Accessory wiring / Fuzeblock install
http://www.fuzeblocks.com/
What is a fuzeblock ? If you've got a number of accessories on your bike like heated grips, heated jacket, USB power for phones/sat nav, and any auxillary lights or even wiring in a optimate charge lead something like a fuzeblock. You could make one yourself but for a neat simple device that you can take from bike to bike then this is a straightforward bit of kit that has served me well. As each circuit is individually fused i can have one of my accessories fail / go kaput and only that circuit will go rather than everything.
A handy wee feature of the device is the option ot have an always on or switched circuit - and by just changing the fuse position for that circuit you can flip between only on when ignition on, to on all the time. This could be handy if you are charging a phone from the USB socket or something and want it to be on while you are away from the bike.
Nippy Norman in the UK is selling them but they are available from other places as well. There are other similare devices on the market, search around in case you have some specific functionality requirement.
http://www.nippynormans.com/products/f650stcsgsdakar/item/fuzeblock-switchable-fuse-panel-fuz-fz1I have installed on the bike:
1. Oxford HotGrips - (they are ok, but the rubber grip wears quickly)
2. Heated jacket - (a godsend, can't recommend a heated vests enough)
3. optimate charger lead - (so i can charge the bike by connecting to an external plug and don't need to removed seat)
4. LED lights on hand guard - (a natty little mod, added strip LEDs to the Acerbis Dual Road handguards -http://foc-u.co.uk/index.php/topic,1879.msg39316/topicseen.html#msg39316 )
5. USB plugs - (small car USB adapter connected giving me two USB ports. This allows a phone / satnav to be connected / charged)
Without the fuzeblock i'd have several connectors on the battery terminals , so this tidies everything up a little.
I also have a Stebel Nautulus horn, but as that draws ~18 amps i wired it direct to battery as it's too much current to put through the fuseblock. The fuse block needs 3 input connections. A positive , negative and a switched live. The positive and negative are direct to the battery, you should put a fused connection in the positive wire.
The trickiest part of this is the switched live. After searching on the forum there is a neat solution as detailed by "nastyandy" in his photos. In the main fusebox by the battery a number of the circuits are switched on when the ignition goes on. We can't directly power anything from these circuits (or rather we shouldn't, as we don't want to add extra current to them) but they allow us to use them as a switched live feed for the fuzeblock as a feed will activate the relay and turn on the positive feed from the battery in the fuzeblock. I don't know the current needed to power and activate a relay but it is in the order of a few milliamps - basically a negigible amount and it won't cause side effects or other problems with the electrical circuits on the bike.
If you look at the thread below see the photos from nastyandy as he shows you how to wire in a switched live wire. This will be the wire that connects to the switched live of your fuzeblock.
http://fazerowners.yuku.com/topic/5650/t/HOWTO-Fit-your-heated-grips.html#.UGc6hphJOAg*** If you aren't comfortable soldering or doing electrics, this is quite straight forward work. But please do go to a shop like Maplin (Halfords are v. expensive) or go online and buy a selection of wire, connectors, crimps, heat shrink tube, and a solder iron and solder - also a simple multimeter to measure voltage. It might seem expensive but getting more comfortable with electrics is a good skill to build on. Then don't do anything on the bike just sit in your shed/garage/kitchen and practive stripping a wire, soldering wires and soldering connectors and crimping them. It's well worthwhile trying everything out to get the "knack" of using the tools. There are countless videos / guides on YouTube etc showing you how to use the tools and perform wiring tasks ***
You can take a switched live from a variety of places on the bike, but as i mounted the fuzeblock on top of the CDI unit the wire run is small and convenient. The fuzeblock mounts with some sticky pads, i used some that were for sticking on a car numberplate, and it has enough room for the seat to go on. When running the wiring to the fuzeblock you'll want some wiring suitable for 20A @ 12v , this may seem excessive but if you run a number of accessories off the device you don't want any voltage drop. Some 10 or 12 AWG wire would be very suitable. You are now ready to do that heated grip install, install those extra lights etc. I wired up LED lights to handguards and converted my Oxford heated grips to run off fuseblock rather than straight off battery. Althoguht the grips claim to turn off when the voltage drops i forgot to turn them off a few times and whilst they did turn off, there wasn't enough oomph in the battery for the bike to start after. So to save being stranded the grips now turn off with the ignition.
Here's some photos of my install.
<< click on photo's to zoom in , the text i added is a little smalll unless you view at full resolution >>