Using Heated Gear with GEN I

[mantabell]

Hi,

Possible to use heated gear with GEN I? If so, also whether possible to use the BMW wonder wheel for adjusting heat setting?

Current bike configuration (R1200RS) is with one auxillary light set along with dash cam and phone charging accessories.

TIA

[GordsmarsredRT]

I have a Gen 1 ezCan on my 2018 RT and use one of high amp circuits, red or orange, to power my heated vest. I can then control the voltage to the vest with the wonder wheel just as you might dim or brighten aux. lights. You initiate voltage control by pulling the wheel, the side closest to the rider, away from the steering head. Pull out and hold for 5 seconds, turn the wheel toward the front of the bike for more heat/brighter lights, or toward the rear of the bike for less heat/dimmer lights. As per ezCan instructions you can also use the turn signal switch to turn off all aux lights. Hold in the signal cancel switch for 5 seconds. This would turn off your heated gear but it would also turn off aux brake light, etc. I use the wheel to control my heated vest's heat. From full on to full off, in increments of 10%.

[GordsmarsredRT]

I should add: release the wonder wheel after holding out for at least 5 seconds. Then immediately turn the wheel forward or back to change voltage/heat/brightness.

[mantabell]

Wow, wow, wow... thanks for the advice Gordo.

I'll connect up the heated vest sometime in the next few days and report back.

[Ruan]

Hi There

I see in your original message you mentioned that your current configuration is already powering one pair of aux lights, which will hinder your configuration for the heated gear.

Keep in mind that the Gen I ezCANs only support 1 set of aux lights, which you already have configured. So with this in mind, when you try to alter the brightness of the channel (intensity of your heated gear), it will also change the brightness of the lights.

An alternative depending on the amperage required by both the aux lights and heated gear, could be to add your gear to one of the channels, which will give you some control in terms of intensity for high/low beam, but this is of course not ideal and I'd advise against it, due to the gear not receiving constant power from the channel if you have some of the features enabled like strobing.

The best alternative here would be to look at getting a Gen II device, as it supports heated gear with your grips button on the handlebar. If those two settings are not sufficient, you can configure another channel to be aux light set 2, which will allow you to control it with the wonder wheel as explained here under step 4:
https://www.hexezcan.com/software/

Kind regards
Ruan

[mantabell]

Thanks Gordo and Ruan,

The solution I came up with using Gen I was to use the aux light circuit for the auxiliary lights, and, high-powered accessory circuit for my heated jacket.

I couldn't miss out on the aux light circuit features of having daytime safety running lights and, high beam activated driving spot lights at night. Settled with using the existing button on the heated jacket to power on/off and control the level of heat.

Whilst appreciating that ezCan Gen II would provide the ideal solution (with 2 aux light circuits), it's a pity that a firmware update for Gen I isn't available to do the same thing. It seems like an issue of software programing rather than a hardware limitation.

Thanks again guys,
John