squirrel stumble!

[packman85]

Seeing as Squirrels posted for me last time Ill post for him since his internet connection is spotty and I want some answers to his questions to prove that Im right.  So he was out riding yesterday, had been riding for about 20 mins then he started to loose power and noticed that his lights and tach were no longer working and the engine completely died.  After pulling over he noticed that the battery was extremly warm, bubbling internally and slightly expanded.  Found that he had blown all his fuses.
   Ok, no for the back story.  A few days ago he was running the bike with a volt meter for kicks and giggles and found that his battery was at 17.8 volts while the bike was running.  Voltage with bike off was about 14.4 volts and he rode it around a bit and checked volts again while the bike was running and it was about 13.4v.  So my deduction is that he has a major regulator problem.  Any comments or deductions are welcome.   Other than this problem hes tickled pink with his bike.

[Night Vision]

if either of you two have a mulitmeter... you could go here:

http://www.ridersofvision.net/Technical/fault_finding.pdf

and run the tests to see if it's the R&R or Stator...

before (one of) my stator died.. I was getting crazy off the scale volt readings..
R&R was fine...

again ....   only one way to tell: http://www.ridersofvision.net/Technical/fault_finding.pdf

[Lucky]

I'm going to agree with you Packman and respectfully disagree with you NV.  you have a bad R/R (specificly the regulator part)

the Regulators job is to limit the incomming current down to a usable level.  the stator puts out much more power than the bikes electrical system is designed for (~ 14V) the regulator limits all this output to a max of 15V (+/- .5V)

the regulator on Squirles bike was allowing nearly 18V, cooking the battery.  test the system per the chart NV mentioned, replace the R/R & probably the battery & retest.

think of the bikes electrical system like the water comming into your house.  if the pressure is too high from the pump (stator) then a regulator (R/R) is used to lower the pressure to keep your pipes (wire harness) from bursting.

--Lucky

[supervision]

 My bike overcharged too.  It was resistance in the brown sence wire. The brown wire was showing the regulator that the voltage was low, so it would keep the battery voltage way too high.  If I was working on this problem I would start by hooking the D C side of the R/R  direct to the battery, this will tell you instantly if your regulator is capable of the correct voltage.   I don't remember the colors off the top of my head, but it is the pos to pos on the battery, the neg to neg on the battery, then the most important brown, sence, wire to the pos post of the battery.

[Lucky]

just a cavet here, & i don't remember off hand if it's the same on the Vision, but on most vehicles, usually the R/R is wired into the ignition switch because it will draw all the time if hooked directly to the battery, causing it to drain when the bike is off, so you may only want to hook the sensing & other wires up only as a temporary test...

--Lucky

[Squirrels]

You're right.  The wire is tied to the ignition switch.

I haven't been able to test my R/R yet, but the fuse short has been sorted out and the bike turns over.  I'm not getting spark to the rear cylinder, and traced the problem to a low output on the rear coil wire from the TCI.  I'm replacing the transistor and possibly some diodes on the board to see if I'm right.  Once I get the bike to start, then I'll check the R/R.  By the way, rewired the R/R with high quality marine grade plugs.  The last owner had removed the stator plug and twisted the wires together, then tightly taped them.  I was amazed it had worked for him for so long.  There were two of theses "splices" per stator wire.  I soldiered and heat shrank one set and installed the plug on the other.  I'm hoping these fixes solve my problems.

Thank you guys for all your help so far.

-Erik

[zore]

This may be just me and I may be off base, but I believe you are having an electrical problem.   ;D

[Mutt]

This may be just me and I may be off base, but I believe you are having an electrical problem.   ;D

Zore, do you need me to go over plier technology with you again?

Mutt  :)

[zore]

This may be just me and I may be off base, but I believe you are having an electrical problem.   ;D

Zore, do you need me to go over plier technology with you again?

Mutt  :)

So I just come down from getting my cup of coffee here at work and decide to see what's going on in here.  Needless to say, the coffee came out my nose.  Nice job.