The Agony and The Ecstasy: Cleaner Electrical Accessory Wiring

After one week, one new tri-color LED, one new set of heated grips, and one new Gerbing’s temperature controller, I’ve finally finished transferring all the electrical accessories from my old SV to the new one. Hmm, now that I’ve typed out the list of new things I had to buy to get this project finished, it occurs to me that “transferring” may not be the right word anymore.

Previously on the blog, I was waiting for a new heated grip kit to arrive. The bike came with a Dual Star heated grip kit installed. I decided to give the Dual Stars another try despite the original set being defective.

I also wanted to install a voltmeter because I know I’m getting pretty close to reaching the SV’s charging system capacity limit. Tedder tipped me off to the Signal Dynamics Heads-Up Single Voltage Indicator. It’s very simple: just a single LED that turns green, amber, and red to indicate what’s going on with the charging system.

The whole point of this project was to install my electrical accessories the Right Way, i.e. with a quality fuseblock and as much wiring as practical run within looms. The fuseblock is an Eastern Beaver Power Center 8:

The fuseblock comes with its own wiring harness, including a relay, fuse, and ring terminals for the battery. The build quality is impeccable. My wiring skill pales in comparison, but it’s always good to have something to aspire to. The installation process was very straightforward. If you have any experience with fuseblocks, or relay/distribution block setups, you probably won’t even need to consult the instructions.

Once the fuseblock was in place, I started running the wiring. I had an advantage because I knew how everything connected together due to previous experience with my old SV. I guess I can look back at the old SV as a trial run.

For example, I wanted a cleaner look for the wires coming off the switch that controls my Hyper-white running lights. You can see the switch in this photo:

All those small wires leading from the switch are kind of gnarly. I wrapped them with electrical tape on my old bike, but that really looked terrible. Here’s how I did it this time:

I think it’s a big improvement. I also trimmed the wires down and added a connector at the end. The power and ground leads from the hot grips also run to this connector (though they’re not present in the above photo). Having a connector midstream allows me to disconnect my accessories if I ever need to — a decision that paid dividends when the defective heated grips developed a short circuit that turned them into hand incinerators!

Here’s the connector matched with its counterpart on the main wiring loom:

If you look closely at the left of the photo, you can see the wires exiting a plastic loom. This loom runs back to approximately the midpoint of the frame, where my Gerbing’s temperature controller box is mounted. The loom tucks neatly inside the frame, though I have one odd spot where the heated grips connect to the power connector from the temperature controller:

The power plugs are too big to fit within the loom, so I routed the wires to allow the plugs to emerge from the loom just enough for the connection. This works fine as long as you place zip ties at the exit and entry points for the wires.

Cleaning up the wiring resulted in a noticeably neater battery compartment:

And here’s a photo of what used to be a particularly troublesome spot. I used to have a rat’s nest of 8 or 9 wires running through this junction, which is less than ideal because it’s very close to where the gas tank pivots when it’s lifted. The danger for pinched wires here is extreme.

The wires in this loom run back to the fuseblock, which I placed in the compartment under the passenger seat.

I decided against writing a more detailed guide because there are far too many variables involved in this kind of project. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas for your own wiring setups.

But What About The Agony?

Three agonies, actually:

A short circuit in the original set of heated grips, resolved by removing the defective set and replacing with a new kit. The only thing that wasn’t my fault!

My ham-fisted attempts to push the voltmeter’s LED into the flush mount holder which broke one wire lead to the LED. Of course it had to break clean with the surface of the LED, preventing me from re-soldering it. I really wanted to avoid having to order another voltmeter, so I ran out and bought a new tri-color LED, hoping that it would work. It did, and it even came with a better holder for the mount.

Somehow, my Gerbing’s temperature controller blew one of its circuits, specifically the circuit for my heated jacket. This, of course, presented itself after I had put everything back together on the bike and while I was riding down to Eugene on a chilly 37°F morning. I didn’t make it to Eugene. Came home, opened the bike back up, started testing, and tracked it down to the controller box itself. I said several choice words, none of which would be printable anywhere but Jack Riepe’s blog.

This last agony was the worst, because it meant that I had to undo almost all the work I just finished. I went out and bought a new controller and spent most of Sunday experiencing accessory wiring deja-vu.

And The Ecstasy?

That one’s easy: the first ride with the running lights running, the voltmeter volting, and my heated gear heating. It’s my baby, better than new!

Looking for an even cleaner way to wire your electrical accessories? Check out the Dispatch 1 electrical accessory management system.