Adding electrical accessories to your motorcycle – Farkles as they are affectionately known – is often more troublesome than they first appear.
It starts with being sure that as long as we get positive and negative the right way around, everything will be fine, and by the time we are finished, we are thinking about amperage ratings, relays and where you can find a switched live from.
With the range of common motorcycle electrical accessories we will want to fit, typically including riding lights, heated grips and a GPS, not to mention Keis heated clothing, Scottoilers and additional USB sockets – I decided to look for a better option than attaching them all to the battery terminals.
Following some internet research and talking to people who know about these things, I purchased a HealTech ThunderBox from BikeHPS.com.
The Positives and Negatives
We are all familiar with the basics. Farkles need a power supply, and you can get that from your motorcycle’s battery. Connect the positive and negative wires to the correct terminals on the battery, and you are good to go.
The problem with that approach is that the bright new electrical accessory you have added to your motorcycle is now permanently on.
Perhaps the manufacturer thought of this and built-in an automatic power-off feature. Something that turns the electrical accessory off when the generator on your bike stops charging the battery.
Oxford heated grips have this handy feature, as do some of the Scottoiler systems. Once they sense that the engine is no longer running, the accessory goes into sleep mode and eventually powers off completely.
But not every Farkle you want to fit to your motorcycle is that well behaved.
You can, of course, fit a switch to every Farkle you fit. Still, along with being impractical, eventually, we’ll forget to turn something off and return to a motorcycle with a flat battery.
Switched Live
The solution we are looking for is a switched live; a connector the motorcycle manufacturer built into the bike specifically for adding electrical accessories.
When you turn on the ignition, the switched live connection – as the name suggests – becomes live and delivers power to the new Farkle. Turn the ignition off, and the power is cut. Sounds ideal.
KTM put two such connections on my KTM 1090, one in the headlight and the other at the back of the motorcycle under the seat. The only problem was that they only supplied 1amp of power each, which technically isn’t enough even to power my GPS.
If I needed more power, KTM had also put a non-switched 10amp supply in the same locations, but to use this in the same way, I needed to use the 1amp switched live to trigger a relay, which in turn would connect the 10amp supply to the electrical accessory.
It isn’t as complicated as it might sound, but it is a faff. I like things simple, neat and tidy – hence the HealTech ThunderBox.
HealTech ThunderBox
The ThunderBox does everything I’ve just described and a lot more, all in a single unit the size of a matchbox. And for those who have never used matches, that is 6cms long, 3.5cms wide and 2cms deep.
Connecting the ThunderBox is simplicity itself. Connect the positive and negative from the ThunderBox to your battery – ensuring you have the connectors the right way around – and you are done. Simples.
You now have four switched live connectors through which you can draw a total of 16amps if you buy the TB-U01 ThunderBox, or eight switched live connectors and a total of 32amps available if you go for the TB-U02.
All you have to do now is connect the electrical accessories to the clamp style block connectors, and you are ready to go.
Power On – Power Off
The ThunderBox will deliver power to your Farkles five seconds after the engine is running. It does this to ensure the battery has the maximum power to crank the engine and ensure any electrical spikes caused by the start have dissipated before powering the electrical accessories.
The opposite is true when you turn your motorcycle off. The ThunderBox will keep the power running to your motorcycle accessories for between five and thirty seconds and then cut the power.
The exact time is dependent on the age and condition of the battery. For my Tracer, it is approximately five seconds.
This is the automatic mode of operation. It comes from the HealTech factory set up this way. There is nothing for you to do. It just happens.
That Guy Again
We all know him. That guy at the tea stop who tells you everything is crap, and his myth about ThunderBoxes is that when you connect a battery charger, all the accessories come on, and as usual, it is 98% bovine output.
Connecting my Tracer to my Optimate doesn’t make the ThunderBox think the engine is running. However, if you are using a traditional battery charger – and you really shouldn’t as Optimate battery optimisers are significantly better in every way – you may find that your accessories power up.
It is a rare occurrence and still not an excuse not to be using an Optimate.
If you do run into this problem, it is due to the bad news battery charger you are using kicking way too much power into the battery.
Think of it as a brute force application of electricity. However, ThunderBox has a solution that overrides automatic operation in the form of a switched live trigger.
Find any live (positive) wire on your bike that only has power when the ignition is on (taillight circuits are good), and using the supplied connector, bridge into that wire. Connect this to the white wire on the ThunderBox, and the electrical accessories will only power on when the ignition is on.
Protecting Electrical Accessories
Having made the right choice and purchased a ThunderBox, there is no guarantee that what is plugged into it will be as well thought out.
eBay is littered with good and bad riding lights. While searching for a set for the KTM, we tried several. Some were excellent. Some cheap plastic and others just burnt out. [See LED Auxillary Motorcycle Lights]
If the ThunderBox detects an overload – which is what typically happens when electrics go wrong – for longer than 200 milliseconds, then the ThunderBox will cut the power.
Automatically it will try to reconnect the power three times. If the same situation exists, the ThunderBox will cut the power to protect the bike and other electrical accessories and stay this way until reset.
Why and Where
So, the ultimate question … Why did I fit a ThunderBox to the Tracer 9GT?
I use the single switched live Yamaha build into the Tracer to power my Garmin Zumo XT. Having bought – yes, once again with my own cash money – some SW-Motech engine bars, SW-Motech did ask if I would test some of their EVO Fog Lights. After running them for 1,000 miles, I’ll let you know what I think.
As to where to buy your HealTech ThunderBox or any of the other HealTech electrical goodies, then I’d call BikeHPS.com. And just to be clear – I purchased and paid the same price you will for my ThunderBox from HPS.
