Ok...searched for a bit, but thought I could just post and get an answer now...I've got a 12 volt power outlet that has a pigtail that'll attach to the battery. I also have a Yuasa 900 battery charger with a pigtail that will do the same. The outlet has a '15' fuse and the charger has a '3' fuse. What do I use and will it matter??? I need the outlet to charge my GPS while traveling and maybe an iPod, but I want to also be able to charge the battery if necessary.

Also need to know how to connect the pigtail - red to red (on battery) and black to either black (on battery) or a spot on the frame?

PLEASE - keep it simple - I can handle a lot of the tech stuff here but I'm not good with the electrical!

I can take pics if necessary...Thanks in advance!

If it is the accessory outlet that comes on the bike, leave the stock fuse in place and if your GPS power if you want to place the 3 amp. fuse in-line and it came with the trickle charger that would be fine too. the GPS or IPOD will not draw more than that.

FWIW, I hooked up my 12V outlet to pos & neg on the battery just using ring terminal connections and keep the outlet under my seat. I have my trickle charger hooked up the same way. Works great.

RK

Roadkill1962 wrote:
FWIW, I hooked up my 12V outlet to pos & neg on the battery just using ring terminal connections and keep the outlet under my seat. I have my trickle charger hooked up the same way. Works great.

RK Funny thing, I JUST did the same thing with mine 15 minutes ago for my Garmin Nuvi. I used a 5 amp blade fuse holder on the pos. side for circuit protection. Ran the power cord for the GPS under the tank bib up to the windshield. Took me all of about 10 minutes... Piece-o-cake!

Black goes to ground on the frame or Negative on the battery. Red goes to Positive. 3a fuse is correct for an accessory outlet. 15a is too much and could fry your wires or the outlet or the ipod if something goes wrong. Run the tender wire separately.

Hey all - Thanks for the responses so far. I'm still a little confused about the pigtail that I'll be hooking up to the battery. I have two of them that are the same but I just want to hook up one of them. Then I can plug in the battery tender OR the 12-volt outlet, one at a time. Sounds like the 3a fuse will be sufficient for both purposes then (that's what is fusing the battery tender right now)...correct?

Thanks again!

Don't understand why you prefer to hook up only one pigtail. They each provide their own pigtail with what the mfg. believes is the correct fusing, so why mess with them? I would hook each up as they provide and you can then operate the charger or gps as you want.

Were the pigtails not provided by the mfgs?

I have the charger pigtail, an accessory outlet and a mount with pigtail and fuses for my ipod. They each work seperately, all are fused properly and each can be used at the same time. I don't see your problem.

A standard Harley tender is fused for 7.5a. I'm not sure why yours is only fused for 3a, as a high end trickle charger with a quick charge or "start" mode will push 6a down the line. The fuse size is dictated by wire size. Wire size is dictated by the draw of the accessory at the end of the wire. If you take the accessory outlet and plug it into the tender wire, and whatever you plug into it draws more than 3a, you will blow the fuse. Otherwise, you will be fine. What you can't do is put a bigger fuse in there, if the wires can't handle the draw they will melt or burn. Take the 3a tender wire and hook it to your battery. You can plug the accessory outlet into that, as long as whatever you plug in doesn't draw more than 3a. Cellphone charger or GPS will be fine, and a regular tender only pushes 1 or 2 amps. Just don't use a quick charger on there unless you upgrade the wire.

Moespeed - thanks. That's kinda what I got out of your first post but I just wanted to make sure.

Dryriver - I just wanted to have one pigtail under my seat if I could get away with it to keep things clean.

Thanks for the help.