Anybody know?

[Polarbear]

F650 Dakar'03 alternator upgrade data exist? It needs a boost to run a few options. Gerbing Liner and heated grips, nothing else and the alt./battery system is taxed to near its limit. Just wondering, thx., Randy

[Railbender]

On my '01 F650GS I run the Gerbings liner, heated grips and GPS with no problem. I do shut off the heated items about 5 miles from the end of my ride to let the battery charge.

[nytrashman]

on my 07 F650GS i can run a warm & safe heated jacket, heated gloves and gerbing heated socks. using a dual heat troller i keep the jacket & gloves pluged into one side and the socks on the other. as long as your rpm's are above 4000 you will have no problem. when in town with lots of stop & go traffic i will shut off the socks and may even turn down the heat troller for the jacket/gloves a bit. once out of the stop & go traffic and i'm riding at or above 4000 rpm i switch switch the socks back on. change your CS sprocket from the stock 16 tooth to a 15 tooth to give you a few more rpm. keep your bike on a battery tender every night so you always start out with a fully charged battery. i do not use the heated grips, for the amount of heat output they produce vs the current they draw (forget what it is now) i do not think it is worth it. i would rather use a pair of warm & safe (or gerbing) heated gloves as i know they keep your hands much warmer and use less juice. also if you do not have a pair of hippo hands get them. they will keep your hands out of the wind and will allow you to keep your heat troller at a lower setting and still be plenty warm. i also would recomend you getting a good volt meter/battery monitor so you can keep an eye on exactly when your battery is charging and when it isn't.

i have looked around and have been unable to find anyware that can up the output of the alt. even though i can run all my heated gear i still would be very interested in getting some more watts out of it.

[Polarbear]

My Son in Law as the Dakar and has the issues and I'm asking here. Thx for the data and I'll pass it on to him, or he can read it here. I was a little surprised the bike had trouble with his stuff, as he has no driving lights, BUT does use the heated grips/gerbing liner and they apparently use a lot of juice? Good tips about the grips, gloves thing. Randy:thumb :usa

[elkroeger]

It all depends on how you ride. short trips (say, less than 10 miles), in winter, with an electric jacket "on" all the time will sap most anything. Winter is of course when you need all that stuff turned on, but the cold is also very hard on your battery... Some judicious use of the electrons is mandatory, regardless of the bike, as far as I can tell. 1) get a heat-troller and turn the jacket down as much as possible. That jacket's there to keep you from getting cold, as opposed to "keeping you warm" (think about that one for a minute). 2) turn everything "off" for the last 5 or 10 minutes of the trip. 3) wait 5 or 10 minutes before turning stuff "on" when you start out. 4) get a trickle charger and plug the bike in overnight. (this really works great for milking another winter out of a tired old battery).

As a rule of thumb, I shut electrical stuff off as much as possible unless I'm on the interstate.

[CaptainR12C]

Did you check out www.f650.com ?

[klwbmw]

Check out the portable batteries Gerbings sells. It just might give you the extra power you are looking for. Also if you like to freeze your butt off at tailgates, etc. you can use your heated clothing. :)

http://www.gerbing.com/Products/batteries.html

[gfountain]

+1 for checking out F650.com. There is a lot of great info there.

Last winter I was riding dirt roads that had spotty snow on my '06 Dakar in the foothills of Colorado. I was running my GPS, Gerbing jacket liner and heated grips. I reached an area that was drifted with snow and stopped to help a guy dig out his car. 45 minutes later when he was free I tried to start my bike and found out I had a dead battery. And yes, my battery was recently serviced, relatively new and was on a battery tender when I was not riding. A simple case of drawing down the battery with all the electrics. The conditions did not lend themselves to high rpm's so I probably wasn't getting enough charge back into the battery. As luck would have it I was at the bottom of a trough. Fortuantely a couple of guys came by in a Jeep. We all pushed the bike uphill so that I could bump start it.

When I got back into Denver I stopped by my dealer and they ran a quick load test on the battery. All was well. Since then I am a bit more cautious about running all my electrics. If I am riding slow at low rpm's I turn some things off. I don't worry if I am road riding. I haven't ever had a problem since and I still have the same battery.

[AKBeemer]

+1 for checking out F650.com. There is a lot of great info there.

Last winter I was riding dirt roads that had spotty snow on my '06 Dakar in the foothills of Colorado. I was running my GPS, Gerbing jacket liner and heated grips. I reached an area that was drifted with snow and stopped to help a guy dig out his car. 45 minutes later when he was free I tried to start my bike and found out I had a dead battery. And yes, my battery was recently serviced, relatively new and was on a battery tender when I was not riding. A simple case of drawing down the battery with all the electrics. The conditions did not lend themselves to high rpm's so I probably wasn't getting enough charge back into the battery. As luck would have it I was at the bottom of a trough. Fortuantely a couple of guys came by in a Jeep. We all pushed the bike uphill so that I could bump start it.

When I got back into Denver I stopped by my dealer and they ran a quick load test on the battery. All was well. Since then I am a bit more cautious about running all my electrics. If I am riding slow at low rpm's I turn some things off. I don't worry if I am road riding. I haven't ever had a problem since and I still have the same battery.


One solution is to get a device that allows you to monitor your electrical consumption and therefore manage your power usage. The Kisan Charge Guard is one of the better such devices, but there are others. Once you know what is going on you can make changes that allow the use of accessories. You’ll find that making subtle changes like headlight to low beam, or hand grips to low, or heated vest turned down a bit, can save enough power so that you can run what you need and still keep your battery happy. If you aren’t running a rheostat on your heated clothing then you should so you can better power manage. I also learned the hard way that power port on the 07 F650 GS is not switched, so if you stop and leave something plugged in there are going to be issues.

[gfountain]

Hey AKBeemer, thanks for the suggestion regarding the Kisan Charge Guard. I will check it out. It is certainly a more measured approach to managing power rather than simply turning some things off. I do have a rheostat on the Gerbing and I keep it turned down. That jacket will roast a turkey. I have a couple of Aerostich electric jackets and a vest but they don't put out near the heat the Gerbing produces. I assume that means the Gerbing also consumes more power.

[AKBeemer]

gfountain,

I see you've found the ideal mix of bikes... I got my Dakar just before winter set in up here, so I don't have much seat time on it. Spent the winter getting it ready to ride every Alaskan dirt road I can along with my wife on her 650GS.

[gfountain]

gfountain,

I see you've found the ideal mix of bikes... I got my Dakar just before winter set in up here, so I don't have much seat time on it. Spent the winter getting it ready to ride every Alaskan dirt road I can along with my wife on her 650GS.

Yeah, I have been pretty happy with the RT and Dakar duo. Most of my riding is weekend trips and I have been riding the Dakar more than the RT since I bought it in fall '07. We never put our bikes away here in the front range of Colorado so they both get year round use.

[gfountain]

Check out the link below to a post at ADVRider. It may answer the question about upgrading the charging system.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=430505