On the most recent family ride during the ANZAC Day weekend, the switch for the heated grips failed. Basically I had used one that was not rated high enough for the amperage required and melted the insides. So replacing the switch with one rated at 20 amps should resolve that.
That exercise gave me pause to reflect on the effect of handguards on deflecting wind. Kerri never used his heated grips on the trip and I have ridden for several years without grip heaters on the Suzuki, which has excellent handguards. I had a look at what is commercially available and basically anything decent starts at AUS$160.00 and goes up pretty fast from there.
So this is my prototype. Cost to dated has been about $8.00, although I want to experiment with different washers. These will not protect the hands from a crash, just wind, road grime and bugs but that is all the retail solutions do too. We have a four day trip in the middle of Winter planned, going to Stanthorpe and that will be a good test.
