Drilling holes

[elizilla]

I'm working on installing farkles. I am thinking of drilling two holes in the spot circled here:

One will be for the volume controller for my music, and the other will be a coax outlet for my heated jacket. There seems to be enough room behind the panel for these things. But if anyone here can think of any gotchas please speak up. I've decide not to drill right now - I'm too tired. But tomorrow I need to finish getting some things installed.

 

[Waspworks]

Hi Katherine.

The right hand side panels come off as two pieces, ie: if accessing the battery, you dont need to remove the top (blue in your case) piece.
The left hand side cover however is removed as one piece... Just a heads up if you need to remove for rad access. Would mean the cover will be hanging by the secured cables.

Greg.

 

[Mellow]

I did that on my ST1300 for a powerlet connector to hook my battery tender or heated gear. As long as you have some spade connectors or some way to disconnect, shouldn't be a problem.

I was thinking of doing a powerlet there but decided I'll get a bracket and attach that to the little 8mm hole in the frame where bottom of the gas tank is, then put a powerlet there, also planning to put a garage door opener switch in one of those holes on the other side.

 

[elizilla]

I have connectors to easily disconnect the items I want to put there. In fact they each have a perfect connector already.

DC Coax Jack Panel Mount: http://www.warmnsafe.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_77&products_id=202
The socket is the same size and shape as a powerlet and will install the same way. The pigtail is actually only about six inches long and ends with a coax connector, so it's easily unplugged when I remove the panel.

The volume control is part of the Amplirider kit: http://www.electric-avenues.com/amplirider.html
See the second small box in the picture? And the mini-din lead that plugs into it? I will glue the bottom part of the box on the underside of the panel, to protect the guts of the switch whenever I have to take the panel off. On the NT, I installed this switch on top of a fairing pocket cover, where the underside was exposed anytime I opened the pocket. Probably overkill to do it on a panel that isn't being removed regularly, but it won't hurt anything and I like it better this way.

It's important to finish things cleanly on the inside, even when you're the only one who sees the inside. I learned this from sewing. The prettiest dress in the world is not nearly as nice when there are a bunch of frayed strings hanging from the seams inside, catching your fingers as you put your arms in the sleeves.

 

[justbob]

I have a hard time making myself drill holes in painted panels.
I located my coax plug-in connector here :
http://s184.photobucket.com/albums/x118/bm1327/Super%20Tenere/?action=view&current=IMG_2100.jpg

 

[elizilla]

I have a hard time with it too, but I'm going to steel myself to do it. In fact I already drilled the pilot holes. Then my cordless drill ran out of juice because I didn't think to plug it in last night. So I'll finish later.

But I do like that spot. Maybe I'll put a standard powerlet there. A constant on powerlet that I can use to plug in my battery tender, and to run the air pump if I need to air up my tires.

 

[glazier]

What about drilling the black plastic area just opposite where the cigarette power plug is?
I think a 11/16" hole would drill very nicely there....then insert the Powerlet plug.
Run fused wires directly to the battery...Power all the time.

 

[ptfjjj]

Hi Katherine. I don't think you were around when Chad got the Highway Dirtbike top clamp group order, but these are pretty cool. I have one installed and it looks good. I plan to put 2 powerlets in and I have my gps attached on a ballmount from one of the four corners.

http://www.highwaydirtbikes.com/HDB_Shop/index.php?app=ccp0&ns=prodshow&ref=top_clamps_01

http://www.yamahasupertenere.com/index.php?action=media;sa=media;in=574;preview

 

[colorider]

What about drilling the black plastic area just opposite where the cigarette power plug is?
I think a 11/16" hole would drill very nicely there....then insert the Powerlet plug.
Run fused wires directly to the battery...Power all the time.

That's where I was going to mount my heated grips rocker switch, but ended up mounting it in my HDB clamp instead. Looks like a great location in any case.

 

[elizilla]

I managed to drill the holes, finally, after much angst and procrastination.

I made a little perch to fit into the mirror mount, to set the heated gear controller on. This is the new wireless controller from warmnsafe.com. One dial will control the coax outlet I installed today. The other dial is going to control the heated grips, which I did not yet install. It turns out that this wireless controller has a failsafe feature - if the base unit gets no signal from the dials, it automatically heats at 1/3 power when you plug the heated gear in. I don't want my heated grips to always run at 1/3 power until I remember to move the dials to wake up the controller. So I will also need to install a switch somewhere. Almost makes me wish I'd bought the traditional wired controller - what is it with me that I always want to try this new stuff? Anyway... at least the switch doesn't have to be anywhere super convenient. Hafta see if I can find something reasonably attractive. Also, I had to order some coax extension cords. I could use normal connectors but I decided to stick with the plug-n-play while I can.

I put the switch for my Denalis there, under the heated gear controllers. I used a ball of Sugru putty to make a perch for it. I put the lights in under the headlight, where there are all those mounts. I might change them later but that will do for now.

I installed my Flash2Pass garage door opener. It's supposed to be tapped into the high beams, you flash the high beams twice to open the garage. I couldn't figure out where to tap the high beams, so I tapped the Denalis. I'll flash those to open the door, at least until I find a high beam wire. It's been driving me nuts to not have the garage door transmitter, so I'm glad to have that working now.

 

[Don in Lodi]

Two flashes, would a turn signal do it?

 

[elizilla]

Two flashes, would a turn signal do it?

It would. But then it would undo it with the 4th flash, and do it again with the 6th. The garage door would probably have a seizure.

 

[justbob]

Very nice, looks like you do good work.

 

[jajpko]

Kathrine you do some nice work.. After seeing yours, I kinda wish I had done that..

 

[colorider]

Kathrine you do some nice work..

+1

Looks VERY good!

 

[doctorj]

I have a hard time making myself drill holes in painted panels.
I located my coax plug-in connector here :
http://s184.photobucket.com/albums/x118/bm1327/Super%20Tenere/?action=view&current=IMG_2100.jpg

Bob, with multiple bikes I carry the dual controller in my gear so can use on different bikes. But I may change the way I plug them in and use that neat plug in you showed. But my on bike connection is wired into my fuzeblock, so where did you plug in the end that gets power?

doctorj

 

[SisuTen]

Katherine,
Looks like that location was meant for this type of use.

I know this will sound like a prod on Rod with his fixation on Blue bikes , but on a Black bike the sockets, etc. would be virtually invisible.

Looks great in any case, nice job!

Paul

 

[justbob]

Bob, with multiple bikes I carry the dual controller in my gear so can use on different bikes. But I may change the way I plug them in and use that neat plug in you showed. But my on bike connection is wired into my fuzeblock, so where did you plug in the end that gets power?

doctorj

Jon, I went straight to the battery with this power port, its fused.
I'll use it for my heated gear and I have a SAE to coax adapter for connecting the battery tender there also.