12v external power socket

[Nelly]

Hi guys, I would like to know if its possible to run my 12v power socket from the wiring the feeds the main lights. I already have battery tender connected to my battery and it laves very little room for any thing else to be piggy backed directly to the battery.

So if you have done this mod, pray tell how.

Nelly:thumbup:

So far the tools I have put aside for this project are 1 X hammer, 1 X plaster tape.

 

[scottsst]

Hey Nelly just do what I did. I took another Battery tender plug cut the end off of it and wired it into the power socket.Just put a larger fuse in the tender plug

 

[Motogiro]

Using the existing tender is a good idea.
In addition if you were thinking of tapping into a circuit that is on when the bike is running and off when the the bike is off, You could tap into the low beam wire that runs the left low beam on a faired bike if you are just running GPS and or Cell phone charger. Don't run an air compressor or high current device.

If you are on a naked with just one headlight the low beam should be switched off when you turn on the high beam hence the plug power would go off. You could use the running light circuit that powers the front directionals as long as you remember only low current. This would also be a switched circuit.

I like a switched circuit for security reasons. No one has easy access to dumping your battery. If you have an alarm system on your bike a thief that wants it loads the battery through the accessory outlet till it's dead. Harder to do that on a switched outlet.

You could also run a fused relay to the battery. That relay would provide high current to power your outlet and would be active from voltage from your running light circuit.

I hope I'm not making this to complex for what you want to do but I like to offer some other possibilities and some of the logic behind them.

 

[fb40dash5]

^ What he said, especially regarding switching it.

If it was me, I'd get a relay (probably one of the micro relays Eastern Beaver sells) and wire an SAE plug to it to plug it into the battery tender wiring for power, using the running lights to switch the relay. That way you don't have to run extra wires to the battery, it can't run the battery down, and you're not adding extra load where it wasn't intended. Granted, the low beam is probably fine, since most sockets are only rated for 120w (~10A) anyway, and most things you'd plug in draw MUCH less, but I lean toward overkill.

 

[TeacherJoe]

If there is a battery tender lead, what is the problem with plugging in a 12v socket directly to that? There are 12v sockets with sae leads. Other then being hot all the time, is there another possible problem?

Joe

 

[Zack]

If there is a battery tender lead, what is the problem with plugging in a 12v socket directly to that? There are 12v sockets with sae leads. Other then being hot all the time, is there another possible problem?

Joe

I did it like that, connected quite short piece of wire to battery terminals and placed female 12VDC jack below the seat. You have to unlock and remove the seat to plug the charger. Don't have pic, sorry, scottsst made really nice one, and as usually picture worths thousand words

 

[LERecords]

see i tried the whole cut a bat tender wire and wire it up and it never worked.. granted the fuse on it was a 3 amp, but still....

 

[Motogiro]

If there is a battery tender lead, what is the problem with plugging in a 12v socket directly to that? There are 12v sockets with sae leads. Other then being hot all the time, is there another possible problem?

Joe

No real problem doing it right off the battery. I think the design of doing it the switched way is to eliminate leaving device plugged in with the key off and possibly draining the battery or isolating the battery from outside sources for security system reasons.

 

[Jim Karam]

Powerlet makes a nice Y-adapter that plugs into an SAE connector (your battery tender cable) and provides both a cigarette socket and another SAE. SAE To Cigarette Socket and SAE Y Cable - Powerlet Products (For the record, I daisy-chained four of those to drive all my electronics.)

 

[Nelly]

My Battery tender is actually the Oxford battery optimizer and has a different plug to the tender.
Thanks for the input on this. I won't try this without a decent how to as I don't do electrics.

Cheers

Nelly