Heated Solutions: New Powerlet Products

By Robert Lamishaw

The relatively passive nature of sitting on the bike doesn’t generate body heat and therefore you are always drawing down your body’s reserve. The only solution is to add heat back into your body with heated clothing, such as the Powerlet or Gerbings vests, gloves, pants, jacket liners, etc. However, the basic on-off switch that comes standard with these units is of limited value. You are either too hot or too cold and those temperature swings are uncomfortable and can create problems with overheating and chilling. Most of us deal with this issue by buying the variable heat controllers the manufacturers offer. They typically plug into a special socket wired directly onto the battery, or into a BMW type accessory plug, Be aware that new BMW’s with can-bus technology only allow a limited current draw from the factory accessory plug, typically 4 amps, and most heated clothing draws much more so won’t work properly with the factory accessory plug. The standard solution is to wire directly to the battery with an after market accessory plug, like those available from Powerlet.

The trouble with these portable controllers is that you have to find a good place to hang the control unit, you’re always dangling wires, the units can pull out of the accessory plug or disconnect from the vest and dangle free, or scratch the paint and if nothing else having all those wires doesn’t look very cool. A very elegant solution is the panel mount controller by Powerlet. Either as a single or dual control unit, so you can easily control pants and jackets/vests separately for example, the power regulator control box is hidden under the body work and the only thing seen is a small knob and an LED that lets you know that the power is on. I have installed two of these units, one into my hard tank bag, which I transfer from one bike to another and one directly onto my R 1150 RT-P. It’s the full installation on the RT that will be illustrated here.

The first step is to decide where you want the control knob. Someplace easy to reach with your left hand, so you can make adjustments while riding. The LED is attached to a circuit board, and is normally next to the control knob, but the circuit board can be split and the LED mounted in a different location. Having the authority bike model of the R 1150 RT, I had an unused rocker switch, a blank filler actually, that was very convenient next to the left hand grip. Easy to reach and easy to see. It was a perfect spot for the heat control knob. However, you can place the control anywhere that is convenient for you.

The attachment to the battery is the usual affair, just bolt to the terminals. The wire has an in-line fuse for circuit protection. In my case I didn’t want to power the vest unless the bike’s ignition was on so I installed the system to work with switched power. This wasn’t very difficult, as I controlled access to the bike’s power with a relay. This did require some wire cutting and splicing but nothing very difficult. Commonly used for accessory lights, a relay allows a low power circuit to close a switch that can handle large power demands, (12 volt relays are readily available from most auto parts stores). On many non-Can-bus bikes finding a switched circuit isn’t very difficult, your headlights, running lights, etc. are all switched circuits. The Can-bus makes this a little harder as any change in the load, (the electrical demand placed on the on a specific circuit), will be treated as a system error and generate failure reports, flashing lights and who knows what else. But there is a Can-bus device that will allow you to detect switched power from the city lights common on most European motorbikes. This connector will activate a relay which can then allow you to pull power from a fuse block or directly from the battery. The “Euro Can-Bus Adapter” is available on line from The Electrical Connection, (http://www.electricalconnection.com/wire-harnesses/02350.htm). Having an R 1150 RT-P I had no trouble finding switched power sources, the police bikes have lots, and connecting a relay to it with a couple of crimp on connectors was easy. Connecting the power is straight forward and similar to adding an accessory plug.

Having selected a location for the knob I marked the plastic using the template provided, drilled the necessary 2 holes, using a 3/8″ and 1/8″ drill bit, ran the wires along the underside of the handlebar wire tying them and all the existing cables to a fitting made for that purpose. On the LT you can hide all the wires inside the plastic handlebar shroud. In any case the heat control knob is very unobtrusive and now very easy to access while riding.

Be careful when you route the wires to make sure that they don’t rub against anything, aren’t next to the engine or close to any exhaust heat. All these conditions are bad for the wiring and can make for hard to diagnose problems down the line. One more thing, do yourself a favor and be careful to route the wires so that some mechanic won’t need to cut them to access the fuel filter or air filter or something during a routine service.

The last step in the installation is to locate the control unit someplace out of harm’s way and not too far from where you want the garment’s power connector to emerge from the bike. Most of the wires provided, (i.e. the power input and knob control lines), are long and allow a lot of flexibility in their routing. The garment’s power cord connector cable is much shorter so the power modulating control box needs to be fairly close to the seat so that the vest power supply line is easy to reach when riding, yet has some slack and is out of the way. The kit comes with sticky backed Velcro to allow you to mount the power control box securely yet easily remove it if needed, if it’s attached to a fairing panel, for example.

All in all the installation is easy and very clean. The heat setting is easy to see, there are no more dangling wires that get snagged, pulled loose or misplaced. No more scratched paint and no more lost or forgotten controllers. If you have multiple bikes you can always get a portable controller, or do as I have done on my other bikes which is to mount the controller in my tank bag, which is portable to all my bikes and use an SAE plug for the connector to the battery. Powerlet can provide the battery to SAE and SAE to heat controller connector for a slightly higher price if you want one.

The price for the panel mount controller is about the same as a portable one, $79.95 from Powerlet, and unlike any other supplier of these products that I know of, Powerlet has a life time guarantee for material and workmanship. You can order on line at www.powerletproducts.com or from any Powerlet products dealer.