quartet harness

[Carp]

The dealer installed a quartet harness on my 08 ST and installed a cigarette plug in glove box and heated grips in 2 of the 4 connectors on the harness. the other 2 are filled in with a paste like material. does anyone know what the paste is, is for and if those connections can be used for other devices? I have tupperware off to do a valve check and was thinking of adding connections. Thanks

[sherob]

The electrical paste is to keep the connectors from corroding. Same stuff the connector was packed with before the harness was connected. IDR how much of a load can be carried off of the harness... but that would be the biggest concern.

[Mellow]

Dielectric grease, good to use to keep moisture and the elements from connectors.

[jfheath]

Worth testing out what power the sockets provide:

On mine, the White connector gives 12v when Ignition is on, but not when key is turned to accessories
Red connector gives 12v when key is in either ignition or accessory position

The connectors are three pin, but the white and red use the two outside pins of the 3.

The black connector has an earth, a pin that is live in both Ign and Acc position, and a pin that is always live, even when ignition is off. On mine, the live is the centre pin - but I have seen another source which has one of the outside pins as always live. Worth checking then which is which.

Look for Hitachi connectors on the web. They make the job so much easier.

[Carp]

thanks for the information. I have one outlet in right hand glove box. It works well to store and charge cell phone. I will probably add an outlet for the GPS. I looked up the hitachi site for connectors. Your information was certainly helpful and timely.
Randy

[nhdiesel]

The quartet harness is plenty to handle light loads like GPS, charging a phone, etc. For big loads, like accessory lights & heated clothing, install a real accessory fuse block. If you use a relay to make it switched, you can use the quartet harness to trigger the relay.

[sennister]

To get an idea of what the other connectors do take a look at this thread.

http://www.st-owners.com/forums/show...Harness-Pinout

AS mentioned it will work for items that don't have much of a load. GPS is fine but watch the GPS. Some models don't take 12V and the cig adapter actually has a mini transformer in it. So just be sure to do a little research before lopping off that cig adapter and hardwiring it.

Also keep in mind that the bins get pretty hot in the summer. So it may be easy to tuck a cell in there, but it will get very hot which isn't good for electronics. I do keep a charger in my top box and have a the same cig plug in the left pocket for emergency use. I don't use it for day to day riding and on a trip I have power in my tank bag which runs is connected to a powerlet outlet and will put it in my tank bag for charging along with other electronics like a tablet and my radios. I would say the one thing that I use the cig adapter for the most is for powering a 3rd GPS which I don't have hardwired. That is used on trips mainly as it gets traffic updates. Oh another bit of caution on that cig plug. it is fused off the connector with a pretty small 2 amp fuse if I recall. Because of this don't plug anything in it which requires a load. For instance rely on it for a power source to power one of those travel air compressors. You will blow the fuse right away and you will likely have to pull plastic to get to the fuse. Don't put a bigger fuse in it because the harness can't carry the load (see above). So the best option for things like an air compressor is to go with a Powerlet port or one of the 2 pin SAE connectors that battery tenders use typically. Since you are from up north you will need a battery tender connection anyhow. Powerlet ports are popular with us as well for heated clothing. Personally I converted my compressor over to a Powerlet plug.

[Carp]

I already blew the fuse a couple of years ago in Whitehorse Yukon. It dampened my spirits a bit as it was my only source for cell phone charging which by the way did not work anyway. Hence my need for a second plug in.