Hi Klixers,

Question - I've ordered a 5vUSB/12 Cigarette Lighter socket thingy, to fit on my 250.

My intention is to wire it directly to the battery, no fancy switches, relays or anything like that.

Fellow KLX owners will know it's a nightmare to get to the battery; there's no popping the hood or unlocking the seat. You have to start unbolting things... I hate unbolting things

For my extended trips into the wilderness of Borneo I'm thinking of taking one of those tiny lithium car jump-starter things. They can start full-size cars so starting a 250 single should be no problem, presumably.

What I'm wondering is, would it be feasible, presuming I use 8 or 10 gauge wire between the port and the battery, to jump-start the bike by plugging that battery into the cigarette lighter?

Logic suggests 'Of course, you're just directly connecting the booster battery to the bike's battery, same as any other jump start'.

But you know when you get one of those annoying little voices in the back of your head, asking "Aren't you forgetting something..?"

Am I forgetting something?

 

It will work, sometimes there is a fuse in those things, that would blow.
If you are jump starting, the wires will get hot. If it doesn't start fast, you will need to stop, monitor the wiring and try again after they cool down.
If your battery is just low, jumping it isn't full power, just adds enough to get it going. Sometimes if you plug it in and give it 5 minutes, it will boost the battery in the bike to allow it to start the bike.

 

The use of 8-10ga wire would help greatly in making this possible, but care would have to be taken to insure that the 12V socket and its connections to the wiring is fairly robust. No matter how good your 8-10ga wiring might be, those contacts and the final wire connections at the socket will have to be stout. And as durielk states, monitor wiring temp during very short cranking cycles to keep from melting components.

I'm more in the school of using a heavy wire pigtail that comes off the battery that you can easily and safely access with some automotive jumper cables...or cycle specific jumper cable sets. You can tuck such a homemade pigtail back under the sidecover...obviously insuring the positive side/contact of the pigtail is completely covered or insulated.

I agree with durielk that in many cases just a short few minutes from another battery...especially a running auto...will often allow the low battery to start the bike.

 

Cheers guys!

I think the thing I was forgetting was the fuse

On the other hand I often ride through streams, and the thought of dropping the bike in water and shorting the 12 socket doesn't sound good either?

Mm. I may have to rethink the "No switch" thing. But then what switch would handle a direct voltage?

Creating something that could be got at from the side of the bike strikes me as a potential point of failure - and will be guaranteed to get wet, whereas a port on the bars mostly won't. I should add I want the thing for its own sake, to charge my phone and other rechargeable things, as well as a jump-starting thingy.

I've never had a flat battery on the bike, but then again its still very new. The lack of kickstarter is worrying, and in wet muddy conditions push-starting is not always possible. I carry a large recharging battery anyway and figured I should get one capable of jump-starting the bike. I just don't want the hassle of unbolting things, especially as even on my brand-new bike I find it a real pain to get things to line up again after removal.

Had some panniers fitted the other week, the guy at the garage kept saying "Nearly ready, nearly done.." After awhile of hearing that on the phone I went down there, they were still trying to get the seat and side panels to line up!

I love riding the thing but hate having to deal with those stupid little 8mm bolts, with their soft threads and the seeming impossibility of getting everything to line up at the same time.

(As an aside, my previous MLE Chinese/Suzuki thing just used a key to unlock the seat, giving instant access to the battery, air filter, fuse box and tool kit. I consider that bike a superior design to the Kawasaki in many respects, and it cost 1/3 of the price)

It still hasn't done 4000 km yet and I already have a love/hate relationship with this thing...

 

My battery died out on a DS ride, I got a jump from a KTM using some #14 wires directly to the battery. I think he used the cigarette lighter on his bike. Now I keep a set of wires with a cig lighter /aligator clips in the toolkit.

If u go over in the water (over 2' deep) on the left side, the battery will probably be in the water anyway. Put the cig lighter on that side (I should move mine from the right, another project@!&(().

If you want a suzuki, get one. Your starting to sound like a GOM.

 

What would be a simple trick might be to use the pigtail and plug set up like used by the battery chargers. Add longer wires with alligator clips to the pig tail used by the charger for the jumper, while having the other already attached to the battery.

