I went to the dealer yesterday for a couple items. I asked for the adapter for the battery tender hook up so I could run my Gerbing gloves and liner. I was told not to do this because it could damage my gear. Huh? Seems like I've read in posts here about doing this. What gives?

 

Is that tender line maybe not fused? Or too big a fuse to protect the gear? There is a special wiring adapter for hooking up heated gear to the bike. The factory heated seats etc. use it.

 

That battery tender has a 20 amp fuse. Heated gear is fine to run through it. Go to the Gerbings or warm and safe web sites for any adapter needed.
http://www.thewarmingstore.com/gerbi...FRCqaQodpqwJjA
http://www.warmnsafe.com/

 

I hook my heated gear adapter directly to the battery. Its fused and has different size fuses you can install in it. Theres a fuse sizing chart as well. It just depending on what gear is plugged into it.

 

Fuse it correct. The fuse is designed to protect you just in case the small wires in the heated gear get crossed and draw too much current and heat up and burn you. It's not protecting the gloves since if they get shorted inside, they are trash. You could hook them up to a 12 volt battery the size of a house and it would not matter.
The wire for maintenance charger is fused for the wire size just in case someone uses it for a jumper to start bike. The charger itself is fused by your 15 amp house fuse.

Always add up your total draw from anything you add to bike. Make sure you do not exceed the surplus the bike puts out. It is not a lot. Heated gear put a lot of strain on the stator windings.

 

You can use the SAE connector for the battery charger w/o a problem. What they're saying is if there is a short in the heated gear, the (properly sized) fuse will blow first instead of the heated gear melting/burning. That's a good policy in theory but I would contend that if the heated gear shorts out it's junk anyway, I'll know it right away & can disconnect it myself. If it's a dead short it'll take out the fuse regardless of size.

 

It's funny how little some dealers know about their product.

I attached the Gerbings supplied plug wire to the battery. That's the "best" way to do it. That said, I ran an adapter off the charging plug for years with no issue. Fuse according to your clothing manufacturer's recommendation. The main reason I ended up using the Gerbings plug was because the adapter was just another wire to get unplugged. When you're fumbling around in the cold with heavy gloves on it's best to keep it simple with as few failure points as possible.

 

^^^ This...

Along with the Panel Mount Kit I'm all wired up and it couldn't get any easier.

 

Same place I put mine. But now I need to cut and splice a 90 degree connector on it, the straight connector gets in the way...

 

No need - just spend the 5 bucks and get this. I have one on my '05 Dyna and it works like a charm.