Modern Vespa

So after freezing my little pinkies off commuting to work this last week when our temps suddenly plummeted 20 degrees and we got snow...I decided I had to have something to warm up with.

First off, before I get to engrossed in the tutorial...I thought I'd drop a quick review for one of the two items I bought: The Biker's Comfort Balaclava for $35.95 from Cyclegear. There's a pic below. It was a bit pricier than the others, but man, it WORKS GREAT. Has a fleece lined mouth area, a nice rubber weight/tag that tucks into the shirt or jacket and keeps the whole neck area covered even when turning your head in a helmet to look around. Very nice. End of plug.

So, while there, they had a good set of Heated Grips with a rotary dial heat setting for off, low-high with variations in between. They were on sell for $40 so I picked them up, having read the good reviews on effectiveness of heated grips lately. Considering these are 1/3-1/4 the price of heated gloves, don't need to be taken on and off every time I stop, I figured I'd give them a try.

So far, I've installed the grips. I'm planning on running them from the headlight relay so that they don't accidentally get left on. I got the 7/8 size types, but unlike some other brands..(these are TRACKSIDE), I found that the throttle side was a bit too tight. The left side went on without a snag, but the throttle side drove me furious before I finally shaved off the 'lip' of the throttle plastic to allow for it to go on. It wouldn't go all the way, so I had to shave off the guard with the knife and simply cutting gently around the handlebar, following the groove in the design. But my frustration may be your treasure, because what started off as an issue, actually came out, in my opinion, as a better looking heated grip. It appears more sleek to me, and I don't have the guard making it look like an ATV.

I plan on running the wires and setting up the switch along with some more pics tomorrow. Feel free to ask any questions. Here are the basic steps I took thus far:

1. Removed bar end weights. Carefully cut off old grips. Be careful to not cut into plastic on throttle side. Cut out hole in end of grips.
2. Applied grip glue to top of grip, spread evenly by twisting on new grips as far in as you can and aligning wiring so that it doesn't interfere with brakes. MAKE SURE BIG GRIP GOES ON THROTTLE SIDE.
3. Make sure that when you put on throttle side, that you don't get any glue between plastic and handlebars.
4. Used razor knife and carefully trimmed off 'end' guards.
5. Refitted bar end weights.

Now the next part will be all soldering, heat wraps, and running the switch.

nice work

Hey, Luthor... how is that new balaclava in the cold with the face shield down at a stop? Do you get any fogging problems? Does it get pretty damp from breath?

aslong as you use a pinlock its no problem and its so much warmer.

i have the version for the neck only

Nice work Luthor. You'll love the added warmth those grips will provide. I picked up a pair of Oxford Hot Hand and love them. Those are the kind that just wrap around the existing grips and since I'm lazy, install was a snap!

Hey Bravo...the Balaclava is the trick. At red lights, I don't get hardly any fogging, and it keeps the nose/mouth area really dry and warm. Honestly, it may be the best 35$ I've spent on the bike. I guess if there's any issue it's horrible helmet hair . I can solve that today with a nice haircut.

So anyways...I finished putting on the grip heaters. I'll give my honest review on everything:

Installation:

Well, in some ways this was easier, in some ways much much harder.

While the kit came with a nice switch and handlebar mounts, the mount was too small to mount on the beefy bars of the mp3. So this left me with a switch that was gonna be adhesive stripped to the dash. I decided that wouldn't work too well, constantly twisting and adjusting it, so I had to mod it to bolt to the dash, using the bar mount as a "sandwich". This allowed me to create a large size hole to poke all the wiring through. It sits a tad high, but still has enough clearance. At least you can't see the humongo wire that came out of it. It's not my best work, but it'll get me through winter and then I can lop the whole dash off and start over.


