Newby riding in cooler weather clothing question. - Page 7

 


When you look, try to determine if the current drawn by the
grips flows through the same route that charges the battery:
That is a recipe for trouble that no amount of alternator
power will fix.

I went through this headache with my '98 VFR. The results are here:
http://www.zefox.net/~bob/mc/vfr/


The most basic test is to measure the voltage difference
between the battery and the voltage regulator. That must
be small and constant, regardless of load, 100mV or less.
If the difference depends on external loads, the bike is
miswired.

Good luck,
bob

 

wrote:

here:http://www.zefox.net/~bob/mc/vfr/


The grips are clearly not wired directly into the charging circuit.
I've been through that one enough to know. The bike has
two stock wires to +12, a fat one for charging and a smaller
one to drive lights, ignition, etc. It's clearly wired into that
circuit and controlled by a relay, as it won't draw down the
battery when the key's not turned on. Where exactly is
something I don't recall, if I ever knew.


The regulator draws +12 straight out of the diode board
and appears to be well isolated from other circuits.
The path to battery +12 is pretty clean too. 3 wires from
stator to diodes, single wire from diode board to starter
terminal, fat wire from starter to +12.

Only place I've ever seen problem were in the 3 wire AC
hookup and the battery grounds, though I maybe ought to
swap the diode to starter wire out too just on general principals.

 


If access is possible, it's worthwhile to measure voltage drops between
the regulation point (where the regulator samples the charging voltage)
and other points in the entire circuit, with the battery being the
most critical. I was surprised to find a few failed AMP-style
crimp connectors on my VFR. Apparently they were loaded very close to
their limits. When new, they worked fine, but once they heated up a
little they went into thermal runaway and really cooked.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the Electrosport fault finding guide
is very, very useful:
http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/library/diagnosis/fault-finding-guide.php

good luck,

bob

 

wrote:

useful:http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/library/diagnosis/fau ...

I'm not 100% sure there's a problem to be found or more
watts to be wrung out. Could be just plain underpowered,
but a couple tests for voltage drop are certainly a good idea.

Thanks

 

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:55:33 +1300, Rob Kleinschmidt  


useful:http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/library/diagnosis/fau ...

Any voltage drop will get translated into heat at 100% efficiency.
Some of that heat might be other than where you actually want it ;-)

Greg.P.