Connecting GPS

[Tom14911]

Anybody familiar enough with electrical systems to help me install a hard wire electrical supply to my GPS unit? The thing eats my batteries in a heartbeat.

Thanks in advance;

Tom - its for my wr426

[GPS Dual Sport]

You need to post some more info.

Is your GPS unit OK with a 12 VDC input?

The Garmin E series will only take 3 VDC. Anything higher may fry your unit.

If you have a Baja Designs DS kit there are two wires with connectors that are switched with main power near the headlight. Check the voltage an polarity with a voltmeter before you connect your GPS.

If your not running BD DS kit you can get 12 VDC from the red lead on the turn signal flasher and good ground connection.

[pedman]

What kind of GPS do you have? It may be in your settings. If you have a GPS that has an electronic compass and it is on, yes you will go through batteries. If your GPS can be set just to track satellites then you will save battery life.

Also, depending on the detail on your 'tracking mode' you can eat up battery life too. This is a call that you have to make and becoming familiar with your GPS is the only way - experiment. What happens is, when you set it for a higher accuracy, you have to write it to memory, more accurate you want the more writing that takes place and this take power. There may be a better setting that will get you the information that you need.

You will get good detailed information just in the 'tracking satellites' mode. This is what I do and then I upload this information to my National Geographic map software. Then you can edit it if needed.

Hope this helps ?

[Tom14911]

Ok,I have a magellan sporttrak topo. Input voltage range is a stated 9-16 VDC. I don't have a turn signal flasher. I just have the stock 2001 WR426.

I have been using "detailed" tracking mode for mapping my favorite trails. But we were talking like 1 hour on a fresh set of batteries. Hence, I'm looking for the permanent solution.

You guys are great thanks again for the help.

Tom

[pedman]

I am not sure, but I believe that you do have a electronic compass on it. Most likely this is what is causing your battery depleation. I have the platinum and I can go all day with it left on, but remember I use the satellite mode for the compass. With the power cord accessory, you could modify this and power of your lights. I would recommend the tail light power, just for the reason that if something does go wrong you don't kill your head light.

Don't have a manual in front of me but I would remove the rear tail light assembly and remove the bulb and with a DVM measure the voltage from the socket. Remember there is no protection for short circuits. If the voltage is acceptable, then locate an area to connect the power cable accessory, make sure that you use the fuse. You'll most likely need to buy an in-line fuse holder.

Good Luck ?

[RichieGoatGruff]

I am not sure, but I believe that you do have a electronic compass on it. Most likely this is what is causing your battery depleation. I have the platinum and I can go all day with it left on, but remember I use the satellite mode for the compass. With the power cord accessory, you could modify this and power of your lights. I would recommend the tail light power, just for the reason that if something does go wrong you don't kill your head light.

Don't have a manual in front of me but I would remove the rear tail light assembly and remove the bulb and with a DVM measure the voltage from the socket. Remember there is no protection for short circuits. If the voltage is acceptable, then locate an area to connect the power cable accessory, make sure that you use the fuse. You'll most likely need to buy an in-line fuse holder.

Good Luck ?

I'm not sure, but you may have AC running the lights....if so you'll need a rectifier too. A big capacitor will help as well....

[GPS Dual Sport]

The stock WR 426 electrical system is 12 VAC. Your GPS will get very angry with the polarity reversing 50% of the time.

[PBDBLUE]

It is AC. You will need a rectifier/regulator and either a battery or a battery eliminator (which is basically a big capacitor). Without the battery or eliminator there is way too much ripple on the output of the rectifier to run anything electronic. That will get you 12 volts DC. You can then adapt that to your GPS.

[LiquidSilver]

I plan to hook up a Garmin GPSMAP 76S to the battery. It has variable voltage input.

?

[PBDBLUE]

LiquidSilver -

If your talking about the battery on a WR450 that will work fine since the WR450 comes with a rectifier/regulator and battery. The WR426 does not and therefor requires the additional parts. If the 426 is dual sported most DS kits come with the parts.

[ETP]

Your WR250 is probably wired like the 450's. I believe there are 2 voltage sources. One 12VAC for the lights, and a lower current 12VDC for the charging circuit, etc. The GPS should work fine on the 12VDC circuit as long as it is 12VDC operation.

Any of the dual sport companies should be able to set you up. Dale at trickdualsport.com would probably make a small harness for you so you could just plug it in. ?

[pedman]

Hello Pedman anyone in there ?

My mistake...Your absolutely right. AC will be a problem in a DC circuit. I live in a DC Life

[Rip Wheeler]

My mistake...Your absolutely right. AC will be a problem in a DC circuit. I live in a DC Life ?

Hey, its so easy to convert it to DC. Get you a diode (also called a rectifier) from radio shack. Get one that is rated for the wattage you expect to consume. If they dont have one large enough, wire them in parallel to each other. You will see a banded end on one side of the diode, this is to be hooked "inline" on one side (only one side is needed, not both sides, you will have 2 wires in the AC circuit) and then you have "half wave rectified DC". If the stripe points outward on the wire, this one is positive. If it points inward, this is negative and the other wire is positive. You can get full wave rectifiers also, they will be square looking with 4 pins or solder joints, this would be ideal, but the diodes will work. OK, lets say you need diodes rated for a 10 watt load, but only 3 amps avaialable, gang up 4, 3 watt diodes, this will be good for 12 watts. When I say gang up, make sure all the stripes are on the same end, then just twist the 4 ends together on both ends of the diodes. Walla, you have rectified DC. Now if you want to do the full wave (this will get you less pulsing DC, "smoother") you will see 4 pins, 2 will be marked AC, the other 2 will be + and -. Hook each wire (2) to the AC terminals, doesnt matter which way, then the remaining + and - will be you positive and negative power source. You can pair these up also for more wattage. Also, you may want to regulate it, I know Dennis Kirk sells regulators for 12 volt systems. If you need more help, holler! I'm a ham radio operator, so this stuff is simple for me and I rebuilt industrial alternators for 4 year too .