Heating:

Well, so far just standing in the parking lot and letting it heat up for 10 minutes, I'm thoroughly disappointed. I tried two routes. First, I wired it to the power supply to the middle 'cyclops' light and let it heat up for about 8-10 mins. It got to basically the same heat as a strong handshake. I thought it might be power supply, so next I hooked it straight to the battery and let it heat for about 6-8 mins. Same heat. I finally went back to the middle light supply and that's where it's hooked now. I can only hope that two things might be affecting it: Time(need to let it run longer) and Load/feedback(might get hotter once the engine/battery are working).

I'll make sure to let you guys know if its just not suited to short jaunts but gets hotter after 15+ minutes of riding.

Overall so far, I give it a 5 out of 10, but that's only because it was cheap and basically cost me a little more than if I'd just replaced the grips(which I needed to anyways). If the heat goes up on longer trips, it will definitely skyrocket the score too.

While there, moving cables, decided to grease all the connections too. Interestingly enough, found a splayed wire a bit, and also a dead spider. Maybe that explains the killswitch problems.

Also realized a great little mod that is gonna help out a lot, that some of you might want to beat me to the punch to(I'm gonna do it in a few weekends). Realized that there's a little bit of a sliver of crack between the switch housings. While buying the dielectric grease saw "gasket maker" in a tube. I plan on making a nice gasket for the edges of the housing and while I've got them apart, I'm gonna carbon fiber tape them for a similar look to enzodan.

Enjoy, and feel free to ask more questions/comment. It was interesting for sure...

Strange Luthorhuss. My Turtle Fur balaclava I bought when you and I were at Cherokee Cycles doesn't give me helmet hair at all. Yours looks warmer, but if one like it will give me helmet hair I'll stick with what I have.

I love my Oxford heated grips that look the same as yours except the controler. The Oxford has up and down buttons and 4 led lights to show what setting it is on. With regular leather motorcycle gloves and temperature in the 30s I cannot hold the bars tight if I am on the third setting. I have not tried the 4th setting. With insulated gloves I might use higher setting to get through the insulation. With regular gloves I feel like I could get frostbite on the back of my hands while burning the palms. On average I guess that is OK. Sounds like yours may not be getting the juice to the elements in the grips.

The cable coming from the throttle grip looks like the brake lever might interfere with it. I have mine rotated back a bit further in the throttle off position.

Another great turorial as you continue to set a high standard for us.

Yeah, the last pics are kinda confusing. There's the one pic with it the cable hanging down by the throttle. This is before the wiring was done. If you look at the pic of the left side and also the very last pic, you can see how I tucked them up by the brake reservoir. I was always watching for the throttle movement, thus the snipping, and tucking. It moves like there's no cable there, so it came out well.

I'm kinda sick about the whole thing though. I just went on a 20 min jaunt and had it set on full. Nothing but some glowy warmness on the grips when bare handed. Nothing with gloves on. They're definitely heating up, cos when I came out from eating, they were ice cold, and 20 mins later at home, they felt warm as in coffee mug warm(old coffee). But NOTHING you would ever feel in real cold. I'm at a loss...should I take them off and go back to the cycle shop, should I try and figure out why they're not heating? I don't have a clue about heating grips/electrical stuff and this is exactly why I had avoided getting them. But after the assurance of the cycle shop guy that they work well and fit easily, I went with them. At this point I'm ready to yank them off and feed them to my garbage disposal. Is there any easy way to check that they're functioning correctly?

If they are getting a little warm some current is getting through. I expect either there is a bad connection or the controler is not working properly. If bought from a local shop you might go by and get them to let you try connecting another controler to see if that heats them up. Since neither grip gets hot I would look for common ground which is the controler or prior to the controler.

At the risk of a true electrician like Jimc correcting me, I would think you should see something with a DC volt meter at the connections coming from the controler and turning the nob would change the voltage.

A good install.

You need gloves with thin palms to get the proper benefit of any heated grips. Have you measured the current they take when fully turned up and the engine charging the battery? Should be at least 3A - at least when directly connected to the battery (hopefully via a relay controlled by the headlight feed).

