I'm new to wrenching and need some basic wiring advice. I'm planning on wiring a Garmin Zuma 550 directly to the battery. What is the best way to do this? Red to red / black to black and done? No grounding? Electric tape? Should I wrap the wires around the post or to the battery cable wire? Any chance I will short anything out? No, I'm not an 8 year old, but it might help if you pretend I am when you answer! Thanks all!
Go buy a crimp tool and crimp on some lugs. Attach the lugs to the battery posts. They sell this stuff at Radio Shack, auto parts stores etc.
the best way to do this is with a fuse block. that way any and all additional goodies can be powered by the fuse block and only one set of additional cables will be attached to the battery along with the originals. but if you have the cable from garmin it should have a fuse in-line. simply go to radio shack or any other electronics store and buy some flux-core solder and a soldering iron and selection of connectors and some heat shrink tube. run the wire down from the handlebars to the battery. make sure you have plenty of slack. cut, strip and solder a ring terminal (make sure it fits over the battery's post) and then shrink the heat shrink tube over the top for protection. (put the heat shrink on first) any monkey can solder, so don't worry. there you have it. cut, strip, slide on heat shrink. solder on ring terminal appropriately sized to the black and the red, and bolt down the red on the red post and and black on the black post. if you do this you must understand that your GPS will have power at all times. so if your battery is weak you could kill it by failing to turn off your GPS. I have mine powered in this manner on purpose because i want it to have juice even when the bike is off. one note of advice. make sure your wire routing doesn't leave the in-line fuse someplace difficult to reach. you don't want to have to remove the fuel tank if you blow the fuse for your GPS. there's nothing magic about an in-line fuse holder. you can cut it and solder (and heat shrink) it back in where ever you want and bob's your uncle. you can crimp these things on but soldering is more better.
thanks bobby and gelandestrasse. sounds simple enough. just making sure i don't fry anything. sorry about them flyers bobby. they'll be back. happy trails.
I've got a Blue Sea fuse block and a relay that powers it up when the ignition is switched on. That way when the ignition is off none of the accessories can kill the battery. Here's how to make a proper connection: http://workmanship.nasa.gov/lib/insp/2%20books/links/sections/201%20General%20Requirements.html
In my other life as owner and sailor of a cruising sailboat, wiring is done entirely with crimp connectors. The reason...vibration over time causes soldered connections to become unreliable - they are prone to cracking. I would think that the vibration issue would be of major concern to adventure motorcycles so I would strongly recommend (and I DO follow my own advice here!) that you buy a GOOD QUALITY crimping tool and high quality crimp-on connectors, and learn how to make good electrical and mechanical wiring connections. BTW, I use marine waterproof heat shrink tubes on ALL crimp connectors to keep moisture out of the joint. Just my $.02 worth...and worth just what you paid for it! cheers, Mike
Just did the same with my 550. I am assuming that you have the wiring kit, if not get it from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CX4INE/ref=oss_product) , this is a great setup. I had previously wired in a Blue Sea's fuse block which works great. I found a clamp mount that allowed me to put the above cradle on my top windshield bar. The cable for the above was just long enought to run down the right side of the bike by the tank and to my fuse block. Very clean and neat. Has worked great.
Did the job today. I'm not sure NASA is going to be impressed but loved the link. And thanks to all for all your replies. And for the record, I decided to pass on the soldering and went just with the shrink-wrap which worked great. I may reconsider this at a later date but wanted to get it up and running.
