Okay. I feel like a smacked *** having to admit this. Hopefully, it will keep someone from making the same mistake.

A few weeks ago, I was having trouble getting my heated gear to work correctly. So, I decided to plug everything in while the bike was sitting in the garage to try and figure out why it wasn't working correctly.

What I forgot was that I also had the bike plugged into the battery tender. And, I never noticed it because the bike was next to the wall in my garage (the battery tender plug comes out from under the seat on that side) and the plug for my heated gear comes out from under the gas tank at the front of the bike.

Anyway, I plugged everything in, fried my Gerbing dual controller, and ended up having to order a new one ($100). Afterwards, I disassembled my old controller and discovered that it had melted one of the chips on the circuit board.

I checked all of the Gerbing literature I could find, including the FAQ on their web site and couldn't find any cautions about the supply voltage to the controller. I checked the output of the battery tender a while back but I don't remember exactly what it is at the moment. I don't think it's much higher than the bike's own charging system, but it's obviously too high for the Gerbing controller.

So, the moral of the story is, if you use a battery tender, make sure the bike is unplugged from the tender before you plug in your heated gear controller.