Hard wiring in Autocom & Garmin power

[Paul]

Folks,

I'm fed up of feeding expensive batteries to my Autocom, so I have bought the bits to hard wire it into the electrickery supply on the bike. I need to tap into a fused 12V supply that's live only when the ignition is on (does that count out the accessory socket?). My preference would be to patch into the loom near the front of the bike, rather than near the rear. Any suggestions for which wires I should be cutting into? The headlight circuit might be a good candidate, since I always ride with those on. At some stage in the near future, I will also want to tap into a similar 12v supply to power the Garmin.

FYI, I'm riding a '99 non ABS bike with heated grips.

Cheers,

Paul

[RiceBurner]

Folks,

I'm fed up of feeding expensive batteries to my Autocom, so I have bought the bits to hard wire it into the electrickery supply on the bike. I need to tap into a fused 12V supply that's live only when the ignition is on (does that count out the accessory socket?). My preference would be to patch into the loom near the front of the bike, rather than near the rear. Any suggestions for which wires I should be cutting into? The headlight circuit might be a good candidate, since I always ride with those on. At some stage in the near future, I will also want to tap into a similar 12v supply to power the Garmin.

FYI, I'm riding a '99 non ABS bike with heated grips.

Cheers,

Paul

when I wired in my heated jacket switch (using a PIAA relay) I used the pos feed for the instrument lights as a feed to the switch, which then powered the relay. Works perfectly.

I also have a PIAA relay set up for driving lights that are ONLY live when the full-beam is on. For this I used the headlight warning lamp live feed to power the switch/relay.

I"d advise using a relay because then you don't rob power from anything else.

[boxerpan]

Where is the Autocom unit going to live ?
Being a lazy, non-electrical type I took mine to the Autocom HQ in Warwick and they fitted it under the seat taking the feed off the rear light circuit which runs along the off side sub frame (it only works when the light are on obviously)

[Gromit]

Paul - as Lloyd says, taking a power source from the rear light is an excellent choice, mainly because the wiring is so much easier to get to/splice into. What's the power consumption in terms of watts on the Autocom etc?

V*R (cough spit) owners use the same when wiring up a PC fan for keeping their reg/rec's cool.

[Paul]

Folks,

Job done. I went to Maplins to by a digital voltmeter (£2.99 - how can they make money on them at that price?) and prodded around with the the headlight plug just behind the right hand indicator plug. I've now wired in the Autocom cable onto the circuit for the dipped beam. I bought the two piece Autocom power cable, so that I can keep the unit in my tank bag. I now have a red 5 pin DIN socket popping out at the headstock, which I can plug into the Autocom sitting in my tank bag.

Cheers,

Paul