Born in Salatiga, Indonesia, I embraced the joy of motorcycle riding in Australia. My bikes are Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R, Yamaha R6, Kawasaki GPz900R, Kawasaki GPz750, Kawasaki Tengai, Kawasaki KLR250, and Viar Vortex 250
Km. 99700, burned wires on stator. Reading was 1,5ohms, 4 ohms, and 4.5 ohms. Soldered the burned wire (2 of them) and returned to normal meter reading, 0.5ohms. Vac output is a good 47v at 4000 rpm
Mount Telomoyo was active so we went for a look and rode through Cepogo - Selo - New Selo - Blabak. Continued to the southern coast of Java: Parang Tritis - Baron - Krakal - Kukup. Went home via Wonosari.
I ran the wire through the grip, isolate using a piece of bicycle tyre rubber, and then wound it back inside. Once completed I taped the whole thing.
At first attempt I used only insulation tape, which did not hold and produce some amount of smoke !!
Wound the wire to the inside. Took some trials to get the correct gaps. Pull it enough so it grips nicely. Remember that hot wire will increase in length.
Tape the whole grip to prevent water and moisture. I replaced the insulation tapes in the picture here with gaffa tape (cloth tape) at the end because it is more water resistant.
Do the same for the throttle grip, allowing cable slack. I also tied the cable to secure the connections.
Seems like winter came early this year in Melbourne so I decided to do something about my numb fingers. Off to the shop, ebay, and such and could not find anything good and cheap enough. Oxford handgrip looks to be the most common but it's $149 and looks like farken harley grips... big and chromy.
So a quick search on Google "DIY heated handgrips" found nice instruction to make a cheap one.
Bill of material (all from Dick Smith Electronics):
4 metre packet of “Cuprothal” resistance wire Part number. W 3200 about $2 (Note: the other option is“Nichrome” wire which is a bitch to solder)
Three-way switch (off-on-off), about $3from Dick Smith, also with the waterproof hood, $3.
Buy also a fuse holder.
Other stuff I already have are bicycle inner tube rubber (for insulation), soldering iron, solder, wire, insulation tape, etc……
The design I found on the internet is quite genius. It doesn't utilise a nasty hot resistor but simply connect the heater in parallel (for high temp) and serial (for low).
The desired heat is 18watts per grip which is the commercial norm, this translates to 8ohm worth of Cuphrotal wire -- approximately 1.2 meter in length per grip.
Update: I ended up not using this serial-parallel setup as the heat difference is too much. Simpler to use serial connection with 5W 1.3 ohms resistor.
Dave arrived from UK. I Led 5 bikes (steve, michael -gold coast, Dave-UK, me, steve) through Sorrento - queenscliff - Lorne - Anglesea. Back through Geelong. Rainy and wet but beautiful rainbows all over the place!
First ever track day. Phillip Island is the fastest track in MotoGP and it is very intimidating. I glanced an indicated 240kph at the end of the front straight.