Heated Handlebars

[S8961]

As winter is coming and my heated gloves are not really good enough for icy cold I thought I would make the following which I found on the net. However I do not know how to store the battery so that when I park the bike the battery is not stolen. Any ideas?

They run on small batteries-that are depleted in 1 hour of continuous use. The commercially available gloves are low quality, the heating elements are in the wrong place for riding, and you can hardly feel the warming effect.




This handlebar modification will give you strong heating to the inside of your gloved hands, which will keep them toasty and warm.

1. Work out what resistance nichrome wire you will need for your battery voltage using Ohm's Law (See Section 6.1.1, Equation 6.2) and based on needing about 5W and 0.5m/2 ft per grip. For example, for a 48-V battery, you will want to use 200 Ω or 66 Ω per ft wire; for 36 V, use 1OO Ω/m or 33 Ω/ft; and for 24 V, use 50 Ω/m or 17 Ω/ft. You will need 2 to3 metres, 6 to 10 ft of the wire for one set of handlebars.
2. Wrap 1 m/3 ft of the wire around, each rubber handle grip. Make sure that the loops don't overlap, and then tape the wire loosely in place.
3. Temporarily connect the handle grip wires together and to the battery with crocodile clips to test the strength of the heating, if the heat is too little then take off some of the wire and retry. If there is too much heat, then start again with larger pieces. Keep the wire the same length on each handle grip or the heating will be uneven.
4. Once you find the right level of heating, then either duct tape or plastic-tape the wires in place to make your handle grip heaters.
5. Solder wires onto a switch, and then hot-glue and cable-tie the switch onto the handlebars somewhere out of sight
6. You can't solder onto nichrome wire. Therefore, to permanently connect up the handle grip heaters, you have to just twist them together with copper wire and then solder the copper wire. The solder will adhere only to the copper wire, but it will encapsulate the nichrome wire around which it is twisted.
7. Tape Up the joins with electrical tape.
8. Connect the heaters in series and to the switch and then to the battery voltage at the handlebars.

I attach the file that I made showing the rest of the instructions from the book Build your own electric bike

Robin

 

[Piemaster]

Have you considered a barbra?
For the battery, how about putting it in tri type bag, then just disconnecting it and taking it with you.

 

[cyberknight]

I doubt it would be any warmer than heated gloves tbh as the heat would have to travel through your gloves, handlebar grips etc etc .

 

[MontyVeda]

could you get enough power with a string of AA batteries running through the width of the bar itself?


BTW... I agree with Cyberknight.

 

[smokeysmoo]

Any ideas?

Yep, MTFU

 

[Norm]

Funny that they say the heating elements in gloves are in the wrong place, then suggest heating the palms (it's the backs that get cold) through the bars, grips and gloves.

If I needed more heat, I'd get thermal liners but I've never even needed full-fingered gloves on a bike.

 

[andrew_s]

Have you considered pogies?
They are sometimes available in the UK if you look hard enough, even for drop bars.
They are also used by motocyclists (often called bike muffs or handlebar muffs) and by rowers & canoeists.

Bar Mitts, UK source