A couple of tips - to get the original grips off, slide a long thin screwdriver down them, and either spray in some WD40 and wiggle that screwdriver around, or blow in some compressed air. This way they can be re-installed if necessary.

The 'glans' at the end of the throttle grip always has to be cut off with a sharp craft knife.

Another good position for the controller is on the lower black part of the handle-bar mount, facing the rider. Just drill a couple of small holes and fix with a cable-tie.

Thanks, Jim. Although I'm not super happy with the controller position, I'm fine with it till I can fix the whole operation. No use worrying about that if the damnable grips won't heat well. I'll have to borrow or find a voltmeter to get the amps coming off it. I've got it wired to a relay, and the grips themselves have an inline fuse of 5A that is fine. I hope that in the process of twisting on the grips(which were tight) I didn't snap something. The thing that's troublesome is that they work, just not well. I'd almost rather they didn't work at all, then I'd know that something is broken. I'm gonna try calling the shop I got them from tomorrow, but to be honest, they're a group of baboons, who can't help much. They once mounted my rear 14" tire on the rim, rolled it out to deliver to me, AND THEN told me they were unable to balance tires and stille expected me to pay for the tire change!

Anyways, if anyone knows why a heated grip might be heating under power, but is up and running let me know. Like I said, I would immediately suspect something as simple as the light not producing enough power, but the same effect happened wired directly to the battery.

Thanks, Fuzzy, hadn't seen this when I responded to Jim's. I'm gonna try testing/monkeying around with it and the shop tomorrow. Hey, how long does it take for yours to go from off to hot?

I feel heat coming through my gloves within one to two miles of riding, 3 or 4 minutes at the most. In my driveway bare handed in one to two minutes.

Luther you need to connect to the battery not the lights, you will fry the wiring on the cyclops light.

Wayne B

Man I feel for you, it's the pits working for hours only to have something fail to perform. As I was reading your installation post I couldn't help comparing it with my own experiences with Hot Grips and how much easier they seemed to install. I've done 4 sets of them now and haven't had problem one on any of them including Red Dog's.

Jim mentioned he feels it's necessary to wear thin gloves to feel the heat. Without knowing what brand of grips he's used that might be so but never for Hot Grips. I wear a variety of gloves including a thick set of waterproof winter gloves and always feel the heat.

Maybe this is one of those cases where you get what you pay for? Saving money is great but not at the expense of living with a product that doesn't do a good job. I think I'd haul my ashes back to the dealer and ask for a replacement set poste haste as somethings dreadfully wrong. Your installation looked like you were following directions although I wondered about having to trim the grips to fit? That's something I've never had to do so maybe that brand uses the "one size fits all" approach?

If your dealer gives you the option of returning your money (and he should) maybe you should consider spending the extra bucks for another brand, I think it might be a good move. Just my babbling...

Good luck

LL75

It definitely takes a few minutes for them to heat up at first - their first hurdle is heating up the handlebar itself (LHS) and your throttle grip is likely to be less insulated by your gloves because that's where the front brake is.

They must be fed direct from the battery though, and expect performance at idle to be far less (by up to 50%) then when over say 3000 rpm and the battery has been fully charged and at >14V rather than <12V.

I heard a tip the other day, but I have not tried it yet. A guy was saying on the radio that he wore surgical latex gloves under his motorcycle gloves and his hands stayed very warm. Cheap to try.
Here it will be 6 degree f tonight--nothing will keep you warm!

Problem with that is your hands can't breath and they will get wet.

Wayne B

I dunno Jim, I truly hate to disagree with you, especially on anything having to do with scoots but on this point I do. I've done heated grips sets both ways, picking up power at a feed point that's supported by wiring of adequate size with fusing that will support the devices and also at the battery as you recommend. If care is taken to select a proper power supply point there is no absolute need for going all the way back to the battery. I've yet to burn up any wiring and I've put some of my beasties through some really terrible times. Maybe I've just been lucky? Nahh...

