WTF is wrong with my charging system?

I didn't see that anyone had posted this yet, so here's how you test your charging system.

1. Set your multimeter to DC volts and clip the leads to the battery terminals. With everything off, you should see about 12.6 volts or more on a charged battery.

2. Start the bike and watch the volts. They should increase once the engine is running.

3. Rev the engine up to 5000 RPM. Volts should now be around 14. The key here is that you're looking for an increase in voltage over what you saw when the bike was shut off. If voltage increases, then your charging system is working.

4. If you don't see a voltage gain, move to the next step. Locate the wire bundle going from the stator to the voltage regulator. Disconnect the connector between the two. This will be a three pin connector.

5. Set your multimeter to AC volts. Connect it to two of the pins on the connector that leads to the stator/engine. Start the bike and read the voltage. Then move the meter so it's testing another set ot two wires. You want to try all three combinations. You should see a high voltage, perhaps 60 volts. There's no specification for this voltage, so just make sure that you get the same high voltage with each wire pair that you test. Try this with each set of two wires until you've tried all three possible combinations. If any of the combinations does not produce voltage, you have a stator problem.

6. Instead of step 5, you can measure the resistance of the stator with the engine off. Set your meter to Ohms and, as above, try each possible combination of two wires. So test wires 1 and 2, then 1 and 3, and finally 2 and 3. From the service manual, resistance should be 0.22–0.34 Ω at 20°C (68°F).

If the stator checks out, then you either have a broken wire in your wiring harness, or the voltage regulator is bad.

Hope this helps.
 
This thread should be made a Sticky since these guys have posted some GREAT tips, troubleshooting techniques, etc... I'll do that!
 
This thread should be made a Sticky since these guys have posted some GREAT tips, troubleshooting techniques, etc... I'll do that!

I agree. There is a lot of useful information in this thread! Hopefully I wont have to use it *knock on wood* but if I do need it I know where to look! Thanks FZ6inNH and everybody in this thread.

Back to the troublshooting...
 
Quick updeate:
Of course, it's the simplest explanation, bad battery. I tried trickle charging it for two days, didn't want to hold a charge. I finally took it back to the place I got it. They checked it and said it was just a bad battery. Replaced under warranty. I hope the new one will eliminate my problems.
 
Personally I think this thread should be discarded and a new one with tips named how to trouble shoot the electrical system or soemthing like that should be stickied. Just my opinion as a user that only looked at the thread because it was stickied. A more useful title would also eliminate duplicate questions and the problem of new users and old users not searching for answers before asking them.

This thread should be made a Sticky since these guys have posted some GREAT tips, troubleshooting techniques, etc... I'll do that!
 
Thanks for this post, I have a similar problem with my FZ where it just died while I was riding it. I haven't been able to work on my bike because of other obligations but this helps me in knowing where to look and what to look for.
 
Personally I think this thread should be discarded and a new one with tips named how to trouble shoot the electrical system or soemthing like that should be stickied.

You're right. So I put this together...

Condensed version...

If admin feels this is easier, feel free to replace the old one. Otherwise, let it sit and die.
 
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I didn't see that anyone had posted this yet, so here's how you test your charging system.

1. Set your multimeter to DC volts and clip the leads to the battery terminals. With everything off, you should see about 12.6 volts or more on a charged battery.

2. Start the bike and watch the volts. They should increase once the engine is running.

3. Rev the engine up to 5000 RPM. Volts should now be around 14. The key here is that you're looking for an increase in voltage over what you saw when the bike was shut off. If voltage increases, then your charging system is working.

4. If you don't see a voltage gain, move to the next step. Locate the wire bundle going from the stator to the voltage regulator. Disconnect the connector between the two. This will be a three pin connector.

5. Set your multimeter to AC volts. Connect it to two of the pins on the connector that leads to the stator/engine. Start the bike and read the voltage. Then move the meter so it's testing another set ot two wires. You want to try all three combinations. You should see a high voltage, perhaps 60 volts. There's no specification for this voltage, so just make sure that you get the same high voltage with each wire pair that you test. Try this with each set of two wires until you've tried all three possible combinations. If any of the combinations does not produce voltage, you have a stator problem.

6. Instead of step 5, you can measure the resistance of the stator with the engine off. Set your meter to Ohms and, as above, try each possible combination of two wires. So test wires 1 and 2, then 1 and 3, and finally 2 and 3. From the service manual, resistance should be 0.22–0.34 Ω at 20°C (68°F).

If the stator checks out, then you either have a broken wire in your wiring harness, or the voltage regulator is bad.

Hope this helps.

Very precise explanation of real troubleshooting, definitely not a "let's change this" tactic.
 
I've been running into some electrical issues lately.

My bike has some electrical mods, heated gripz, dual hid's.

