Headlights blink when I wear heated vest on motorcycle

I bought a heated vest from Gerbings which draws about 77 wats or 7amps of 12V power. It has this low tech thermostat that keeps turning on and off every second or twice a second to regulate the power that goes to the vest and thereby the heat. There is an LED tha blinks on and off that is the indicator. If you turn it up it just blinks faster until it goes full solid (no on/off).

The problem is that when it is going on/off my headlights lose and then gain brightness. Its probably the shock or surge when the circuit is turned on off on and so forth repeatedly.

What kind of circuit could I use to prevent this? I am pluggin into the cigarette lighter called a BMW power outlet.

Do you think this would damage the alternator or battery if I leave it like this?

This is the vest:

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This is the temp controller.

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Any ideas would be appreciated.

Reply to
ImOk
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What model of motorcycle are you riding? My BMW 1995 R1100R has a 50 amp alternator that regulates the battery voltage very precisely, in spite of load changes. If you are overloading the alternator with the

7 amp load, you must expect the voltage to fall when the heater is on and return to normal when it is off. But a 7 amp load would be a non event on my bike after a few milliseconds. Perhaps your alternator needs new brushes.
Reply to
John Popelish

Im riding a Triumph Bonneville America 2004. I doubt the alternator is bad.

But if you had something flickering on and off every second drawing 7 amps wouldnt you be noticing it on your bike?

Do you think a plain old variable resistor would work. Like the ones they have in houses for dimming lights?

Thanks

Reply to
ImOk

I have to look at the schematic to see how this thing is routed. But that may be something to try.

Thanks

Reply to
ImOk

Yes, unlikely for such a new bike.

I wear heated clothing all winter and have never noticed any effect. My vest has an electronic on off control based on temperature at one point in the vest, but the cycle time is in the 10s of seconds. Same with the gloves. My helmet heater is continuously regulated besed on PTC thermistor heater elements. No cycle from them. But then, my alternator is large enough to run 4 halogen headlights and more. BMW finally faced the fact that people want to add all kinds of electric gear to their bikes and designed in a capable alternator.

I think you should first check up on the alternator spec. It may be designed for the current the bike uses, and little else. If this is the case, you could look into a switching regulator that converts high volts at low amperes into lower volts at higher amperes with an adjustable output voltage. That would eliminate the visible cycles and also reduce the current load, once the heat reached equilibrium and you turned the control down from maximum. But even if you just altered the present design (assuming it uses a mosfet switch to control the current, not a contact) to make the timing cycle very short (a few milliseconds per cycle, say, for 100 or so cycles per second) you could eliminate the visible flicker pretty well. The LED would appear to be on all the time, but with varying brightness.

Reply to
jpopelish

Wire a heavy load to get its power as directly as possible from the battery, as when installing a headlight relay on an old car.

Reply to
kell

On 31 Oct 2005 18:55:25 -0800, via , "ImOk" spake thusly:

You need a new, higher capacity battery and a more powerful regulator to handle the added load of your jacket. Or, you could be stoic and consider that you've added a headlight modulator at no extra cost.

Ride safe.

Reply to
Big Mouth Billy Bass

On 1 Nov 2005 07:51:57 -0800, via , "ImOk" spake thusly:

Ah. A Triumph. Did you know you can buy smoke in a jar for Triumph motorcycles? It's for putting back into the electrics after the original smoke escapes. Seriously, get the bike checked out, you might have a dying battery, or some other malfunction of the electrics. FWIW, I ride (perhaps I should say "store") a '98 Triumph Tiger, so I feel your pain.

Reply to
Big Mouth Billy Bass

Low-tech solution: wire the outlet via a more direct route to to the altenator.

hi-tech solution: dump the low tech thermostat and go with one that does pulse-width modulation or similar, although at 11A that'd be non-trivial (not a beginners project anyway)

it's using about as much power as your headlight probably uses, so on a well-egineered machine like the BMW i'd say no.

--
Bye.
   Jasen
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Reply to
Jasen Betts

"John Popelish" wrote

Wow, that's pretty stout for a motorcycle. 32A is common for a modern geezer glide Harley, AIUI my Sportster only has a 22A system. That's at max output, not what you get at idle speeds. I could see where a 7A load toggling on and off might be noticable.

Hmm, brushes? I don't know how yours works, but mine has a multipole stator with a permanent magnet rotor that surrounds the stator sort of like a brake drum. That part operates in scalding hot oil. The wires come out of the engine and lead to an external voltage regulator that contains, I assume, a bridge rectifier amongst other goodies. Perhaps you have a generator?

Reply to
Anthony Fremont

(snip)

Many Japanese bikes and Harleys have the permanent magnet AC generator you describe, so the regulator has to deal with the full output current.

The BMW has an ordinary looking automotive alternator sitting on top of the engine driven by a multi groove belt. Look at the alternator on top of any Subaru engine and you will see what it looks like. In fact, the two cylinder engine looks like the front two cylinders of the Subaru engine. The brushes connect the excitation current from the regulator (solid state, inside the alternator, in the case of the alternator) to the wound rotor through a pair of slip rings, just like in most modern automotive alternators. It is rated 35 amps at idle,

50 amps maximum.

My wife's Suzuki alternator is a permanent magnet, crank shaft mounted type like you describe, and it has a big, external, heat sink mounted regulator, that rectifies and SCR phase controls the output to the electrical system. It is designed such that the bike's electrical system just about uses all the current it produces at speed, and a bi less than the bike uses at idle. If this is similar to the Triumph in question, then, at idle, at least, the vest is bound to sag the battery when it comes on.

Reply to
John Popelish

Better yet, as close to the alternator output as possible. that, after all is where the current comes from.

Reply to
John Popelish

variable resistors aren't used for dimming lights, and those dimmers don't work with DC.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

Haven't seen your original post, but wonder where the take off point for your vest is - eg if it and the lights were on a common wire, then you might be getting a voltage drop across that feeder.

Perhaps as an experiment you could try attaching the vest directly to your battery instead of where it is now, (couple of battery clips or such) and see if the problem persists.

David

Reply to
quietguy

That is my plan to try it on the battery directly. It came with its own battery clips, but I figured it would be easier to plug in to the power outlet of course.

Reply to
ImOk

I dont have any problems with the Triumph nor any pain (except from riding it too much and too fast). You are perhaps thinking of the old Lucas stuff. Long and gone.

This machine is superb compared to similar machines out there. Everything works fine, including running lights, car horns, headlights. Even the jacket works fine at full power (always on). The problem is the low tech system Gerbing uses (on/off every second to control the temperature). 7A is a lot of power to draw on and off constantly without a momentary brownout.

Anyway, the generator is rated at 27Amps. I dont think I am using all that.

Reply to
ImOk

You have my sympathy. Electric heat is lovely on a bike in winter. I ride all winter in the state of Virginia, except when there is snow on the roads (and sometimes I get caught on that).

Reply to
John Popelish

When I rode a motorbike in the UK all I had was a couple of extra pairs of trousers and some gloves! My helmet was a WW2 tank hat with holes all over it!

R >
Reply to
Roger Dewhurst

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