DIY Heated Handgrips: part one

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.