This past spring my battery would keep dying every few weeks that I was required to charge it every week. Fast forward to the summer, and I had zero issues starting the bike and had zero battery issues for all the warm weather months..fast forward again to this past week (toronto, canada) where the evenings have dropped to below 50f. Low and behold the battery died overnight and would not start..However, before i want to go out and buy a new battery I did some tests..
There is no parasitic leak.
I tested the charging system when it was fully charged, and the voltage went from 12.6 to 13.5-13.8...so i assume it's enough to charge the battery, however 2 days later, the battery is now sitting at 12.4v and when i test the charging system, battery voltage only gets up to 13v if im lucky and stays around 12.3-12.4 at idle...
So the question is, is the battery toast or could it be the charging system..and would a bad battery not show that the charging system is working properly?
Sorry for the long post, i cant seem to find a concrete answer on the forums.
Cheers
there's a charging system check procedure you can find with a little searching, follow it.
IMHO your regulator/rectifier is bad, OR more likely the connector/wiring between the regulator/rectifier and the battery terminals is melted down or corroded (or both).
Quote from: mr72 on August 25, 2017, 11:17:10 AM
there's a charging system check procedure you can find with a little searching, follow it.
IMHO your regulator/rectifier is bad, OR more likely the connector/wiring between the regulator/rectifier and the battery terminals is melted down or corroded (or both).
Found it! I will follow this and report back.
Many thanks!
I have recently gone down this road so I can give you some practical advice. You do need to have a battery fully topped up and charged to get reliable reading, not from say the AC voltage direct from the regulator but for other tests it's advisable.
However I have found out the hard way that a $15 el cheapo good enough multimeter, isn't. I was getting believable but suspicious readings, I ended up purchasing the bottom of the range Fluke 101 which is made for the Chinese market and obtainable for $40. Before that I was pretty well wasting my time. The cheap meter was particularly unreliable for the Stator continuity test. Which tested bad with the cheap meter and good with the Fluke.
My problem was charging current to the battery was 14.4Vdc at 2500rpm but slowing dropping to 13V at 5000rpm.
Problem seems to have gone away today and all I did was undo the block connectors between the stator and RR and from the RR to the battery, and give them a spray with contact cleaner. I was going to go through all the wires but just doing these block connectors seemed to have done the trick. Even though the blocks looks in good condition.
http://bbburma.net/Documents/JohnBates_ChargingCircuitTests3.pdf
http://www.electrosport.com/media/pdf/fault-finding-diagram.pdf
http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/library/diagnosis/pdf/diode-testing-guide.pdf
This is also a good video https://youtu.be/U_A5JTWfJWY
Quote from: user11235813 on August 25, 2017, 10:31:14 PM
My problem was charging current to the battery was 14.4Vdc at 2500rpm but slowing dropping to 13V at 5000rpm.
Being pedantic, that's voltage, not current :)
Quote
Problem seems to have gone away today and all I did was undo the block connectors between the stator and RR and from the RR to the battery, and give them a spray with contact cleaner.Y
Yes that connector is prone to corrosion and if you run it a long time while it's corroded it will eventually melt and ruin the connector. Fortunately it's sort of redundant since there's barrel connectors downstream so you can completely eliminate the connector if you like, soldering wires, or do what I did and replace it with generic sealed Faston ("spade") connectors, crimped on. It will mean you can't replace the regulator/rectifier without also changing the connection down the road, but that's hardly a big deal.