Auxiliary Wiring Harness

RossKean

Well-Known Member
I have been looking at options for wiring accessories for my F700GS. At the moment, I have a fused SAE pigtail for battery charger and air compressor wired directly to the battery. BMW has a DIN socket beside the ignition key but that is limited to 5 amps - not enough for heated gear but suitable to run a voltmeter/USB charger combo I got for cheap on eBay. I was planning to put another DIN (Powerlet) socket on the other side and wire that to the battery (possibly via a relay so it isn't live all the time). I would use it for my heated jacket liner - controller has a Powerlet male plug on it.
Then, I started thinking about auxiliary lighting for the future plus whatever else I might want to add and decided I REALLY didn't want that much junk hanging off the battery.
Note: The BMW has a switched socket for their GPS NAV which I can use for my Zumo so I don't need a separate circuit for that.
I have a Fuzeblock FZ1 on my FJR and looking around, I couldn't find a spot to put it on the F700GS except in the tail and really didn't want multiple wire runs from front to rear of the bike. Besides, the cost of the FZ1 is now $100 USD plus tax, shipping and exchange. (A lot more than when I bought one a number of years ago.)

I posted the rest of this on ADVRider but thought the information might be of interest to people here who might want to add additional circuits without ending out with a rat's nest of wires. Especially where space might be limited for a fuseblock of some sort.

I was just perusing the Eastern Beaver site - looking at their PC8 and PC8R fuseblocks. Comparable to the Fuzeblock FZ1 in size, function and cost (maybe marginally smaller). Still a tight squeeze, but I also came across a couple of other solutions that I think will work much better on the F700GS or F800GS. It is essentially a wiring harness with a built in relay, fuses and connectors but no case. Relatively inexpensive and will take very little space. There is a three circuit solution and a four circuit solution. Each has one unswitched circuit for battery tender (or compressor) and two or three relay-switched circuits. This is the link to the fuseblock and wiring harness page:
Quality Fuseboxes and Wiring Kits (easternbeaver.com)

And individual pages for the 3 and 4 wire harness options. (Note: One and two circuit solutions also available)
3CS-HD (easternbeaver.com)
4 Circuit (easternbeaver.com)

This is the four circuit kit for $60 (US):
Individual connectors supplied, Positap for trigger, built-in relay, switched and unswitched lines fused separately, each individual circuit is also fused. At least water resistant - more so than fuseblocks.

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The only downside is that the Switched side is fused at 20 amps total and 12 amps max per circuit. Relay is also only 20 amp max. Conceivably, you could run out of power with heated gear and a set of high performance driving lights - probably running out of stator output by that point as well. Forget about running the espresso machine! Edit: 15 amps max for unswitched side and 35 amps total for the device.)

The three circuit version allows up to 15 amps per circuit but still only 35 amp total (corrected from 30 amp). The main advantage is that the relay for the switched side is rated at 40 amps (although you can still only use 30.

Since I am connecting my GPS to the BMW connector, I really only need switched outputs for heated gear and aux. lighting.

They recommend adding a "diode kit" to the trigger wire to prevent EMF feedback from the coil when the field collapses which may be harmful to bikes with CANBus systems. (Their comment, not mine.)

Added note: They also sell a "splitter" which could take one of the switched (or unswitched) outputs and make an extra if you had low power requirements for some accessories.
 
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