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Message started by Houston_Toad on 01/14/06 at 16:52:20

Title: Electronic accessory
Post by Houston_Toad on 01/14/06 at 16:52:20

Anyone put an electronic accessory on their Savage?

For $200, I've just installed on my S40, a trip meter, odometer, speedometer, clock, compass and oh yes, a mapping GPS. The unit is "hard wired" to the bike's electrical system.

Here is a picture of it installed.

http://home.earthlink.net/~houstontoad2/Bike_GPS.jpg

And a close up---

http://home.earthlink.net/~houstontoad2/GPS-V.jpg

The tracking feature records the time, location, and speed of the trip.

http://home.earthlink.net/~houstontoad2/TrackSample.gif

Since there is no accessories mode, I want to fix (once the warranty runs out) the

headlight, so it doesn't light unless the motor is running.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by sluggo on 01/14/06 at 17:03:42

interesting add on. how will it hold up in inclement wx.
i sure wouldn't leave it outside anywhere.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Houston_Toad on 01/14/06 at 17:11:45

The mount is a quick disconnect and without batteries it doesn't weigh very much.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by torque on 01/14/06 at 17:21:51

that looks really cool! garmin makes a great product ;).

the only electronic accessory i'd put on my bike would be a cig lighter ;D

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by sluggo on 01/14/06 at 17:40:34

torque wrote:

that looks really cool! garmin makes a great product ;).

the only electronic accessory i'd put on my bike would be a cig lighter ;D

i was going to say something like that also, but houston toad is a newbee and i didn't want to sound harsh. the rest of you know my thoughts about add ons. if it don't make the machine go/stop or legally required, it gets stripped off. :o

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by lancer on 01/14/06 at 17:56:21

I will shortly be adding the Veypor motorcycle computer. When it goes on the current speedo and tach are gone. Hopefully this will happen within a couple of weeks.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Richard Amiault on 01/14/06 at 18:37:23

Nice job! ... I own an earlier version of that .. the Garmin III .. but I use that in the car to feed my ham radio with my current location.

I found a deal on the Garmin E-Map (discontinuted for a while now) .. added a memory card and bought Garmin's CD with street level maps .. then was lucky enough to find a bicycle mount for it .. so it (the mount anyway) is on the Savage. I don't use it much .. but it's nice to have the option. (acutally the E-Map spends most of it's time in the car .. yes, I have two in the car .. because the detail of the E-Map maps is better than the III .. plus the III is not is a easy position to view while driving)

For the bike I didn't bother to hard wire it in, so I use the internal batteries on the Garmin.

One problem is that more than once when I tried using it .. the darn thing shut itself off in the middle of the ride .. I'm not sure why.

Nice thing about it is the Garmin is *purple* and so is the bike;-) (2004)

Richard in Boston, MA, USA

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by sluggo on 01/14/06 at 18:42:41

Richard Amiault wrote:

One problem is that more than once when I tried using it .. the darn thing shut itself off in the middle of the ride .. I'm not sure why.

Richard in Boston, MA, USA

i believe it's a vibration or sudden shock. next time it shuts off see if it corralates to a recent bump in road.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Richard Amirault on 01/14/06 at 21:57:08

Cant' really do that ... got to keep my eyes on the road! Can only glance down once in a while at the GPS .. or else I'd be Road Rash ;-)

Richard in Boston, MA, USA

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Jim_R on 01/14/06 at 22:34:18

I did like my electronic speedo and almost miss it. It was nice to have a tripometer but I dont think all that gps stuff is needed for me personally. It would be ideal on long trips and u did a nice job. I got my sigma because the speedo is in the tank and I got sick of looking down everytime I wanted to see how fast I was going.

I think I might reinstall it and maybe a cig lighter too.
If I broke down it would be nice to use it if my phone was dead.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by threezukes on 01/15/06 at 07:39:15

That looks like a great add on, but I'm poor so I have to stick with my $10 bicycle speedometer, which I think is one of the better mods that I have done to the bike. I no longer guess at how far I've gone since that last fill up. The clock also comes in handy too.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by LondonThing on 01/15/06 at 09:38:24

I have a darn European clock in Km/h... Yes we have Mph here in the UK, LMAO :P

Iv been trying to roll back my Mph clock to the right milage for the motor, but it would take about a year on a drill...