LL75

BTW in a review of the grips somone posted they take 10 minutes to heat up so I would say definitely less heat output than the Oxford ones I have, but the reviews also said they work to keep hands warm below freezing.

Looked around the cyclegear web page. They do say 100% satisfaction guarantee. On a review of another item the comment was "terrible". The cyclegear response was "Why don't you take advantage our our 100% guarantee?" You won't get your time back but you may get your money back. Don't let them resist on having trimmed them because the web page says they need to be trimmed for bar end weights.

Also rubbing alcohol cuts the "grip glue", another reason not to use "epoxy" on grips! Never know when you need to replace them. I have used normal grip glue on electric grips with all good results. Harbor freight sells a cheap multimeter for like $10, better then nothing.

Hairspray is an excellent glue for heated grips BTW.

If that feed point is already feeding a few amps to something else (headlights?) then there will already be a voltage drop down it. Take some more current, some more voltage drops.

At low (sub-zero) temps these grips need all the power they can consume - that means a very low resistance feed straight back to the battery. Even a 1V drop will make a big difference in power output. (V^2/R etc)

I knew the electrical engineer in Jimc would kick in on this one. Perhaps his explanation is why the leads that come with the grips have a connector made to attach to the battery post. Picture from Cyclegear web page shows the connection on the coiled wire in the left of the picture.

You may try a temporary running of wire direct from the battery and see if they got hotter. If it works you more than the rest of us know how to get the pannels off to route the wire.

Mine will not run the battery down if left on for 3 hours. They will run it down if left on for 8 hours. (Ask me how I know.) I plan to hook a relay up to the tail lights which is the easiest thing to get to from the pet carrier area. Then only with the key on will they get power. As long as I don't leave the key on with the eingine off for more than 3 hours I won't have a battery problem.

Jim I assume using a relay will not yield a significant voltage drop to reduce the effectiveness of my heated grips?

My Man,

Voltage drop....a series wiring issue, not parallel as in this case. An adequate sized wire feeding a point wherein two devices are fed simultaneously will not result in a voltage drop as you suggest. The total current demand will reflect the devices requirements but nothing more. The system doesn't really care where you tap into it as long as the power source is capable of supporting the total load.

You may refer to the most basic of laws in electronics P=IE. Unless something's recently changed in our world that's the way of it. Ohm...Ohm...Ohmmmm...

LL75

A relay won't add any measurable (in sensible macro terms) resistance - and well worth using.

Well, at least the install has made for some interesting conversation about heated grips ...I foresee someone being directed to this post every winter lol.

So here's a couple of points:

1. I DID hook it straight to the battery before install. Let it run for about 10 minutes with the same effect as to the cyclops light power.

2. I don't have to worry about it taking a drop in voltage....I don't have a cyclops light on my bike .

3. I've come to the conclusion after another test ride that the problem isn't OHM, it's POS. :p

4. So, luckily I'm taking my butt back down to cycle gear tomorrow or Tuesday and saying, I want my damn money back. I'll likely have to explain to the guy that the grips are POS and that they had to be trimmed for the bar weights(as the site AND the back of the packaging say). I'll then have to figure out if they want me to cut them off and deliver a pile of rubbish right at their door, or if a simple check in the parking lot will confirm that I need new grips. They probably can't order the Hot Hands, so I'll likely replace with normal grips and then order the wrap ons myself.

Fuzzy, can you send you post a link to yours and can Larry do the same...it'd be nice to compare what will be my next attempt...

Go here, spend big: http://www.hotgrips.com/ They work, right out of the box. If you're feeling flush go for the variable heat controller, it works. If you want to see how I did it on Red Dog goto the blog. Buy 'em, you won't be sorry.

rotsaruck,

LL75

Which model no.?

