gaps said:
markjenn, that explains it. How did you figure out they are pulsed anyway? I'm probably taking it too far with this but do you know if the pulse could be defeated? is that a separate component?
It's time for Oxford or another to offer low resistance grips with the appropriate plugs. It's robbery to pay Yamaha $359 or so for a fugn heating element...at least on the early version you bought a controller, with the 14 it seems the kit is a pair of grips and that's it....
The clunky rheostat on the old bikes is also a duty-cycle controller and these sorts of systems are common on heated clothing as they are a much more efficient way to continuously control temperature compared to a variable resistor. When the new instrument cluster came out on the 2014, Yamaha put all the controls into the software on the new dash. I don't know if the resistance/duty-cycle changed from the old to the new bikes but it sounds like it probably has. And I don't think anyone has ever put the heated grips output on an oscilloscope yet. It's just how these things are generally done. AFAIK, the pulsing circuitry and control is completely integrated into the bike and the temp control function is in non-user-modifiable firmware. If there is a way to change or defeat it, I'm not aware of it.
We had a discussion of heated grip acc costs when the 2014 came out as someone was trying to decide whether it was better to get the ES or get the non-ES and buy the grips. At the time, I recall Yamaha had dropped the price of the heated grip kit for the new bikes ($275?) which somewhat took into account the fact the 2014 models don't need the controller. But I just checked and I don't see the break any longer which is a crock. I agree with you - Yamaha has always been "too proud" of these kits, but $400 for the grips alone (w/o the controller) seems ridiculous. There is some extra engineering in Yamaha's design vs. aftermarket.... for example, Yamaha provides a new housing on the throttle side that coils up wire inside the perch rather than just having it dangle below the bars. I think this pricing reflects Yamaha wanting to push buyers to the ES by not providing a cost-effective way to upgrade the non-ES.
There's another aspect to this to keep in mind. One reason Yamaha may have dramatically dropped the resistance (and upped the power) in the new bike is because they switched from a steel handlebar to aluminum and aluminum has about 2.5x the thermal conductivity of steel. I've used Symtec heated elements under grips and they work great on steel bars but generally don't put out enough heat on alum. Now Yamaha's elements are embedded in the grip itself, so perhaps the high thermal conductivity to the alum bar is not as big an issue, but with elements you lay against the bar, it certainly is. Insulting the bar helps some (e.g., with big heat shrink tubing), but is not as good as having the element embedded in the grip rubber.
http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/symtec-heat-demon-heated-grips
For the record, here are the resistances of Symtecs (which are too high for your application):
Throttle side: 9.6 ohms high element, 19.2 low element
Clutch side: 7.5 ohms high element, 12.8 low element
One hare-brained idea I can offer is to use the Symtecs wired to the bike's heated grip connector, but use two sets and wire the two separate elements in each grip in parallel so you'd have four separate elements all on per side. (Normally you wire Symtecs so that you switch between the high and low elements depending on the Hi/Lo switch - this is how they get two heating levels without a resistor or duty-cycle controller.) Parallel wiring of two sets with both elements results in an overall resistance of 2.7 ohms. Still too high but if the 2014 system has anywhere near the "headroom" of the old system, you might have plenty of heat. But as I said before, you would need to insulate the bar or it will just suck the heat away.
Sorry I don't have better suggestions. Notwithstanding someone selling low-resistance grips, it appears your best options are to just suck up the cost of the Yamaha grips or go totally aftermarket and not use the controller in the bike.
- Mark
