Modern Buddy

Hey gang,
I am super excited - my <a href="http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/heated-m ... s/">Oxford Hot Hands</a> arrive today. Yay, warm hands! While I have my Buddy under the knife I thought I might as well hook up the dead lights too, but I'm concerned that I won't have enough juice to power the grips and extra lights. To quote the webBikeWorld review: "Oxford says that the grips only draw 1.3 Amps each, and only 18 Watts each at full power."
What do you think? Can I run them both, or should I just leave the dead lights to rest in peace? Warm hands are much more important.
I will make sure to take pictures during the install and post a how-to or how-not-too, depending on how things turn out.

Thanks as always!

I run my Oxford Heaterz with my deadlights hooked up. I have LED's in my deadlights. The Heaterz draw more power than the Hot Hands so I only run them at medium or low.

Edit: I also have the deadlights on a switch so I can turn them off if needed. (thanks for the reminder LilBuddy!)

20 additional watts is about the limit for the Buddy. Any more and you risk having charging problems.

If it were me, I'd hook up the deadlights and install a switch. Just turn them off when the heated grips are on.

303mike wrote:Hey gang,
I am super excited - my <a href="http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/heated-m ... s/">Oxford Hot Hands</a> arrive today. Yay, warm hands! While I have my Buddy under the knife I thought I might as well hook up the dead lights too, but I'm concerned that I won't have enough juice to power the grips and extra lights. To quote the webBikeWorld review: "Oxford says that the grips only draw 1.3 Amps each, and only 18 Watts each at full power."
What do you think? Can I run them both, or should I just leave the dead lights to rest in peace? Warm hands are much more important.
I will make sure to take pictures during the install and post a how-to or how-not-too, depending on how things turn out.

Thanks as always!

How'd the install go? I'm considering these and was also concerned about my bud's electrical capacity and creating a weak battery.

Good luck with your install. Remember that 18 watts each means you are putting an additional 36 watt burden on your Buddy's alternator. Warm hands are great! Now we just need a tush warmer for our scoots...

kmtscoot wrote:Good luck with your install. Remember that 18 watts each means you are putting an additional 36 watt burden on your Buddy's alternator. Warm hands are great! Now we just need a tush warmer for our scoots...

its funny to see someone else consider this. i was looking at a LCM truck parts catalog and they had an after market seat warmer kit for old trucks and thought.....hmm. the draw would kill the electrical system but just a thought.

I wouldn't put too much of a draw on the Buddy's power supply, myself. When my '07 125 is not running at speed and idling, just the slight extra draw of the 55/65W Silverstar bulb I put in the headlight will cause it to go way down dim, at least until I rev up the throttle again..!

I thought about keeping a seperate battery in the pet carrier if I ever wanted to add anything crazy to my scoot. You can use 12v batteries from cordless power tools.

I just did some tests with two different 12v cordless drill batteries I have. Unfortunatly, the batteries did not provide the duration I was hoping to see. But for those looking for 10-15 minutes from a seperate battery, this is an option. A Lithium battery should give you about 40% more run time, and they handle the cold temps much better.

Battery "A" is a pretty new Dewalt battery.
Battery "B" is a very well used Ryobi battery.
Battery "C" is my old toasted Buddy 50 battery.

On my bench top scooter, I plugged in one 27watt silverstar bulb and one 10watt stock deadlight bulb to run always on. Total wattage is 37watts. I chose this cuz I think I read a post about some heated grips that were 36 total watts. All batteries were fully charged before testing.

Battery:
"A" (start voltage) 13.94 (5min) 12.18 (10min) 12.05 (15min) 11.78 (20min) 11.02 (25min) 2.6- lights out
"B" (start voltage) 13.62 (5min) 8.89 (10min) 4.42 (15min) 4.21 (20min) 3.95 (25min) 2.4- lights out
"C" (start voltage) 12.56.... 15 seconds later, lights out

You will need a voltage meter to figure out which pins on the battery are + / -

This is my bench top scooter with the old Buddy 50 battery. I have three sets of lights on it, DOT blinkers, deadlights/running lights, and rear blinkers. I can run any set as running lights and I have a flasher relay installed to control any (or all) for blinkers.
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