[Tom14911]

Toyota

Could you make that in laymans terms? BTW the insert was mailed today.

Tom

[PBDBLUE]

Toyota -

One thing to watch out for is that without some filtering you will see very high voltage spikes on the output of the bridge rectifier. The stock AC regulator is very crude and basically shunts the output of the magneto to ground to regulate it. I put an oscilloscope on my WR426 and saw spikes on the ac output of >50 volts. This is probably not very healthy for a GPS or any other sensitive electronic device. I think a dc rectifier/regulator (like those used in the dual sport setups) and a battery (or at least a large capacitor) would be a much safer solution.

[Rip Wheeler]

Toyota

Could you make that in laymans terms? BTW the insert was mailed today.

Hey, thanks on that insert. My old one found a new home today also, from a user in this group. So I guess its musical inserts. Thanks again!

OK, laymans terms. Your headlamp has 2 wires running it, this is AC I assume (havent looked at the wiring diagram, just going by what everyone said in here) so you just take a wire and splice it off of each wire from the headlamp circuit for GPS unit. Now "inline" on one of the wires, you just cut it and solder in a diode. One end of the diode will be banded, this is the end that will allow for the positive pulse of the AC, so if the band is pointing away from your "T" splice, this wire is positive, if its put in backwards, its negative, and the remaining wire will be the opposite polarity, ie positive, even though, you havent solder a diode inline on the other one. This is called half wave rectification. For a GPS, I'd just get a qty of 3 diodes, each rated for 3 watts, (pkg will be marked and comes in 3 pak) and if you want to get cocky, seal it inline with shrink tube. These will generate a little heat, but the GPS will be so minimal, it wont be an issue, but dont try to put a cigarette lighter on it! Now if you want to get real cocky, get a "full wave rectifier" from radio shack. These will usually be about a 1" square looking device, will have 4 pins. Diagonally opposite pins will be marked "AC", hook each of the 2 wires from the headlamp to these pins, one wire for one pin, the other wire for the other pin. Now you will have 2 pins left, these are your DC, it will me marked + and -. Now as mentioned earlier in another post, you may want to put a capacitor across the 2 AC terminals and maybe even the 2 DC terminals. This will act as a "shock absorber" to absorb any spikes in the system. You can get these from Radio Shack also. In this case, just get a good sized one. They come in ceramic or electrolytic. Ceramic are kinda disc shaped, electrolytic is can or drum shaped. The electrolytic is polarity sensitive, put this one across the DC terminals, the can will have one side marked, ie +, the other one will be -. ANd put a ceramic one across the 2 AC terminals, but the one can or one ceramic should do it, both could be "extra HD". Before hooking this all up, get a meter and read the voltage, see if it is regulated or cuts back. And if you have a good meter, ie Fluke 87 or 88, you can turn on the MIN/MAX record to record minumium and maximum voltages. And your GPS itself is set up to protect itself from some spikes also. Spikes will show up when a load it applied and released etc, ie stepping on the brake if you have a brake light switch etc. A capacitor will absorb the extra voltage (spikes) and then slowly release it back into the system. Anyway, hope this helps. ?

[Bigd450]

A little off topic of this post but a couple guys up here ice racing are running there heated grips off there front light. But when the grips are on high they draw too much power and then the light was too dim. What I was wondering is if it would be possible to build a little amp to boost the power to one of the outputs so then each will have enough power to run properly. Also does anybody know how much amp the battery on the wr450 puts out. I have a etrex gps that I want to hook to my bike but the gps has a max of 3 volts and a max of .5 watts. They sell the adapter for forty bucks but I doubt it would be hard to make maybe a couple resistors and a fuse. What would your take be on this toyota ?

[5spoke]

Assuming you will be running of the DC/Bat. side of the regulator. You need a 1watt 50ohm resitor(5x10ohm in series or better 2x100ohm in parallel=twice the wattage)in series with the GPS. This gives you 3.6V for your GPS. I'd put a 1watt in-line fuse in for safety.

Just check that the GPS is a 0.5watt and not .5Amp, cause that will make it totally different. ?

[Bigd450]

yep the max is 0.5watt which is 0.333amps and with the batteries i checked and it was drawing about 0.265amps. But how much amps does the yamaha battery put out. Or will that always be depending on other stuff. ?

[5spoke]

It's a 6Ah bat.

If the voltage is 3.6V devise(3 x ni-cad batts)your current should be 0.138A. If you are getting .265A its using about 1watt assuming your batteries are good and giving you 3.6V. The batteries might be bad and thus your voltage has dropped and the higher current.

At 0.138A, the batt. has plenty of juice to run a .5W device off for at least a 1 1/2 days by its self. When the bike is running you will be drawing current off the stator through the regulator, which is no problem given the low wattage of the device. Your battery will be charged a tiny bit slower than before.