New technology in vintage sleds

[DeereKid9]

Here is my question to be taken in, digested, and thrown back out.

Can vintage sleds, 80-84 LF in this case, handle an external "cigarette lighter" power point? To be used to charge cell phones, GPS, ipods and such.

If so, how and if not why?

Bob

[JD600]

JDBA,

Voltage and amperage capacity wise, i'm almost certain that it could be made to would work. My fear is that at idle, many times the voltage is lower that 12v, which could be hard on sensitive electronic equipment. My biggest fear would be in the event of a voltage regulator failure, the lighting system has the potential on most of these sleds to produce up to 70v. This would be a little hard on your TomTom....

Just my thoughts.

DE

[DeereKid9]

That is the kind of input I was looking for. Thanks Dusty.

[lwb140]

yep im sure it would work fine especially if it has electric start , when i was a kid my [our at the time ] 76 cyclone had a cb mounted to the hood behind the windsheild and yes i still have it i would probably consider replacing the regulator and double check all of the connections just so it doesnt go wild and burn your stuff up!! be just like running an egt or something wade

[400brian]

E-start would certainly help smooth out the voltage I would think.

Ross Heavener was running a GPS on his Yami, but I don't recall if it was plugged in or running on batteries.

Wasn't a cig lighter optional on some of these? They were on everything else.

[jdrob]

I know I had an AMF Skidaddler that had a lighter, estart, and turn signals wonder how it didn't overload when you were trying to light a cigerette,turn and start it up all at the same time ?? you don't have to respond to me I knew how it worked !!

[JDT]

Hey guys, unless the snowmobile has a rectifier your cigarrette lighter socket will have AC voltage.

That will light up your Electronics real fast.!!!!!!

If your sled has electric start then you have a rectifer already as it is needed to charge the battery.

But before you use the source make sure your rectifer is working properly.

Sleds with out e-start only have a regulator.

This does not matter what brand you are looking at, It is univeral.

As for load.....

If you have a 75w lighting coil approx 55 watts is for the headlight, 5 watts for the tailight and 6 watts for gauge lights.
When you apply the brakes that is an additional 10 watt load.

Anyone with hand warmers will notice that the headlight is not as bright when the warmers are on.
Same goes for some sleds when you apply the brakes... headlight dims.


If you have a 90 watt or larger coil you are good to go.

[JDT]

As Brian said a battery would help clean up the DC as a battery is nothing more than a huge capacitor.

Ripple is very hard on electronics.

Another concideration is ignition noise from the points and spark plugs.

A filter capacitor from Radio Shack or whatever would help with a non electric start sled powering electronic add ons.

[400brian]

DUH! Todd is correct, I forgot about the AC current!

[JoeRainville]

Todd,

Thanks for letting the guys know that sled's 12volt system is AC. And, yes a rectifier will convert it to DC, and a battery will smooth out the ripple. A battery will also help keep the system from drawing too many amps, but 12V accessories do not take much power. But the LF is only around 120watts on the lighting coil too.

And Dusted is quite right that a sled with a bad regulator can make 37 volts at idle and much more as RPM climbs. That's when all your bulbs go purple for that split second...

Merry Christmas!
-Joe Rainville

[400brian]

That's when all your bulbs go purple for that split second...

It's really cool when the headlight is suddenly illuminating the trail like daylight...and then such a let down when it just as suddenly gets really dark.

[Matt]

I recently connected an accessory wire to power a helmet visor defroster and didn't consider the A/C issue - does anyone know if the defroster will play nice?

[JDT]

There are aftermarket universal rectifiers available that have a 200 watt capacity.
They have a regulator and rectifier in one unit and use a four wire hook up.
These cost about $30 or so and again are universal. Garden tractors, snowmobiles, swap buggies, whatever.

The regulators that we are all fimilar with are cheaper at $18 and have only one or two wire hookups.

Either way you go you need to have a good electrical ground at the mounting point and a heat sink if you are going to run it near the maxium load.

The 120 watt coil on the LF is a pretty good. Some newer sleds have 200 watt systems.

If you want to install to add anythng to the sled just make sure that the system is in good shape and that you do not overload it.

A fuse, filter cap and maybe even a choke plus resistor type spark plugs would be a good ideas.

[nick80lf]

I recently connected an accessory wire to power a helmet visor defroster and didn't consider the A/C issue - does anyone know if the defroster will play nice?

Should be the same as hand warmers as long as it doesn't have any "smarts" to it.

This post reminds me of one of my past experiences. In the mid 90's I went to the local JD dealer and tried to purchase a temp gauge for the 2nd gen liquifire's. When it arrived it was in a JD box with the correct number but inside was a temp gauge with an electronic sending unit. I blindly installed it, started up the sled and watched as the pointer went from the peg on the low side to the peg on the high side in about 10 seconds. Then it hit me the sled was 12 VAC not 12 VDC.

[JDT]

Matt a heater is concidered a passive device as it is only a resistive load.

It is the active loads that have electronics in them that would smoke if you went AC insted of DC.
Likewise reversing polarity in a DC device can let the smoke role out also.

It is a general rule that once you let the smoke out of something it is junk.