DIY Heated Gear: New Heated Glove Liners

The Glove Liners 2.0 work a little too well.  I've discovered it was over kill to use two 5' strands of nichrome wire heatshrinked together.  Those liners are 26w each glove at the 13.3v my bike produces while moving.  They are much too hot when I connect them to the battery tender lead!  I found that even with the controller on it's lowest setting, I still had to turn it off to prevent burning my hands.

At the end of the last cold season, I decided I'd make another pair of liners, this time with only one 5' strand of nichrome.  Of course, being the Lupie I am, I forgot all about it until the last ride when I used the heated gloves for the first time this season.  For the first time though, I had them connected to the power outlet in my tank bag with the controller on the lowest setting.  I discovered I didn't have to keep turning the gloves on and off but the radar detector kept beeping a low voltage warning.  It wasn't true, the Multiguage showed I was at a healthy 13.3v.  I couldn't use the liners and the radar detector at the same time so I moved the liners to the battery tender plug and rediscovered the almost hand cooking sensation that made me realize my gloves were too hot (for me).  For the rest of that ride, I rode in comfort without the radar detector.

Since that solution was no real solution I went shopping for gloves to use as the base for the liners.  This time I was looking for something that fit me better than the mechanics gloves.  Cycle Gear was advertising some base layer gloves that looked like a good solution but my local store was sold out.  Instead, I went to the big box store and got some Isotoners that resembled the gloves in the ad but are probably not as thin.  Just in case those wouldn't work, I got another pair of mechanics gloves from Home Depot.

Supplies I need to make new liners:  Butt Splices, 6 ft of 18g lamp wire, misc
sized heat shrink tubing, mechanics gloves for backup, and Isotoner gloves

I'm still using my original supply of nichrome wire.  Making these liners, I finally got into my second spool of wire!  Not bad considering I've made 2 pairs of glove liners, 2 jacket liners, and countless mistakes.  After I covered the bare wire

I pinned it to one of the Isotoners, connected it to a power supply, and let it run so see if there would be smoke or singeing of fibers.  Once I determined the gloves could handle the heat, I started sewing.
I use the pens in the pictures inside the finger I'm sewing so I don't accidentally sew the fingers together.  I spent maybe 2 days sewing the nichrome to the gloves.  Once the sewing was done, I added the wires that will plug in to the controller.  I used 18g lamp wire from Home Depot because it's only $0.37/foot.  I bought 6 feet of wire so I'd have extra and used only one foot; 6" for each glove.

I soldered the 18g lamp wire to the 26g nichrome wire then put heat shrink tubing over them.  The 18g lamp wire will supply power to the nichrome wire.  Soldering nichrome wire to copper wire ain't easy.  You have to separate the strands of the copper wire and wrap a few strands in the middle around the nichrome then cover that by tightly wrapping the remaining wires around them.  Finally you solder that just like you are tinning the copper wires and you've made the connection.

Once that was done, I connected both gloves to the power supply for extended testing to be certain the gloves would hold up to the heat from the wires.

Next step is to add the connectors that go to the controller.  I finally got to use my helping hands tool for the first time.  It made adding the connectors much easier and I didn't burn my fingers once.

The new liners fit easily and comfortably inside my newer gloves.  These gloves don't make my throttle thumb hurt like the others do so not only will my hands be comfortably warm but pain free too.  A short test on the bike proved I now had heated liners that allowed me to use more than the lowest setting on the controller.  I guess these are Glove Liners 2.1.

List of materials used:

1. 2 Strands @ 5' each of 26 awg bare nichrome wire
2. Heat Shrink Tubing for both the 26 awg wire and 18 awg wire
3. 12" of 18 awg lamp wire, 6" for each glove
4. Gloves
5. Needle and thread
6. Soldering stuff  (You can also use the butt splices and crimp the connection between the lamp and nichrome wires)

Here are links to all of the DIY Heated Clothing posts.
Homemade Heated Glove Liners
Heated Gear Update
More Heated Gear
Heated Gear Controller R&D
Jacket Liner 2.0

Thanks for reading,
patrice, theWolfTamer

My original Liners 2.0 with 1.0 controller.  The 2.1 liners are more comfortable and look better!