Help the electronic-tard - please!

[Mtnbiker]

Ok.. so I'd like to think I'm a reasonably intelligent, mechanicaly inclined person, but I never really took to the circuit building part of physics class.. and I am probably making a really silly mistake, so see if you can help me out.

I am installing heated grips (actually heater elements under the grips) by Symtec. Should be no biggy.. comes with wiring, Hi/low/off rocker switch and directions.

Suzuki gratiously leaves an small stub of wire with an "OEM adapter plug" for electronic gadgets, conveniently located down behind the radiator where no human being could possibly get to it without removing body panels, lifting the gas tank, and pushing radiator forward.. anyway, I did manage to find it, however instead of buying the mating adapter from Suzuki I cut the plug off and ran my own wires directly from the two wires provided (which are switched and fused)

One is an orange/green wire (power) and the other is a black/white ground wire, supposedly grounded at the battery. From other posts on a Strom site people suggest this as the best way to hook heated grips up with this plug, thereby eliminating the need for additional fuses or grounding.

So.... here's my circuit:
Yellow power wire with blue shrink tube goes directly to middle pole on switch, per instructions. blues and whites from heater elements connected together in proper poles on switch, per instructions. My other yellow wire (marked black for ground) is coming directly from the ground wire provided in the adapter plug. That is tied together with the two red ground wires from the heater elements in the yellow wire nut. Should this be grounded to the frame, and not tied together or what?
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd105/CanyonCarve/DSCN4770.jpg

I thought that was the proper way, but it appears I am creating a short since I immediately blow the "signal" fuse when I turn the switch on. That fuse controls my instrument cluster and turn signals.

What the heck is this newbie-tard doing wrong?

[fourtycal]

Did you figure it out yet?

Do you have a wire diagram for the suzuki? First thing I would verify that Black/white is actually grounded, if it is then the wire nut should be fine. If the Orange/Green shares a fuse and circuit with the blinkers then you will want to run a new wire, I would guess the grips will draw enough amps to require it's own dedicated hot wire. If you need it switched with the ignition then a relay may be the way to go. Let me know how this turn's out. I may be adding heaters to my ATV soon. :popcorn:

[Todd-Squad]

1. When you blw the fuse having it hooked up like you do, what was the size of the fuse that blew?

2. You need to try to figure out if the fuse blew because there is too much load on that circuit, or if you have a short.

3. Do you have a circut tester? It looks like an icepick with a light in the handle, and a wire with a probe or aligator clip on the end. It looks like this: http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1289652&cp=2568455.2629360.1258951&parentPage=family
Basically you connect the clip to the ground on your battery or the frame and then you can poke the sharp end either into a connector or through wire insulation. If the light glows then you know you have a hot lead. I mainly use this tool when trying to locate a switchable lead, but it is equally effective at locating a constant hot lead as well.

4. You also need to confirm which of your wires are really ground wires. If you have a multi-meter, set it to the Continuity test, put the red lead of your meter on your battery + terminal and the black lead of your meter on the wire you think is a ground. If your meter beeps, then it is a ground.

If your still stumped, send me your phone number in an email, you can bring your bike over and we can work on it in my garage.

Todd-Squad

[Mtnbiker]

Thanks Todd for the offer, I appreciate that!

To answer your questions, I double checked and yeah, any b/w wire on this bike is grounded back to the battery.

At first I was thinking I just wasn't wiring the circuit correctly, but after some more investigation it turns out my circuit is fine, but may actually be the heater element that's the problem.

I checked the resistance across each element and they all seemed within spec. Battery tested good. I even eliminated the switch as a problem since I put power directly to the HI and Lo on both grips independently sans switch and the ONLY one that is still blowing the 15A fuse is the Hi on the clutch side... So.. I'm thinking that possibly the HI element itself is somehow shorting out on the bar.. ? (or that element is defective)

The good news is the low works just fine and my hands were toasty on my way to work this morning :) I have a spare on/off rocker switch so maybe I'll just wire it into the low circuit for now and use it as is until I feel ambitious enough to rip my grip off again... ugh.

Thanks for your suggestions though. Overall the project wasn't terrible with the exception of this one frustration. My only dilemma was do I really want to drill a hole in my fairing to install a switch?? I bit the bullet and did it, and it turned out nicely. I'll attach a pic later when it's all done.

Oh yeah and I used my strap-on (careful) throttle rocker today for the first time and it worked great! No more death grip on the throttle! Looking forward to trying it out on a longer ride.

Ride on. Ian