Fact is any sort of plug set up, even a big honking 110 male/female set up could be done adding the rings to wire to the battery and alligator clips for the length of wire to do the jump from whatever source. Time to hit an electronics store for the plug set that can handle the amperage.

 

There's multiple reasons I like the KLX, and some reasons why I'll be keeping it even if I didn't (lack of other options and the fact it's on finance being 2 of them - bear in mind the 100% duty paid on bikes and parts here).

I'm just very aware it has its faults and is not ideal for my needs from the factory, not without some modding.

The Suzuki wasn't a Suzuki, it was an 'MLE' with a Suzuki DR200 engine. Suspension was way too hard (motard) and a tad low on power (around 15 hp). The Kawasaki is all-round superior - apart from the dumbass way they did that whole 'Soft 8mm bolts everywhere to get to anything, none of which line up again properly after removing them'. I never had such problems on my "cheap crap China bike", so it's frustrating to spend 3 times the price (x2 remember) and get the kind of issue you might expect from such a cheap Chinese bike, not a Kawasaki.

Again, bolts not lining up is something you might expect from a very OLD bike, not one that's still running in.

I've purchased a Seat Concepts seat for the thing, and the bigger air filter snorkel. They have both been sitting in my dining room for weeks, as I just can't bring myself to remove the seat, knowing it will take half a day to put the damn thing back on again!

Talking of that, the seat comes with the foam and the cover, but has to be stapled onto the plastic part of the seat. I bought a heavy-duty stapler, but I have since read online that you cannot do it by hand, it needs an electric or air stapler?

So again, ideally I'd just take the seat off, go to a local upholstery place and ask if they could fit it. Easy. But there's nothing simple or easy about getting that seat back on , so the seat is just sitting there until I finally muster up the enthusiasm to dedicating an entire day to my motorbike's seat. That day hasn't happened yet.

In the meantime I can still ride it, it just gives me a sore *** after about an hour or so.

OK, I'm a grumpy old man... :P


Back to the topic - it does seem that just attaching some heavy duty wires that are easy to get to may be the simple solution regarding jumping, then wire the charging port with normal wire and a fuse as normal. Mmm.

I just like the small, light and compact solution of a 12 cigarette lighter connection, rather than thumping great crocodile clips and stuff. You'd certainly need such things for cranking a car, but I'm figuring to just spin a single 250 you wouldn't need such heavy duty wiring and switches an stuff?

Can the cigarette lighter connection itself withstand the amps required?

Anyway, it's rainy season now and I just have no enthusiasm for pulling that thing apart for now, just thought i'd ask for when i eventually do.

*grumpy face

 

Have you ever seen a battery tender lead set?





They plug together cleanly:



You get them, bolt one to the battery and locate the plug in a convenient position, then put the other in your tool kit/bag/whatever. Key point is to verify which lead should be red since they may not match exact due to the way they would be used. The alligator clip set is normally added to the battery tender, not as jumpers. Switch if needed could be easiest marked and done at the battery terminals.

Cheap at Walmart available all over the place.

Don't get much neater than that.

 

I picked up a couple of these this fall.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0?ie=UTF8&th=1



It uses an "EC5" connector commonly found in a R/C hobby application to connect the alligator clamp leads to the lithium battery. I bought some extra EC5 connectors and 10AWG wire and made my own short pigtail and hard wired it to the KLX battery. I made it just long enough to hang out right behind the side panel so I can access it without removing anything. Looks something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/E-flite-Batte...7&keywords=ec5



Iirc, the EC5 connectors are rated to 150A, so plenty for the tiny KLX. I wrapped the connector with a little electrical tape to keep water and junk out of it. One thing to remember, however; it's a nonfused pigtail with large diameter wire, so the potential for a nasty short directly across the battery is there, if the bike was ever dropped and heavily damaged on the left side.

 

No, I've never seen one of those battery tender things before?

I have my own battery charger but that just comes with crocodile clips; I've never seen such a cable before. Had a look on ebay and found with with free international shipping

But yes, yes I have seen those connectors used for RC stuff (I had a DJI Phantom for awhile, and spent some time in an RC shop gazing at things, like you do)

Both great suggestions, thanks!

And thanks for putting up with me being grumpy

(I do appreciate the product links, as it helps me start looking but invariably anything that isn't book-shaped with pages from Amazon results in:

"In Stock.
This item does not ship to Malaysia"

..which is another reason I get grumpy )