Oxford Hot Grips

[Spikenipple]

Hello mighty .org

I fitted a set of Hot Grips on Sunday but am having a bit of trouble with them. I know the new ones (which these are) have an integrated system to turn off if the voltage is too low, which could be the problem.
Basically they will only turn on and stay on whenever they feel like it. I've had 2 journeys out of about 10 so far where they've stayed on.
They are wired as the directions show, directly to the battery with an inline fuse.
With the ignition off, the control unit will flash the blue LED 5 times which indicates too low voltage to heat the grips up. With the ignition on (with or without the engine running) the blue power LED will light up for about a second then turn itself off again, and the grips will not heat up at all. I can try this as many times as I like and it will do the same thing.
The two times they have worked so far have been when i've turned them on before ignition or starting the engine, and they've just worked for the duration of the journey till they're turned off by me.

The battery is well charged, all of the plugs have been enclosed in electrical tape and are dry, and the connectors on the battery are making good contact with the terminals.

Does anyone have any ideas?? I wouldn't hesitate in sending them back for replacement if I hadn't hacked part of the r/h grip away to get my bar end to fit, and no I didn't chop anywhere near the elements in the grip.

Thanks
Mike

[yorkie_chris]

The control unit's crap. Is your charging system working properly?

[dyzio]

Hm.. from what I understand, you're trying to turn them on whilst stationary, won't work.
The SV idle voltage is to low for that.
Turn them on when you are already riding the bike, and yes, they will turn themselves off at every possibility (junction, etc.)
HTH

[yorkie_chris]

Mine don't. Depends on health of charging system and the controller, which is luck of the draw, hence why the old style controller was better.

[Spikenipple]

Yeah the charging system is working fine as far as I can tell. I'll take readings at off/idle/4k rpm tomorrow, it's a bit late now.

[Spikenipple]

Originally Posted by dyziowg

Hm.. from what I understand, you're trying to turn them on whilst stationary, won't work.
The SV idle voltage is to low for that.
Turn them on when you are already riding the bike, and yes, they will turn themselves off at every possibility (junction, etc.)
HTH

I've tried turning them on at several points during journeys where they haven't been working initially, all to the same blue light for a second then off. Even if they stayed on at higher engine speed, it would only be a quick fix, not a solution.

Hi,
I picked up my SV (03) on Monday from a local dealer.I dropped my new style Oxford grips up to them (they couldn't get any in time) so they could fit them prior to collection.I ride out,turn the grips on and all fine.Stop for a cuppa up at Bury Hill and forget to turn them of (wired to the ignition so they automatically turn of).Some 30 minutes later back on the bike,start her up, turn on the grips and I get blue flashing lights.I am not sure what this is and after several attempts riding home I finally get them to work.Now I have had quite a few bikes over the past few years and this is the only bike with this problem.I have had a 08 GSX650F and currently have a 09 Z750 with the same grips and haven't had this problem so all in all very annoying ! Reading the discussion on this I am amazed by this and you would think a simple solution could be found.

Tony