Motorcycles and Blown Fuses

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Anonymous Poster	Motorcycles and Blown Fuses 01/14/2009 8:16 AM
	Hi, i have a bizarre problem!!! i am a motorcyclist and i recently bought heated vest and a pair of gloves. The kit comprises of a small y-splitter which goes to a fuse cable connected to the bikes battery(ring terminals) on one end and has a parallel connection from vest and gloves on the other end. The gloves wiring consists of a long splitter harness which connects on to the y-splitter i had mentioned. The other terminal end of small y-splitter(not to be confused with glove harness) is connected to plug from vest. all was fine till recently the fuse started blowing up. the system is 12V rated at 5A. the fuse is 10A rated. I found damaged harness. i replaced it with new ones assuming it to be working fine. to my disappointment, this problem persisted for some time. i tried changing fuses but with no joy. I consulted bike's manufacturer on this issue but they could not find any flaws with the system. i sent the whole system back to manufacturer for their analysis on the fault but they returned back claiming the kit to be working fine. i could not get a way round this. Any suggestions? would be very much appreciated...
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charsley99 Guru Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: New Jersey U.S.A. Posts: 1114 Good Answers: 38	#1 Re: blowing fuses 01/14/2009 8:56 AM
	Two issues. Were the gloves part of the system when you bought the vest? If not you may need a larger fuse. Issue 2. Is the fuse rated for slow blow, or is it a fast blow fuse? Some fuses will allow for a little more tolerance during start up procedures when amperage is at its greatest. One small test you may consider trying. Attach a ohm meter to the vest's wiring with the gloves and check the reading. Put it on and move around as if you were controlling your throttle and clutch. Watch the reading on the meter and see if it spikes. If it does you may have worn intermittent wiring in the vest or gloves themselves and need replacing. If this happens attach the meter to each piece separately and see which one is the culprit. Good Luck! __________________ The last fight was my fault. My wife asked "What's on the TV?" I said "Dust!"
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victovar Active Contributor Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 17	#5 In reply to #1 Re: blowing fuses 01/16/2009 4:32 AM
	hi Charley thanks for your comments. i did try as you had suggested. there were no spikes or variations found in the ohmeter. This has been a real pain in the neck. i dunno how to proceed further. ;( Cheers
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naturalextraction Power-User Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: latitude, 35.080N. longitude -106.387W. Abq. N.M. Posts: 236 Good Answers: 17	#2 Re: Motorcycles and Blown Fuses 01/14/2009 2:52 PM
	I agree with Charsly99 and would encourage you to try that and to also move your body around a bit as well. I'm assuming you have the type where the wires go accross your shoulder area. I also ad: A friend of mine had the same problem to find out that it was the temp controller that usually reads High-medium-low was bad. The controller was replaced and the fuses quit blowing. He fortunetly didn't go to a higher rated fuse in fear of burning out a wire in the vest. I didn't see where you have a controller with your vest but they often have one. Agreed, the wires can get a break in them if the vest is old or worn regularly. Good luck. __________________ ...the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. -- Cicero , 55 BC
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Anonymous Poster	#3 Re: Motorcycles and Blown Fuses 01/15/2009 3:23 AM
	Hi, did you look for moisture in the system as that too can cause shorts to and blowen fuses as if there is enough body moisature, it may cause a short and as long as the moisture is there it will cause the system to short out and keep blowing fuses. Michael at witch1@shaw.ca
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bwire Guru Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Upper Mid-west USA Posts: 7498 Good Answers: 97	#4 Re: Motorcycles and Blown Fuses 01/15/2009 4:50 PM
	I connected mine via fuseable link directly to the battery and never a trouble. __________________ If death came with a warning there would be a whole lot less of it.
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Klotski Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Moorhead MN USA Posts: 5	#6 Re: Motorcycles and Blown Fuses 01/23/2009 12:26 AM
	Guest I would contact the manufacture and ask them for the specs on each of the gloves and the vest, usually this will be a resistance in ohms that can be checked with your volt ohm meter. the specs should give you a low and a high resistance. if any are out of that spec they are bad. the other thing you can do is check each item individually, i am assuming that they have individual plug-ins. Will the fuse blow with just the gloves plugged in? Will the fuse blow with just the vest plugged in? do both the gloves and vest need to be plugged in for the fuse to blow? indicating the fuse is to small. you can also try hooking them up individually to the battery with jumper wires with a inline fuse and through the process of elimination you should be able to find out where the problem is. As others have mentioned while you are testing make sure that you are taking them through a range of motion. Regards Paul __________________ Never regert anything you do, don't do anything you will regert.
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Anonymous Poster (1); bwire (1); charsley99 (1); Klotski (1); naturalextraction (1); victovar (1)

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