On the longer rides battery consumption of my portable electronics becomes an issue. Phone, GPS, MP3 player and Bluetooth Helmet (at the moment three of those items are actually one in the same) all run down all too quickly.
I had originally planned to install a marine grade 12VDC accessory outlet somewhere, but dangling cables and plugs shaking free sounds like a really bad idea on a bike. A solution from Princess Auto presented itself in the form of a Weatherproof USB outlet (for $6.99 no less).
After some pondering I finally decided that I’d locate the plug in the trunk, and if I did need to charge my phone I could just lock it in the trunk (as it spits everything to the bluetooth in the helmet anyway), and if I run a gps I can snake a cable up along the gas tank with few issues.
For installation I had planned to tap the battery, switching the power using a relay wired to the marker light. A bad relay forced me to cheat, running the USB outlet off the marker light circuit (a draw of 5VDC 450mA shouldn’t cause any issues, and I can cannibalize the wiring when I get a replacement relay).
So for now, it seems to work just fine, and I can stop checking the status of my phone battery so often.
Gotta love Princess Auto, eh? The Tire has lost a lot of my business to the Princess.
On the other hand, the Princess can be too alluring … often difficult to restrict yourself to the item you originally came for … LOL!!
That USB socket looks like a pretty good solution (to a problem most of us don’t have
Princess Auto is a dangerous place.
The USB socket is a peace of mind sorta solution. I don’t anticipate using it very often, but it’s nice to know it is there should I need it. I love my phone, but the battery life is feeble (12 hours on a full charge with routine use – substantially less if it’s pumping music into my helmet and reading GPS signals non-stop).
It’s nice to know I won’t miss that call from Jillys school, work or lose the ability to call for help should I need it.
I’m sure there’s some other way to sort this out, but this seemed a sufficiently simple solution, and it covers the bases pretty well (almost every portable electronic device I come across, my helmet included, draws somewhere in the neighborhood of 5vdc and 350-500ma).
Yeah … it’s nice that devices are increasingly standardizing on that USB power voltage – rather than having a gazillion wall warts to deal with.
And, although Apple will be the last dog to die, more and more devices seem to be standardizing on that mini USB ‘B’ jack for the device end of the charging set-up as well. Reduces the cable clutter from those days when every flipping device had a different jack.
Am I the only one that thinks this cool addition is going to be the most useful hop-up yet?
I was thinking you could use a cell phone charger as a trickle charger now, or put a 12v rollout solar sheet and charge your bike if you left your lights on.
How about a 12v usb cigarette lighter? The list goes on and on.
I’ve run my battery down more than once, if there was a usb hookup, i could have used one of those “Crank radios” to charge up the bike. Well, maybe not.
Still…..Pretty cool. Any plans for neon lights or a whip antenna?
Awesome! $6.99? I’m in! Let’s see, shipping and handling…. $15.69?!?
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
Joe – You’re right – that’s why I ordered three of them.
Piet: No more outlets, no more dongles, definately no led lighting, strobes or flashers. No shiny bits or bobs. Think we’re good at this point.
Just the exhaust to fuck around with.
You must have half-decent weather over there!
I still haven’t found a reason to insure my bike this year! Weather’s been awful! Wet & cold!
- Typical BC Weather.
Have put 3200km on the CBR250R since I got it home in March, been fantastic riding weather out here, ride to work, ride in the wee hours of the morning, ride for the sheer joy of riding.