twin runs, IIRC, at about 46psi or thereabouts) is, of course, on whenever the key is turned on.

 

Have I measured each of these loads? No. But those who have give 300W as a safe approximation. Similarly, Powerlet, on their website, claims about 290W for a F/I bike, so the 300W figure seems congruent with what others in the industry have been claiming for several years.

 

As for the RT-P's, those have 840W alternators.

 

Yes, short runs do drain the battery, as it takes a fair amount of power to crank over those big pistons and get the bike fired up. And the replenishment of that power takes a good half hour or more of the alternator feeding the battery.

[elkroeger]

I would add one further observation: It depends.

 

If your winter trips are relatively short, and it's cold out, and you run all your farkles continuously, eventually it'll catch up to you - mid winter you'll find a dead battery. Your rides need to be long enough to power all that fark and then charge the battery on top of it. How far is that? Depends on how much juice is left over, how old your battery is and the way the bike is stored (cold or warm, overnight or all weekend, etc.).

 

Or use a trickle charger, as you said you're doing... you should be fine.

[Peter Parts]

An ammeter (esp. the almost free one which takes seconds to deploy and disconnect that I describe in my URL below) will tell your EVERYTHING you need to know about juice going into and juice coming out of your battery. And that is everything you need to know.

 

Ben

[ThomasJ]

Not to hijack the thread but can one ever have too many farkles...not because of power but because it gets too busy and the call of simplicity beckons?