You can't go directly from SAE to USB due to the voltage difference. USB is 5VDC so you need a voltage regulator to get from 12VDC down to 5VDC. That's what the TAPP Lite does.
I thought that might be the case. What about your work on the sae to Tapp Lite, how is that going or could you just make up an sae to Tapp Lite with short lead as I saw you posted before. I just need to go from an sae plug I have near the bars and then a short way with a usb pigtail to operate my Garmin.
Sure, that's no problem. Would you still use the Universal Mount to attach the TAPP Lite? The SAE should be on a fused circuit -do you know what the fuse rating is? We use a 7.5A fuse but the TAPP Lite cable will handle up to 15A. The TAPP Lite itself is internally protected with a auto-resetting fuse so it is safe no matter what. The in-line fuse just protects the cable. Also, what Garmin are you using. If it is a Nuvi then you will need our Garmin Charging Cable. It is the only cable available that will allow the Nuvi to charge and navigate. More info here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=666156 Let us know how you want to attach and the pigtail length and we'll put something together for you.
Yes it has 7.5a fuse, it is a Nuvi a 9" charging cable would be fine and the sae to Tapp Lite could be 6" overall. I don't need a mount just the cables. Let me know a price. Thanks, Bob
We can use the TAPP Lite w/o bracket price since the SAE 2-pin connector cost will balance out against the fuse holder and fuse. We normally tack on $5.00 for specials but won't in this case. So the total looks like this: TAPP Lite w/o bracket PN 150-0048-01 $29.95 Cable, USB, Garmin Charging, USB A - USB Mini RA UP, 9" PN 202-0033-09 $12.95 Shipping, domestic $4.50 Plus sales tax if you live in CA If you want to go head with the order you will need to call it in since the 150-0048-01 is not on the website 408-725-8010
Thanks for the segue It just went to the webmaster on Friday. She was going to try to get it on the webpage over the weekend but I see it didn't get there yet.
Hi, I'm certainly happy this is available . . . TAPP™ LITE USB POWER PORT with DIN 4165 Plug (BMW). Is there any update on the iPad-compatible USB adapter. SAE, Powerlet, whatever . . . Thanks, Kurt
Absolutely!...though I took that photo as the sun was going down with the camera on my phone (hence the flash). If you want something better for your website, I'll snap another picture that shows the TAPP and the 3BR Designed mount a little better.
That would be great if you have a chance to take more pics. If so, you can send them directly to us at: support@3brpowersports.com Thanks again,
An update on the TAPP install...I was going to ride my bike into work this morning, but the battery was dead. Dead as in it wouldn't even turn on the neutral light. My guess is the battery drain is a combination of the fact that I had my Garmin plugged in (though it was turned off so it should have been a slow drain) and the leech effect from the 5V voltage regulator in the TAPP port. It's my own fault for hard wiring it to the battery...I should have either used a relay or wired it to "key-on" power. I'll take care of it this weekend as well as putting my battery on a charger. I'll snap some more pictures as soon as I get the wiring sorted...
This is the second report we have had of a totally drained battery over night. We don't know what is going on here. The vast majority of TAPP Lite installations are direct to the battery including those on our four test bikes and there hasn't been an inssue. The quiescent drain is only 8mA so it should take a couple of months to fully drain the average motorcycle battery. We are going to run a test on the Garmin GPS that we have, Zumo 550, 60CSx, (both 12V) and an Oregon 450 and a couple of Nuvi's (USB powered) to see how much power they draw when turned off. I doubt that it is very much. We'll keep you posted (no pun intended). Please let us know if you learn anything interesting. -Shov
Thanks for the follow up. I'm not sure exactly how long it took to drain down, the last time I rode was Sunday so it was some time over the past 4 days. I'll keep you posted.
Some interesting observations from our testing yesterday, some of which should have been apparent if we had just thought about it more. First, if your GPS has rechargeable batteries, it will draw power from the USB power port even if it is off. We checked our little Nuvi 1250 and found that it drew ~250mA whether it was off or on. This would probably drop once the batteries were fully charged. This isn't much. Given that a typical motorcycle battery is maybe 12-18AH, it should take a couple of months to fully discharge. On the other hand the Oregon only drew 140mA when it was on and for some reason10mA when it was off. We would have expected it to be the 8mA that the TAPP Lite draws with nothing plugged into it, i.e. it appears that the Oregon draws ~2mA when it is off. That's mice nuts but it is curious that it's anything at all. Our Nuvi 550 is in one of the cars so we didn't have it to test. We tried powering up the Zumo 550 from the USB port. It ran fine but it doesn't charge the batteries from that port so we didn't learn anything. The bottom line is that you will get some battery drain from a GPS that has rechargeable batteries, even if it is off. However, that shouldn't be enough to totally drain a motorcycle battery even over a few days. So we're still not sure what happened in your case. Let us know if you find out anything from your end. Also - if any other inmates have some idea of what is going on we would sure like to hear from you. -Shov
Good points Geode, thanks. We can maybe understand a weak or partially discharged the battery being depleted enough to where it wouldn't crank the engine but RamMan said that it wouldn't even light his neutral light. That's dead-dead. It's still a bit of a mystery.
The other thing to keep in mind, RamMan's bike (DR650), like mine (KTM640A) is a dirtbike, that has been adapted to be street worthy. The 12-18AH stated is standard on large street/tour bikes. Both of our bikes run the same battery, Yuasa YTX-9BS, with an advertised 8AH! Another commonality is the 200Watt charge sys, which puts out much less than that at under 5k revs. I had significant changes result from installing a Gel cell battery in mine and a few months ago upgraded to a best gel cell that Batteries Plus sells.
