Has anyone experienced hard wiring a connection for GPS on an XR400?
The previous owner has a connection tapped in to the headlight, the problem being there only appears to be power with the headlight "on".
It's a UK bike, no battery and I believe there to be a DC and AC circuit. I'll be gratefull for any advice

thanks

Kev

cheap, safe and easy to do:

get one of this £5 quit camping gel batteries out of a camping shop (used for water pumps in caravans,) they are only 2x2x5inch in size and are 12Volt with 1.5Amp may 3Amp if you want to run more gear, no more is needed.

find a place to mount too with a self made bracket or plastic box and run a big negative cable to the chassis and a +cable to the +connection on your condenser or main cable to the fuse box, make sure the battery is wired behind the "condenser" to save it from peaks, only needs charging nothing else.
To connect the GPS, get a power cable from the manufacturer (Garmin sales a special cable with the right plug on the GPS side and open wire on the other end even with a fuse in line, for exact that purposes to hard wirer there GPS to any vehicle) just connect +/- to the battery and you are set up.

My mate fitted the same battery to his 1991 Honda XR250 with kick-start only for the same reason to run the GPS and it works great. He is charging his mobile and running the GPS from the same source.
I used this setup on my old 1989 KTM 350 EGS 2-stroke that way too for my Garmin 12XL.

PS.
well the head lights are behind the condenser ! but it's not a good idea to wire up a GPS from there.
I guess you must have the right cable already, so you only need a small battery.

have fun
spooky

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Hi Spooky,

Thanks for the info, I'll certainly consider that option. How long can I expect one of these batteries to last? I'm setting the bike up for a two or three week trip in Morocco and expect to have the gps running for six to eight hours most days. I'm using a Garmin Etrex that takes x2 "AA" batteries which give approx ten hours of life.

It'll probabaly be a good idea to have a "gel" battery mounted somewhere on the bike as a backup...

Thanks

Kev

I "hard wired" an old Garmin GPS2 to an XR600 some years ago. The 600 is ac only which wasn't much use to the gps so I made an auxillary dc circuit with a rectifier (a few pounds from maplins) and a small 12v battery (2.5ah) that the local dealer had in stock.

Voltage control was via an on/off switch on the handlebars. The gps was connected to the battery and ran ok as long as I used an elastic and to keep the power cable in place. Every now and again I'd flick the switch to "on" and recharge the battery. At night it would also power a diy led camping light which doubled up as a replacement headlamp. The whole thing was lashed up in an afternoon shortly before a trip to W. Africa but it worked pretty well for a couple of years.

well the idea of a "gelly" battery is that you can take the x2 AA disposable cells out regarding vibrations on the handle bar to safe the +/- contacts of the GPS from wearing sore and prevent the x2 AA from rubbing fine dust off the GPS plastic compartment (the vibrations are a serious problem while riding bad roads or off-road), the external 12Volt/3Amp battery is than the main energy source 24 hours 7 days the week ! The 3Amp battery is permanent charged while riding and last a very long time, some few days or even a week if only used for the GPS with out charging it. By hard wiring the 3Amp battery to the condenser it's getting charged any time you kick your bike in to live.
(recommendation for kick-bikes with out EL-starter or any main battery, you can fit a small diode on the charging cable between the condenser and the 3Amp battery to prevent currants leakage, this was Std. on my old KTM EGS 350 2-stroke)

Now regarding the Etrex, there should be no problem hooking it up that way, I usually never turn my Garmin 76S off over night at all while camping, just cover it up with my helmet to hide it from direct view. See all the modern Garmins can cope and run with voltage from 3Volt to 36Volt straight from a bigger Battery as far I know there is no extra volt-regulator needed, but you may check the tech-data for the Etrex, as I say the +pole of the condenser supplies safe 12Volt-DC for all your Bike electric, lamps, horn, GPS and what not is need with out blowing the items, well a extra fuse is always a good choice. Oh yes, a small switch on the dash comes handy if you don't need any GPS but is not needed.

Different set-up story on thumbers!
I run my 76S straight of the main battery with in-line fuse on my thumber-LC4 Enduro, since there is a constant 13-15Volt charge from the build in volt-regulator, works very reliably for years now, the 76S lives on a Turatech bracket right in my face on top of the handlebar cross brace, I just cover the open contacts with the supplied rubber grommet to protect this from corrosion if riding with out GPS, that's all and hassle free....
Using a small 2nd aux-battery additional to the main battery on Rally-bikes, specially for aux-equipment like "GPS, Tripmaster, extra lights, and all the other toys" is a common option, so the main bike-electric remains untouched. That way all the aux-gear runes off the aux-battery.

spooky

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The trouble is that he was talking in philosophy, but they were listening in gibberish.
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