Does it make sense that two bikes with Gerbings pigtails installed could be connected as an emergency jumper cable?

 

Negative! You'll just pop the fuse on the tender cables. The starter draws WAY to much amperage to turn over the engine for the small gauge tender wires. Correct way to jump a bike is battery to battery (on another bike) via regular jumper cables. As a last resort you can jump off a car battery but just make sure the car is off or you could overload the bikes charging system and do major damage.

 

Gerbings cables employ a higher amp fuse than the tender cables. That's the reason you can't se the tender able for the Gerbing's stuff. Is the fuse the main issue? If the fuse were , say 20 amps, would it be reasonable? I'm just considering this as a last ditch mini-jumper in a pinch. I read where someone has made regular jumpers for his bike using 12g wire and small gator clips. Seems like this could be a reasonable facsimile if the polarity were right and both bikes had the installed wires with 20 amp fuses.

 

Yes your are correct. Gerbings uses a 15amp fuse. The starter on your bike should be drawing in the neighborhood of 20amps. Still a little to much IMO for those cables. I have seen the home made and mass market bike jumper cables. As long as their rates for the amperage draw you should be fine.

 

There are websites for calculating AWG and amperage.

Carl

 

No, you will pop the fues. It's not just a starter issue. If you connect a 11.5 v battery to a 14+ v battery guess how much current it is going to draw? As much as the 14+ v battery will source, which will be greater then your 10, 15, or 20 amp fuss on the pig tail.

 

Take a look at the size leads coming off your battery and then look at the gerbing wire harness. You can trickle charge thru it but I wouldn't use it as a jumper

 

Thanks. I guess the fact that jumper cables for cars are usually quite heavy should be a clue as to what is needed.
I wanted to make some lightweight jumper cables like those I saw someone else make. His had alligator clips and no fuses. I was trying to avoid removing all the crap necessary to access the batteries on two bikes. Most of my friends have the Gerbing's pigtails already installed.
I thought I remembered a jumper from my youth that plugged into both cars' cig lighters.

 

One more thought - wouldn't the polarities be opposite? i.e. you'd be hooking the positive to one bike to the negative on the other bike?

 

I did consider that. I need to determine polarity but I could easily reverse if necessary.