Charging system is action weird. Bike chugging!

[FB400]

I've done enough reading and posting about the electrical system. It is covered
here pretty regularly about the nuances of the insufficient FZ6 charging system

I installed a digital volt guage so I can monitor what's happening while idle/riding

But's here's what's happening now and tell me what you all think.
Bike starts no problem and runs great. Lately am getting into situations where stuck in long traffic jams. (commuting my commute on the bike is sucky idea).

At first the volts look fine and is putting out about 12.6 to 12.7 volts at idle. when the fan kicks on it drops a bit to around 12.2 volts - I conisder this normal and yes this is slowly discharing the battery.

When the traffic jam becomes long say 15-20 minute or more the bike seems to get into a real funk. Volts drop to around 10.2 volts or even a blip or 2 lower. When revving it bring voltage up a bit but still not over 12.0 volts.

When finally clearing from the long traffic jam I am able to run above 6k rpm for a good stretch of time.

-> Noticing a slight chugging when holding the throttle steady. Not noticeable when accelarating.

Once the bike has cooled everything is fine once again.
and yes I had the same thing happened on my commute home. (long traffic jam, fan running and chugging once resuming normal speed).

I've been in traffic before - this is totally new. never saw this before.

How do I start to troubleshoot?

 

[Erci]

I suck at electrical issues, thus my question is: are you sure it's related to the charging system? My FZ1 sputtered a bit at steady throttle and spark plug change and throttle body sync turned it back into a buttery smooth machine.

 

[FB400]

Good point Eric. Both are overdue. Plugs have 18k on them and to my knowledge has never had a throttle body synch and is approaching 30k miles.

Any other theories? anyone?

 

[Erci]

Good point Eric. Both are overdue. Plugs have 18k on them and to my knowledge has never had a throttle body synch and is approaching 30k miles.

Any other theories? anyone?

That's right right around the time mine started acting up (20k). Since both of those things should be done anyway, I'd start there.

How old is the battery? Maybe have it stress tested (but I don't see why aging battery would cause chugging).

 

[PhotoAl]

Above comments are great but think the voltage is too low. After I went thru my system and replaced everything (battery RR and stator) it would be at 12.8V when I took it off the trickle charger. At maybe 5,000 RPM it would be at 13.9 to 14 V, don't remember what it was at idle but higher than what you are getting. Just based on what you have said it sounds like a stator winding is burned - what I had. However BEFORE ordering a new stator some checks to make are:

Battery - how old, see if you can get it load tested
RR - not sure how to check without swapping with a known good one
Stator - pull the stator cover - carefully to keep from damaging gasket - and visually inspect for burned windings.

Do the simple stuff first. I did it exactly backwards and replaced the battery, then the RR and finally the real culprit the stator. Anyone want to buy a used RR?

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

If you bump the idle up a little bit that should help with keeping the battery from discharging(at least 1,300). If you have a dual headlight mod, you might want to mabe put a manual switch to turn off one of the low beams (for heavy traffic).

As noted above, as the battery gets old and begins to fail, it may show 12.8 volts+ but doesn't have the amperage (power) to keep all the systems going (fuel pump, injectors, headlamps, etc).

What does your volt meter show now when cranking over to start it?
It really shouldn't drop below 11 volts or so. When my battery was failing I noticed the dash lights flickering upon starting (poor mans load test). A volt meter confirmed about 8 volts and it still started.. I did replace the battery afterwards...

I would start with the basics, load test the battery, check battery cable tightness, etc.. With the heat of stop and go traffic the cables could have loosened up some. All that extra heat is hard on the battery too...

A Suzuki Savage 650 I had years ago had a very quickly failing battery and I was about 6 miles from home. Trying to keep the rev's up and the engine running it was doing all kinds of weird things running, misfiring, sputtering, etc. It did get me home, barely. Put in a new battery, ran like a charm until I later sold it (ex GF's bike).

 

[FB400]

Scott / PhotoAl - good advice here.

I've been thinking it is the stator but really have to take the cover off and look at it.

The battery is just 2 years old. It's been on a tender most of the time. It has though gotten weak enough 4 times for the bike to not start.

I have plans to replace the battery over the winter. The stator? not sure what I will find.

And could you please tell me where the RR is located?


