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Gerbing heated gear?

polanskyster

New member
I recently purchased the Gerbing Jacket liner, gloves, pants liner, socks and dual controller from Revzilla. After a few rides using my F700GS the red-light goes on the dual controller requiring me to shut off the controller then turning it on. The dual controller is connected directly to the battery. On Monday I am riding to Key West from NYC so I am a bit concerned killing the battery.

Revzilla thinks I do not have enough watts to run all the heated gear. Other than the heated gear I am running Clearwater Darla lights and a GPS directly to the battery. According to the F700GS specs the alternator has an output of 400 watts.

Do you agree with Revzilla's assessment? Do I not have enough juice/Watts to run the gear or do you think the gear is at fault?

Thank you
 
This thread might be helpful. Looks like you have between 80 and 250 watts to work with. Gerbings site was not helpful in finding the power requirements of all your heated items. Maybe it is in the instructions or on a label?

You might also want to see what the maximum load is for the controller. It sounds like it is acting like a circuit breaker and resetting when you turn it off.

Most folks seem to be OK using just a heated vest and gloves. I'm thinking that if you have all the gear connected, you might want to carry a meat thermometer so you know when you are done.;)
 
I seem to recall that you are not supposed to start the bike with the controller turned on.

I have had that problem before too, and shutting off the controller, then turning it back on cures the problem.

Ken
 
Thank you for the responses, the total wattage requirement is 163 using all the gear. When the heated gear is on it's great! Ken F do you ride with all the gear on including pant liner and socks?

If I ride in a lower gear(higher revs) is there any chance of burning out the battery riding 350 miles?
 
I spoke to Gerbing tech this morning. They assured me my 400 watts should have no problem using their heated gear. The 160 watts advertised to use the gear is on high. I doubt I will ever crank it up that much. Under normal conditions I would use 1/4 to 1/2 so I will be using no more than 80 watt's. The tech thinks there is a short in the jacket causing the problem so he suggests it be sent back to them for repair.
 
You definitely don't have enough power, maybe 125 watts for xtras. Get yourself a voltmeter.
 
I spoke to Gerbing tech this morning. They assured me my 400 watts should have no problem using their heated gear. The 160 watts advertised to use the gear is on high.

Is their controller a PWM controller like the Warm-n-safe heat-troller? If so then the Gerbing tech needs some more training. With a PWM controller it's not power that is modulated, it's time. To get "half-power" the controller runs full power for some amount of time then turns off for the same amount of time. The result is half the heat, but the load on the bike is still maximum... just not a sustained maximum. The curve may not be 100% linear due to inductive/resistive differences as power turns on and off and the gear changes temperature.

If you have 125 for extras what happens when you try to pull 160.... even if only for a few seconds at a time?
 
Just use the jacket and socks. It will definitely support that. I drove my F800GS up to Alaska and hit snow wet rain most days and used a good quality long underwear. Outside of my feet, the jacket liner is all that I really needed. Grip heaters and good handguards or hippo hands worked for the hands. After a lot of riding I sold my pants and gloves, Hooking them up and using them was a huge pain in the butt.
 
The battery will discharge and eventually the bike won't run.

I have seen this happen to other people several times, with a dead bike as the result. The F700GS just doesn't have enough oomph to power all the gear he desires. Now a Harley, on the other hand, would allow one to suit up in all the heated stuff, dress mamma in twice as much Gerbing gear, power it all at the highest setting (while at idle), and still have enough juice left over to run a popcorn machine.....
 
Harley Charging System

I have seen this happen to other people several times, with a dead bike as the result. The F700GS just doesn't have enough oomph to power all the gear he desires. Now a Harley, on the other hand, would allow one to suit up in all the heated stuff, dress mamma in twice as much Gerbing gear, power it all at the highest setting (while at idle), and still have enough juice left over to run a popcorn machine.....

I was curious about this, so I looked it up. The stock Harley system puts out 49 amps and an optional high output system generates 54 amps. I may be wrong, but I think I remember the old electrical formula we were taught in Physics class as Amps = Watts/Volts.

BMW measures charging output in Watts and the F700GS generates 400 Watts so that would make an Amps output of 33 (400/12), so depending on how many amps your gear would require, you probably should not exceed 33.
 
I was curious about this, so I looked it up. The stock Harley system puts out 49 amps and an optional high output system generates 54 amps. I may be wrong, but I think I remember the old electrical formula we were taught in Physics class as Amps = Watts/Volts.

BMW measures charging output in Watts and the F700GS generates 400 Watts so that would make an Amps output of 33 (400/12), so depending on how many amps your gear would require, you probably should not exceed 33.

Yeah, your formula is correct, but use 13.8V (stator output rather than the 12V battery output), and keep in mind that you need about 3/4 of that power to run the engine. Peak stator output is probably around 4,000 RPM. If you look around, you can probably find an RPM vs. stator output power graph.

My Vstrom also has a 400 watt alternator and I have about 125 "spare" watts for heated gear. I ALWAYS watch the voltmeter and if it drops below 12.6 volts or so, the battery is discharging. It will eventually go to zero and the bike will quit running. I also have two 55 watt headlights and on very cold days, I will pull a headlight connector to free up those 55 watts for heat. That may or may not be an option on your bike.

BMW does makes bikes with 700 watt alternators that put out ~ 50amps. I had one of these on my K75 because I wanted the power for heated gear.
 
BMW Generator Output

I forgot about the 13.8 volts. Isn't that the required voltage to run the ABS?

I looked my bike up and my generator output for my R1200R is 720 watts, so I am at 52 amps. Not as good as the Harley optional 54 amp system, but better than their stock 49 amps.

I don't run heated clothing. All I have are LED Motolights on the front and Skene P3 LEDs on the rear and a Garmin Zumo GPS, so I guess I am OK with the current flow.

Bill
 
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