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  #1  
Old 29 May 2004
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Electric shocks from Handlebar - Dakar
Hi,
I've been through some quite heavy sand storms in Saudi Arabia with my Dakar, and in the extreme gusts I got electrical shocks from the grips, strong enough to make me let go of the handle. It occured in both grips and at several occasions, especially in the, as I mentioned, gusts.

I removed the fuse for the grip heating and the problem disappeared, but on the other hand, the weather calmed down too.

Does anybody have a clue what caused this or what might have broken? By the way, I poured out about 50 ml sand of the air filter after Saudi Arabia...

/Erik
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Old 30 May 2004
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Hmmm.. to feel the electricity you have to get a jolt of about 50 volts or more. The only thing on the bike generating that kind of voltage is the ignition system, feeding the spark plugs. There is something like 20-40,000V at the plugs. Unless there is something shorting between the plug wires or coil & grips, there is no way I know of, that you should be getting the shocks from the heated grips.

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Nigel in NZ

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Old 30 May 2004
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Hello
This may be out of left field, but could the problem be static electricity? I get the same thing getting out of my truck, when i ground out i create a spark resulting in quite the jolt. Possibly caused from the sand or maybe even the seat??
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Old 31 May 2004
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Static sounds to me most likely! One way static is caused is by one material rubbing another - sand "rubbing" across fabric, seat etc could possibly be the cause.

Nothing else seems liklely to me. The only thing on the bike that COULD give you a shock is the high tension leads to the plugs, and I've never heard of that causing a shock to the bars. doesn't mean it couldn't happen of course, but I would expect water and a cracked cap or lead to be a cause, not sand.

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Old 12 Jun 2004
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Static is _very_ strange!

We had a piece of construction plant that had a strange clicking and sparking (like a spark-plug) coming from a hydraulic oil filter casing. This only occured in cold weather. After much investigation of the electrics and puzzlement, it turned out that static was being generated by the oil (only when thick) being forced through a nylon part of the filter gauze. A factory-replacement aluminium one cured it.

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