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by LondonThing on 01/15/06 at 09:39:46

Toatally agree with you there...

Altho the GPS does come off... in which case you could get rid of the Clock and fill in the hole ;-)

sluggo wrote:

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Reelthing on 01/17/06 at 05:47:40

Richard Amiault wrote:

One problem is that more than once when I tried using it .. the darn thing shut itself off in the middle of the ride .. I'm not sure why.

Had one in a marine application that could take the pounding but not the heat - it would shutdown anytime the air temp was near 100f

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Houston_Toad on 01/17/06 at 12:57:43

Richard Amiault wrote:

For the bike I didn't bother to hard wire it in, so I use the internal batteries on the Garmin.

One problem is that more than once when I tried using it .. the darn thing shut itself off in the middle of the ride .. I'm not sure why.

That is one reason I hard wired the unit. I noticed that if I jar the unit, it shuts off. I think its the heavy batteries momentarily loosing connection.

Reelthing wrote:

Had one in a marine application that could take the pounding but not the heat - it would shutdown anytime the air temp was near 100f

I have a GPS 12 (now for 7 years) that I keep in my truck just inside the windshield. It also is hard wired to the battery and stays on all the time. When it sets in the "Texas" sun, it gets so hot (the unit is black) that the display disappears, but once it cools down everything looks and works OK.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by SirWilhelm on 01/18/06 at 18:27:32

Richard
The GPS V and others have a unique but similar feature. They have two boards inside that are not hard wired together. In the 60CS there were three points that were spring loaded (like in some of the hand helds (VHF/UHF). Two points are the +/- for the batteries. The other I found was a backup battery that was hard soldered on one side and the other side was pushed onto the other board when the case was closed. I think that it was popping away from the board and not keeping continuity, so I put a piece of wire insulation tubing (like you use to cover wire joins, the heat shrink stuff or the firmer stuff) between the other board and the battery forcing it firmly onto the second board. And then scored the two copper points on board 2 that the copper/brass joints pushed against for the battery terminals. And bent the flaps more so they had more pressure against the board. And then back together and onto S40 and no problems. I have read where a service center does hard wiring for the GPS V for this same problem. You might try looking inside and see if you have a similar setup. I know some of the older handi-talkies were like that, and if you were running or on a bike or M/C they would lose power. And it was that the man'f had not hard wired one side to the other. Most now have ribbon cables that come lose and cause problems (planned obsolescence so you buy a new one).
Stay warm on Bahstun. We hit 72 again today and expect 80 tomorrow. My ham buddy in Maine sent an email after his generator came on after the ice and snow got his power lines.
Bill
WB5ZAM
In the wilds of West Texas
2005 S40 (LS650-K5, or so they say that is what the new designator is).

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Jim_R on 01/20/06 at 20:19:14

Hey tomorrow I am going to mount a cig lighter on my bike. I thought it could do 3 things I need. 1) provide a lighter when I need one. 2) I can plug in my phone and charge it or use it when my phone is dead. 3) I can charge the battery with my battery charger thru a male adapter that plugs into the socket. Its so hard to get to those terminals ya know. I think Ill reinstall my sigma too.

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by simplyput2600 on 02/02/06 at 10:16:09

where did you tap into to get power for the gps, i just added a garmin etrex legend to my savage and i want to hardwire it but i dont know how to go about doing it?

Title: Re: Electronic accessory
Post by Houston_Toad on 02/03/06 at 08:14:39

simplyput2600 wrote:

where did you tap into to get power for the gps, i just added a garmin etrex legend to my savage and i want to hardwire it but i dont know how to go about doing it?

My Garmin draws less than 1/10 of an amp. ie you can probably put it most anywhere. The power cable that came with my unit had a fuse in it & I think I clipped it onto one of the 2 20 amp fuses that are on the bike. The power is on all the time. I'm going to change things once the warranty runs out on the bike to being powered up only when the key is on. (I'm going to change the headlight that it only lites when the engine is running.) Send me a private mail message and I'll send you some pictures and a diagram.