Strange electrical problem
 

Okay out yesterday riding during lunch. stop at a light and while idling the bike dies. I hit the starter and nothing. I notice the odometer LCD is blank as are all the lights. It is like the bike is turned off. Switching the key on and off makes no difference.

What I have checked:
All fuses including 30amp main - all good
Power to Starter solenoid - power to 2 pins when ign switch on
Power to odometer fuse when ign off or on
Power to rest of fuse box when ign switch on.

Not sure what to check next. :confused: Looking at the wiring diagram it seems the power from the fuse box goes to a number of places. I can't seem to find one common place to check but I will pull the starter connector next as several of the fuse box power wires go there.
I have not checked the clutch diode, not exactly sure how - could this have something to do with it?
Any other thoughts? Battery is strong - 13.2V, dont see this as a R/R issue as there is absolutely no sign of life.

Thanks for any thoughts

Are you sure you actually checked the 30A fuse? or did you check the spare that is right there next to it? (Easy mistake to make) to be sure you are looking at the right one, shine a light down into where you pulled the fuse from and check for copper.

And it may have been the R/R that killed whatever died.. So it may not be why you have no power now, but it may have caused it.

Ok here is some more detail:
First - thanks for the thought, but no, I pulled the 30A fuse.

I have discovered that when I put the meter/tail/illumination fuse and turn the ign on, my voltage at the battery drops to less than 1 volt. How is that even possible? the fuse is not blowing, there are no sparks when I touch the fuse to the socket.
I pulled the disconect socket for the headlight, the instrument panel and my tail light
Still same result - put in the fuse batt voltage goes to less than 1 volt.

Is my battery dead? but with no load it reads 13????

I'm pullin the battery next, back shortly

OK pulled the battery. Took a piece of wire and shorted it. Nothing. Didn't even get warm.
So I know I need a new battery, after I get that and get started i'll have to figure out what killed her. R/R? guess it could be although I put a 2nd gen oem in last year.
When I was stuck on the side of the road I did reach in and touch the RR to see if it was hot - it was not at all. Aren't they supposed to be hot when they are working?

Wanted to wait an get a A123 battery but not sure based on Mikstr recent issues. Guess it is Walmart here I come...

I'd check the R/R as well. if the RR goes bad, the bike will run from the battery juice until the battery can't provide it. Usually you'll get a sputtering and/or low rpms and then just go dead. If you can jump start the bike to get it running, try disconnecting the battery and see if it continues to run. If the R/R and stator are good, it should continue to run. If not, then one of the two is bad. I have rarely experienced a bad stator, so I usually start with the R/R as it's the more common fault.

Sorry for being a noob, but what does R/R mean? Not meaning to hijack either just curious b/c it shows up a lot and I don't know what it is.

-BA

Regulator/Rectifier

I do have the the original R/R so I'll toss that in and see whats doin. Hopefully that is all it is....

If the battery is doing deep diving under load it's likely that it's a bad R/R and that took out your battery... So try another battery and see if it holds under load... And yeah, try another R/R... The kind of die in pairs...

ok all - seems there are a lot of R/R threads at the moment so I'm not going to add to that jumble just wanted to let everyone know how this concluded.
Picked up a battery at Wally's last night (AGM style $55).
Bike now runs fine. At idle voltage at battery is ~14.2V and at 5000rpm it drops to ~13.6V
The R/R gets hot (2nd gen finned) - to hot to touch for more than a second or two, but the wireing and the connector are not particularly warm - in fact the connector seems just fine. Sub frame wicks away heat just like I guess it should.
Unless a failed R/R can be intermittant (can it?) I'm going to conclude that the battery just died. It was in there from the PO and it was not the OEM Yuasa but some no name aftermarket. Since I've had the bike (1.5 yrs) it has always seemed a bit weak, and was at least 5yrs old.
So thanks for the help - looks like I'm riding again!

I'm sure most you know this but it was news to me. I changed my battery 2 years ago when I bought the bike. I picked up a Wallmart special, charged it, and it worked just ok. The bike always started but the starter seemed a bit sluggish. Well this spring it wouldn't start w/o a jump. Ordered a Yuasa, the one with 11.2 AH mentioned in another thread. Anyway, took the bike for an inspection and the nice lady behind the counter told me a car charger charges at 2 amps and a motorcycle charger should charge at 1.5 amp and using a 2 amp unit will dammage the battery. That it will diminish the capacity from the get go. I had used a 2 amp chgr on the Wallmart special. The new yuasa starts the bike when I just think about pressing the start button. I bought a 1.5 amp charger.

BS on the charging amps I've used a Sears auto charger for 43 years with no problems. I would, however, periodically check to make sure the battery is not too hot. Even after hours on the charger there is no excessive heat in my experience.

General rule of thumb: charge a battery at 1/10 the battery's amperage rating. So, charge a 20amp battery at 2 amps, charge an 11amp battery at 1.1amps. This is more of a guideline. So it is ok to charge an 11 amp battery with 2amps, it is not ok to charge it with 20amps. Most good chargers are "smart" and charge at what the battery "asks" for.

No, a dead or dying R/R is not intermittent... But when it's about to die it will kill one battery after another... Take the 30 minutes it takes (at the most!) to verify your R/R... it should pass all the tests ie no leaking trough the diodes, not imbalance... Find the "electrosports fault finding chart" by search and go through it...

Not BS... But not the whole truth either... Using a charger that's to large for the battery doesn't damage it or diminish it's capacity unless you overheat the battery, so you are right on that part... However if you try to charge the battery at 2A instead of 0.5-1.5A (common for motorcycle batteries) you will be successful in topping of a half charged battery, but a dead flat battery will never ever reach a full charge unless you reduce the current... Same goes for the initial charge on a new battery... This is because of something called "peukerts effect"... Ie what happens inside a battery when subjected to a high load (or high charge)...

Same applies for a to low charge current as it builds up the internal resistance in the battery... If you take a flat battery and put it on a float charger it will never reach full charge...

A modern "smart" charger senses these conditions and varies the charge current accordingly...

Thanks Markus, I have seen this chart but had forgotten about it. I'll run through it today.
Nice thing about Walmart is that I can kill battery after battery and just exchange them, but that will get tedious...

Did you know that Walmart accounts for ~1% of the US GDP? I will NOT buy anything from them. JB

I got a similar problem with my batt. It won't stay charged and I've gone through a few. How do I check the R/R? Will I need a meter? Is there a website where I can download a electrical schematic of the bike? Any assistance will be greatly appreciated....

You do know how search works? Right?

Yes, a very cheap multimeter works/is needed...

Harbor Freight has cheap multimeters that will suffice. Good luck.