As I write this I feel exposed by being quite out of my depth on some of this technicalities. @GeorgeO inspired me to try get my heated grips working with pads wired into the OE heated wiring. Before ploughing in changing the Grips on my 2014 twin spark, I thought I'd check what I've got and it went from not working, no apparent current passing thru any of the 4 wires to the grips, to working (grips getting hot), and back to not working. Believing one of the 4 wirers should have had some power thru it, I checked them by running them to earth with the Multimeter on 20A, the result was no reading (expecting a 2 or 3 amps of current.. But if I set the Multimeter at 200mA then I got a reading of 47 (+/- 2) on the readout on the black wire entering the left grip. So I paired the wire back to a couple of inches from the connector (hoping it was a problem with the wire) took another reading and this time got a reading of 50 +/- 2 with the Multimeter set at 200mA. I dont know wether to conclude I'm doing something wrong or there is a something wrong with the loom providing power to the grips. Any help or advice much appreciated. Thank you in advance. TB
I believe the heat settings are controlled by pulse width modulation to achieve the 3 heat settings (power is chopped on and off and the duration of on vs off /frequency of change effects the duty cycle). A normal multimeter is not going to measure volts or amps correctly. Some of the measures I took before installing the kit was using the kit as supplied and connecting it straight to a spare battery (no modulation of course etc). Measure the resistance. If there is resistance you should have a completed circuit. Make sure both connection plugs lh and rh is properly seated (might mean removing tank to ensure harness is not damaged.
Well big thanks to @GeorgeO for the inspiration and also for helping when I got into difficulties. Georges input explained what was going wrong trying to measure amps from the bike and when I put an independant power onto the job it became clear that the Throttle grip heat pad had failed. Also, when I got the grip off the failure seemed identical to the one in @JohnWesterman's video. Getting the throttle tube off was a bit of a puzzle but soon became clear how the wires are routed within the twist grip. I found space very limited within the twist grip assembly and as the wires from the cheap pads were thicker getting them inside was a no go, and as I believe the subassembly containing the wiring for the grips also provides the closing and opening stops for the throttel movement I felt that modification was a no. So I just kept the new wires outside the assembly. Along the way I had the tank off and I now have some spade connectors between the OE connectors and the grips making for easier future access for replacements. Well, I'm not the neatest solderer so its not a Piccsaso, but for 7 quid I now have heated grips . I decided not to replace the LH heat pad so I've got a spare for future.
