TFI- MUST be grounded to battery terminal?

[bobhamlin]

I mounted it near my auxiliary fuse box. I could ground it there, couldn't I?

Seems like everything I want to add wants to connect directly to the battery terminal. It's crowded and hard to get that nut started.

[dogdoc]

You can ground to a good metal part of the frame/bolt Bob. Just make sure its tight and making a good clamp. You can only get so many accessories clamped to the +/- terminals. :-)

[macmac]

Any grounds will do. I use the battery hold down bracket for all grounds. The only item on the battery direct, not stock is the battery charger lead, which feeds forward and comes out where the drain hoses are loctaed in the wire holder.

The frame and engine are grounds.. They better be or ain't nuthin gonna work. One big wire.

Get the connections clean, I mean bright and spankin clean. All it takes to stop 12 dcv is a finger print sometimes.

What else have you got on the battery?

[bobhamlin]

Originally Posted by macmac

What else have you got on the battery?

I DID have my tach grounded there, but have now grounded everything either to the frame or to the fuse box. TFI just seemed so definite about where its ground had to go--even showing how to clip the circular tab--that I began doubting what I thought was true. Like you said, the frame is one big wire.

For me, straight electricity is easy. A connection starts from the power and ends at a ground.

Put a computerized card in there and I start losing confidence even though I know the same law holds.

I think this experience got me over the hump, though.

[macmac]

If ever you get too many things and or it looks messey to ground at bolts all over the place you can get a gang ground, in many styles, and bring them all to one place.

So mong at the battery is good, the cables are good the ground is the engine and the frame.

Bikes tend to have rubber mounted light in most cases the turn sigs are this way, so they need a real ground wire.

If you mount ligkts on the hard bags then of course it would also need a ground wire.

But none 'need' to go all the way to the battery.

Some bikes have problems with grounds in the front forks... The ground is running thru the goose neck bearings in many cases. So if things get fluky up front and ground wire might be of use bridging the frame to the forks.

I don't know off hand how the forks are grounded on the Nomad.. But so far no one seems to have any issue, and I don't think the bearings are the ground path.