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Battery overload?

1391 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  NatBrown
I plan on installing a Denali sound Bomb horn, and hook ups for heated gear. I already have Hid hi/low connected to the battery. I'm wondering if ll these things are going to kill my battery. Any thoughts?

I already have a battery tender, and I usually plug that in after every ride.
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I plan on installing a Denali sound Bomb horn, and hook ups for heated gear. I already have Hid hi/low connected to the battery. I'm wondering if ll these things are going to kill my battery. Any thoughts?

I already have a battery tender, and I usually plug that in after every ride.
I'd be more worried about blowing stators and regulator rectifiers. Motorcycle electronic systems and batteries are bad enough on sportbikes to run the stock systems. I mean it seems like across every major brand, stators and R/Rs blowing up. They're just not designed like car electronics to handle multiple electronic components. You're going to be making more demands out of this system to convert more current (and therefore make more heat) and then the stator to charge the bike more.

I dunno if anybody had done any studies or research, but I notice a large proportion of my friends that install HIDs go on to have electrical problems. Could be coincidence. Could be some of their dumbasses just fucking up the install, who knows.
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Brav, have you looked at the PowerHub2 that is offered by denali? http://http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/denali-powerhub2-power-distribution-wiring-harness-module
Your alternator is rated at 30 amps @ 14 volts. That gives you 420 watts to play around with. I'd guess, horn won't be an issue unless it draws massive power to sound it. Since it's not on all the time it shouldn't be an issue.

The heated gear is going to be a problem. Depending on how many pieces and how warm you want to make them you could easily exceed the rated output of the charging system I would think. HID lights are another high draw electrical as well. Running all this plus the bikes systems may be a problem.

You should be able to get the rated current draw for the heated gear from the manufacturer. The HIDs may also include it in the specs. Add them up and see what you get. I don't know how much headroom you have on these bikes but if it start approaching 30% of the rated output I begin to be concerned. (don't take that as official though, there may only be 10 or 15 watts of headroom on these systems for all I know)

As stated the battery should be the least of your worries. It's the charging system your going to be over taxing.

Me, I'd just buy some warm gear and not ride if it gets too cold. If you really want to ride in cold weather go buy a big BMW or one of the sport touring bikes. They come equipped with much more powerful alternators because the manufactures expect the consumer to be adding a lot of electrical items to them. Super sport bikes are for riding on a track and they take off everything that isn't absolutely necessary. Including a big heavy high output alternator.
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^^ this is quite close to the mark.

The only thing(s) not addressed, is what the bike has to use to run the fuel pump, ingition, running lights, and recharging the battery. The OEM configuration is using about 320 of the 420 Watts, on a 'normal' day. there's really only about 100 W to 'spare'.
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Thanks RJ. I didn't have that information to add. Figured it was somewhere around 70% of output to make the bike just run. Looks like it's even more than that.
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