guys - if I hook up one of these USB power wires to a buddy's bike, will it continuously draw power from the battery even when his phone or whatever is not plugged in? Never used one of these before...thanks for the help

 

It should not. Unless it has some sort of indicator light on it there should be 0 draw from the battery.

 

cool...thanks man

 

No different than attaching a battery tender cable to the battery

 

Yes it may. Although it is a minute amount. The battery is 12 volt whilst the USB is 5volt. this means that it contains some form of transformer. Now, it may be an electronic one but conventional ones draw power whether in use or not.

 

or use a test light and find a power source that switches off with the ignition off,,,

 

Sounds about right, however I would think (not an offical answer) that little red flashing light on the dash or the on-board clock/memory would end up causing more battery drain then this connector if the bike were to sit for extended amounts of time.

 

Actually it will be an electronic regulator (solid state chip) but the quiescent current (no load) should be under 0.001 Amp, less than the self-discharge rate of the battery.

 

Its always worth fitting it into a switched circuit, as stated above, it is a solid state regulator which is powered all the time if directly connected to the battery. The issue is that if It develops a fault it can self destruct as has been known with cigar lighter versions in cars as they use the same circuitry.

 

1: That device lowers the voltage from 12 volts (motorcycle battery) to 5 volts at all times that it is connected.It is a small amount of power consumed but it is a slight drain.
Some folks have a windshield bag and have used similar cable/usb by obtaining power from headlight. It will power only when headlight is on, device contains a low rated fuseable link and is very close to handle bars so there is very little cable to run.
2: If the bike has a battery tender plug and this is for limited use then maybe something like this might be easier and quicker http://www.batterytender.com/Accesso...arger-QDC.html