Battery capacity

[Alan_Hepburn]

So we recently bought a pair of bluetooth headsets so my wife and I can communicate while we're riding - found out yesterday that the battery life is around 6 hours. So, I was thinking about putting a couple of USB charging ports in the trunk so that we could recharge them when we stop for lunch or whatever. My question is: can the battery support charging 2 headset units without being drained to the point where the bike won't start, after an hour or so? Or would it be smart for me to install a second battery in the sidecar for this purpose? I've got room in the sidecar for a decent battery, and a relay to isolate it so that it can be charged from the alternator but it won't discharge the bike's battery but I don't know if I need to go to the trouble if the bike's battery has enough capacity.

The bike is a '94 GL1500SE if that makes a difference.

[Mh434]

With just an hour or so, I can't see it being a problem. It is worth considering, though, that a stock GL1500 alternator is marginal, at best, in keeping up with the bike's electrical "budget", and a plain-Jane lead-acid "wet" battery doesn't have much excess capacity. If you were running an aftermarket high-output alternator & an AGM-type battery, I wouldn't worry about it.

The alternative, of course, is to charge the units while riding for a bit.

It would be worth checking what the headsets' draw is, while charging (the required amperage required should be in the user's manual). Some GPS units draw up to a full amp, even with the display turned off - that can represent a significant draw-down on the battery after just a few hours. I accidentally left a GPS on my previous bike, plugged in but display off. The next morning, my battery was stone dead - wouldn't even light the LCD display, and volts read zero. That battery never really came back, either.

[raven41951]

Why not pick up a travel charger used for cell phones? You can pre-charge it and plug in your headsets while you are on your "break". They don't cost much and many have the capability of charging two devices at once. I picked up a PNY pair for less than $15 at BJs and the small unit will charge a cell phone from dead to 100% once without recharging. The larger unit has two outputs and the 2.4 output will charge an iPad or using the 1.0 output will charge a cell phone 3 times. Plenty of capacity there and they hold a charge for a long time.

[FM-USA]

I picked up a couple of these...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5V-3A-Dual-USB- ... gOCVolZ-Tg
...but you will need 18650 batteries (not cheap). With 8 batteries I've recharged my smartphone 6 times now from near dead and still have 30% charge left.
It's similar to raven41951 but larger.

[Alan_Hepburn]

I never even thought about a travel charger! We've already got one that charges 2 phones before it needs its own recharge - I'll give it a try next time and see how it does! Thanks guys

I can't recharge them while they're in use because I have to unplug the headset from the control box to plug in the charging cable.

[tylers883]

is that 6 hours of continuous use? if so, are you planning on talking that much? maybe you will get an entire day from that 6 hr battery.

[Alan_Hepburn]

We did about 10 hours on Saurday - left the house about 8am and turned the headsets on. We stopped for breakfast around 9:30am, then stopped again for a break around noon. About 1pm we started getting beeping, which indicates low battery, and about 15 minutes later they shut down. I suppose we could turn then off each time we stop, but we're lazy ...

[FM-USA]

Are they EZ or a BEAR to change fresh batteries around, oh saaaaay, 12:59 PM?

[WingAdmin]

A USB charger outlet provides 1 amp at 5 volts, that's 5 watts. Your battery has (conservatively) 35 amp-hours, which is 420 watt-hours. So you could run a USB charger continuously for roughly 84 hours (3.5) days before it killed the battery.

That said, bluetooth headsets draw significantly less than 1 amp when charging, so they would go even longer.

[Alan_Hepburn]

Are they EZ or a BEAR to change fresh batteries around, oh saaaaay, 12:59 PM?

If the batteries were removeable I could swap them out - but they're built in to the unit, and get recharged through a USB port that is also the connection for the headset, so I can either plug the headset in, or the charging cable.

Here's the unit we bought and they work quite well for the price - we can hear each other even on the freeway!

Find This Item on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015J0L0HM?tag=goldwingdocs-20

[Alan_Hepburn]

A USB charger outlet provides 1 amp at 5 volts, that's 5 watts. Your battery has (conservatively) 35 amp-hours, which is 420 watt-hours. So you could run a USB charger continuously for roughly 84 hours (3.5) days before it killed the battery.

That said, bluetooth headsets draw significantly less than 1 amp when charging, so they would go even longer.

Thanks, WingAdmin - sounds like I can safely recharge them while we stop for lunch/break/etc!