My bike is usually parked overnight with a battery tender. My commute is about 40min in the city.

No problems up until recently, when the low voltage orange light came on, and HID's died shortly after. I thought this was caused by a old battery. I brought my tender with me to work and charged the bike just in case. I would ride a few more times to work keeping the rpm's high.

But the bike's orange light came on even sooner. Pulled over one time, and bike wouldnt' start.

Parked the bike

Started to really dig into the problem, battery was maxing out about 13.05V after several days on the tender. Few of these bad low voltage on the road occurrences, I decided to get a new battery.

So NEW battery in last night, 13.20V on the meter. Road to work this morning and back, and made it about half way home, and damn orange light came on again. Limped the bike home, voltage on the battery was 10V. It's been on the tender since.

Just reading thru the forum and followed the steps above.

3. Rev the engine up to 5000 RPM. Volts should now be around 14. The key here is that you're looking for an increase in voltage over what you saw when the bike was shut off. If voltage increases, then your charging system is working.

My standing voltage is 13v, starting it up doesn't bump it up at all, it actually drops down till about 12.5v. I rev it up to 6k, and voltage moves up back to 13v, never get's close to 14V

I'm checking for bad grounds, connections, fuses. I've disconnected the heated grips. And my HID's aren't plugged into light up.

Could my regulator be dead?

I'm going to try to measure the output from the 3 leads off the stator/regulator connection.
 
htdub,

The regulator will only reduce the DC voltage on the system.... if it's dead, you'd see the full voltage all the time that the regulator puts out. Instead of limiting that DC output to a value of a bit more than 14 volts, it could go significantly higher.

If your 'standing' voltage with the battery fully charged is about 13 volts, and it drops while the bike is running, your charging system isn't .

Do the engine off measurement of the stator resistance. You'll probably find one of the readings is quite a bit different.
 
Could be blown rectifiers in the Rectifier/Regulator. The actual regulator might still be active but diodes might be open in the unit so there's no rectification which means very little or no voltage or worse a shorted diode/s might equal Alternating Current across battery.
Establish you have stator output to the R/R if you do it could be the R/R is bad.
Do inspect wiring and connector first.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

I borrowed a fancy meter from my neighbour, not sure if i was using it correctly, hopefully someone can chime in if I had the wrong setting.

Here are some of the readings.

Resistance of the of the 3 stator pins.

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With the bike running volts

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I flipped the setting over to see if the stator voltage increases with rpm's and it did seem to be working.
 
For measuring the voltage from the Stator you have the wrong setting, should be V~

You might want to tell your neighbour you may have blown the fuse in the meter.
 
I recently tested my stator, and I got some very different numbers.

First off, I tested with the stator disconnected from the regulator. If you left yours connected, then we're comparing apples to oranges.

1-2 1-3 2-3
Idle 23 23 23
2500 50 48 49
5500 101 99 101

If you used the same procedure as I did, then your stator is not working.

Fred
 
If you haven't confirmed that the meter is reading AC or V~ take it in the house and measure an outlet to see that it reads nominal house voltage at approx. 110-120 VAC. If it doesn't you may have a blown fuse on the meter and the stator measurement your taking is not valid. Be sure the stator is not plugged in to the R/R and see if you can get some V~/VAC numbers near what Fred has posted. While i don't know what the stator winding resistance should be, I find it interesting that you have a resistance of 0.2 - 0.3 ohms and zilch output AC ...:rolleyes:
 
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When you measuire voltage on our motorcycles don't you use the DC on the meter??? I've never used AC on the motorcycle.
 
When you measure voltage on our motorcycles don't you use the DC on the meter??? I've never used AC on the motorcycle.

Yes and no. The stator puts out AC voltage, the rectifiers/diodes turn that into DC voltage, just like in a car alternator. When you are taking direct output measurements from the stator, it will be in AC, when you are reading output voltage after the rectifier, you are reading DC volatage, hence the need to change the settings on the DMM.
 
I recently tested my stator, and I got some very different numbers.

First off, I tested with the stator disconnected from the regulator. If you left yours connected, then we're comparing apples to oranges.

1-2 1-3 2-3
Idle 23 23 23
2500 50 48 49
5500 101 99 101

If you used the same procedure as I did, then your stator is not working.

Fred

Thanks for posting your numbers.

I remeasured my stator readings, directly off the stator, on the right setting on the DMM.

Idle, 2v 2v 2v
3000 12v 13v 12v
5000 34v 36v 35v

Way below that it should be, hence my battery getting drained.

I've dropped off the bike at the shop to have a look.

Looking around for a stator replacement. Part no. 5VX-81410-00-00
A stator is $425 CDN, and backordered. $220 US, and about a weeks time to get in.
 
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