I bought this GPS for my 2013 Road King. I know the unit itself works because it had a little battery life left when it arrived. I could turn it on and browse through the functions.
I went to wire it up to the bike today. A pretty straight forward job, so I thought. Just your basic positive/negative connections to the battery. The GPS however won't turn on. I tried it with the ignition on, the bike itself on, and not getting anything. Looked at installation videos to see if I'm missing something. From what I see, there should be nothing wrong with my method (red wire on positive, black on negative).
Any suggestions? I'm stumped.
Fuse installed? Is it good?
Tested your wires to make sure you have power and ground?
And of course I can't find my multimeter. I'll see if a neighbor has one and do some more digging
Plug the gps into a pc USB port and see if it lights up.
I don't know about your model, but I tried to direct wire my Garmin 285 (?) on my bike. As soon as I turned power on it fried the unit. I guess the acc. plug cuts the voltage down to about 3, and cutting it off removed the protection. :doh: I left the plug on my new unit and added another acc. plug.
Yep, a Garmin needs 5 volts. You can buy a small voltage converter the haed wires in and has the appropriate mini USB connector.
Quote from: PoorUB on April 22, 2019, 06:38:55 AM
Yep, a Garmin needs 5 volts. You can buy a small voltage converter the haed wires in and has the appropriate mini USB connector.
So it's best to run it off the cig plug, as opposed to cutting off the cig plug and hard wiring it directly to 12V. The Garmin cig plug adapter has a way to make 12V to 5V, is that right?
I ask because my previous Garmin 550 was hardwired in behind the fairing by a shop and worked properly. When the 550 finally died, I cut the wires and left them attached inside the fairing knowing I would eventually get another one. Would i be safe in just hooking up my new GPS to those same wires?
Using a cig lighter adapter on a m/c is just lazy IMO. If you buy a gps with a cig lighter plug, you need to use one of these USB power supply cables. (I think the OP here has a m/c gps so the m/c mount is made to be connected to 12 volts and this is not necessary)
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Quote from: Coyote on April 22, 2019, 07:20:40 AM
Using a cig lighter adapter on a m/c is just lazy IMO. If you buy a gps with a cig lighter plug, you need to use one of these USB power supply cables. (I think the OP here has a m/c gps so the m/c mount is made to be connected to 12 volts and this is not necessary)
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Where did you find that?
I buy them in bulk from a mfg in China. Have installed a lot of these when doing GPS installs or just adding a cell phone charging cable into the tour packs. There is a right angle one as well which often works out better than the straight one depending on the device.
There is an inline fuse and the instructions have everything just going straight to the battery. I will have access to a multimeter this week to rule out a blown fuse.
Thank you all for the input! And yes, this is a motorcycle specific GPS unit.
Quote from: Paniolo on April 22, 2019, 07:29:45 AM
Where did you find that?
Ebay, or Amazon has them too.
If possible, it would be great to connect this to my battery tender cable. Anyone ever go that route?
Quote from: scott7d on April 22, 2019, 04:53:37 PM
If possible, it would be great to connect this to my battery tender cable. Anyone ever go that route?
Why? Just wire it into a power source that is live when the key is on. It is small enough to tuck away and hide on most any motorcycle.
Quote from: PoorUB on April 22, 2019, 05:20:53 PM
Why? Just wire it into a power source that is live when the key is on. It is small enough to tuck away and hide on most any motorcycle.
The thought of being able to remove it completely and easily to avoid any unnecessary wear/damage from general riding, prevent it from getting caught on anything while adding/removing things from the saddle bags, etc......Sounded like a spectacular idea to me.
Maybe I am missing something, but the GPS will get mounted to the handlebars, so depending on the motorcycle it would get wired in under the fairing, or under the fuel tank, head light bucket, and routed up to the bars, but I sure don't seeing it ever getting in the way.
Quote from: PoorUB on April 22, 2019, 06:12:52 PM
Maybe I am missing something, but the GPS will get mounted to the handlebars, so depending on the motorcycle it would get wired in under the fairing, or under the fuel tank, head light bucket, and routed up to the bars, but I sure don't seeing it ever getting in the way.
When the GPS isn't in use, I don't have a clean way to really hide the extra end of the cable that needs to be exposed/free in order to reach the GPS. I don't feel comfortable just zip tying it to the neck of the bike when the GPS isn't needed. I have a Road King, so no way to tuck it away cleanly in a fairing. This GPS will only get used 3-4 times a year on long trips. If the battery tender cable isn't an option, I'll make it work still somehow. First world problems :)
I leave the cable connected on my Limited all the time. It just hangs off the handlebar when not in use. Same thing on my previous Bagger. I am going to wire one up on my BMW too. Never any issue, unless you have a problem with the wire hanging around.
You could wire it with a disconnect plug in any manner you want, maybe right up tight near the fork lock, under the front of the dash.
I was able to confirm today with a multimeter that the cable to the battery does work. I cannot get the unit to charge even with a USB cable. I'm not sure what happened, this worked when it first came in. Hopefully I can resolve it and not be out 400 bucks.
As mentioned, does your unit only require 5 volts, but took a hit with 12 volts when you wired it? If so, there may be an internal fuse or thermocouple that can be replaced. YouTube might be your friend.
It may not be serviceable, then you are out the money, unfortunately.
Quote from: Hossamania on May 03, 2019, 03:02:37 PM
As mentioned, does your unit only require 5 volts, but took a hit with 12 volts when you wired it? If so, there may be an internal fuse or thermocouple that can be replaced. YouTube might be your friend.
It may not be serviceable, then you are out the money, unfortunately.
The piece with the inline fuse says 12v to 24v system power.
Do you have the power cable mounted in the cradle correctly?