Here 'tis, right off my invoice:

Hot Grips model 475-875 - Kit - for 7/8" handlebars - Piaggio

Do it!

LL75

Luthor, suggest you check all your options before committing to a specific heated handgrip type. I did some research and the hotgrips LL75 recommends are definitely a good choice, but permanent and spendy, whereas the oxfords like fuzzy has can be removed for the summer (and are cheaper). There's also the permanent mylar type that are installed under your existing handgrips, which are detailed in other threads here (like this from Gilk51: 500 farkles (mods) ). At customedynamics.com I found handlebar inserts that heat from the inside, but they won't work with the Mp3 - damn clever tho!

I found the exact hotgrips for the Mp3 available on ebay with a very different controller than that direct from hotgrips, but both look like good choices. Regardless of your selection, its wise to use a relay that's only active with engine on to provide power to them, and best to have a good direct, fused battery feed. A relay controlled fuse block, also detailed in other threads here, is a very good approach.

Personally I have not yet decided but definitely need heated handgrips myself, and I like the hotgrips (LL75's blog on installing them is helpful). The bagster muffs I have work really well but when below 40F they are inadequate after twenty minutes for me due to arthritis; but combined with hotgrips I think I will be more than comfy!

Cheerio,
B24

I got mine from Twisted Throttle: http://www.twistedthrottle.com/trade/productview/5220

Grips automatically shut off if battery voltage drops below 11.5V. Not enough left to start engine but doesn't ruin the battery. 4 levels of heat is enough variability in setting. Won't turn on by accident as the button must be held for 2 seconds.

Luthorhuss.
I waited until I got to the turn on the highway to turn my grips on this morning. Outside temp 42F inidcated with 3 bars on temp gage. Speed 110 kph indicated. At 1.1 mile I could start to feel a temperature change through my gloves and by 2.5 miles they were warm. On setting 2 of 4. Higher setting will get hot faster.

If you want the real hot grips order them from the man who design and manufacture them right gere in the USA http://www.hotgrips.com/
Jim Hollander is the real deal. He also has a procedure that will allow the removal of the left grip and then for the right one you take the whole throttle twist tube off and install your spare one for summer grips.

+1 on the Oxford Hot Hand wraps. Install is a frickin' snap and they are HOT! I actually have to turn them off for a few minutes to let my hands cool off.

Pros: removable, super easy install, HOT HOT HOT, no alteration to current grips

Cons: wraps add some bulk to the grips, no adjustability to the heat output; they're either on or off, lots of extra wire to tuck, wrap, or hide, switch is kind of a pain to place and is pretty small (hard to hit sometimes with bulky gloves)

http://www.oxprod.com/index.php?pg=3&action=dept&id=30&pid=175

This is really bugging me, WHY in the world would you want to remove your heated grips during the summer? Or any other time of year for that matter? Hot Grips, at least the ones I've always used are slightly larger than most stock grips but they're certainly not huge and they're comfortable to ride with. So what's the story?

LL75

For me, I actually like the stock grips on my bike, so I was hesitant to cut them off to add a more permanent solution. With the wraps, I can pull them off, and tuck the wiring away for the warmer months and have my factory grips back without much fuss. To each their own, of course, but that's my story.

for me I like a softer style grip. Currently using a gel type. The heated grips typically are a hard type rubber and are not as forgiving for vibration damping.

Which is why you shouldn't ever cut the original grips off. There should be no instruction on the hot-grips installation notes to do so, and if there is, complain bitterly.

Yah, I just decided and ordered up a set of the Oxford wraps, based on this, careful research, oldspice's comments, and a Ouija board. I don't want to cut the original grips off and I may want to remove the heated ones for use elsewhere, or sell them. I will see if I can modify the wiring and controls a bit to better suit installation too. Between these and the bagsters I should be good to go - but not on a day like today... temp at home this morning was 12F. That's too bloody cold for me!