Thanks,
Tom

 

[FinalImpact]

Hey Tom,
So you bought a monitor for the voltage and it shows its dipping to low to be healthy. Q? did you end up putting that switch in to disconnect a lamp?

My observation is this; however the battery got to 10V its not going to pop right back to a full charge for 5++ hours on the bikes charging system. The charging system just doesn't have the capacity and a trickle charger won't cut it. It needs something capable of shoving AMPS into the battery to recover. Its a 10A battery and its flat. Its needs 10Amps put back into it in an hour! << Not safe for the battery, 2 Amps over 5 hours is better to restore its health and then trickle it otherwise you risk boiling off the acid.

In short you have to limit the depth of discharge as the bike just isn't going to recover on its on during normal riding. We talked about different lighting and to pull this off I think you have a need to make some changes.

I never went down this path in the other thread but here goes.
Install some cheap LED lights in the OEM sockets (15 watts each). They will never put out useful light you can see with but it will be legal. In short the LEDs don't emit the same light pattern as an incandescent lamp and the OEM reflector housing just won't work with an LED. Yes, I did some reading after that thread derailed and never got back to it. HOWEVER, LEDs in a housing designed for them can put out some amazing light!
BUY some GOOD LED projector lamps so you can see. I am assuming you ride at night and need to see at night? Do you?

How much does your charger put out? It needs to be at least 2A or more it will sulfate the plates.

I thought it was doing better. Sorry!

 

[Motogiro]

Scott / PhotoAl - good advice here.

I've been thinking it is the stator but really have to take the cover off and look at it.

The battery is just 2 years old. It's been on a tender most of the time. It has though gotten weak enough 4 times for the bike to not start.

I have plans to replace the battery over the winter. The stator? not sure what I will find.

And could you please tell me where the RR is located?


Thanks,
Tom

Everyone has pretty much covered all the bases..

You can check the stator by unplugging it and testing between the 3 windings. You should see .22-.34 ohms. Also check the Regulator/Rectifier plugs to see if there has been any overheating of the connecting pins. Look for discoloration. Many times I've found charging system problems are the connections etc. and not the component.

I believe #14 on this diagram is the R/R ELECTRICAL 2

Edit: On the resistance check also test each leg of the stator to engine ground. There should be a wide open or OL reading on your meter. If there is any continuity to ground the winding is shortinq to ground and the stator is failing.

 

[FB400]

Randy / Motogiro

Again good coverage on this topic - appreciate the responses from you and others with great advice.

I did wire in 2 toggles and the story I told in the OP was with 1 headlight already turned off. As I had said the bike seems textbook normal putting out 12.x volts at idle until about 15-20 minutes go by and then it seems to get in a really bad way with volts dropping all the way down to 10.

I may ask for help on how to test the stator and for sure I will replace the battery but thinking I can probably live with this for the rest of the season.

This morning I rode the bike under normal conditions, tertiary roads at speeds 30-50 mph for 25 minutes.. bike is happy like nothing ever happened.

 

[stink989]

The charging system should be putting out over 14v at about 5000rpm, it should not drop below 13.5v when running.
Check your resistances of the stator coils and output also if you can.
To check the output unplug the white wire conector and run your multimeter on AC voltage, with the multimeter plugged into the stator side slowly rev the engine out. should shoud have well over 90v ac when reving. make sure you check all the phases. if the stator checks out to be ok its the RR.

you should fix this asap and not just live with it as I have seen many times one component fail and if ignore it will take the other along with it.

 

[Motogiro]

Please read post #13: http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-electrical/50535-bad-stator.html

 

[FinalImpact]

Tom,
Can you give us some perspective on typical weeks ride and pull in your current setup:

BIKE:
1) 55w on all the time, 1) 35w on a switch, 1) volt meter, ?) grip heater, vest, accessories etc....

Think in terms of filling a bucket with a hole in it. Any time the voltage is below 12.8v the bucket is depleting and will be empty with no reserve capacity. So if you're Idling w/the fan on @ V = 11.5v for 30 minutes its not likely to recover w/out help.

So what I'm trying to establish is this; Is your system compromised in some way or are you asking more of it than it can handle? I can see week after week of idling 50% of the ride home killing a battery.

I'm guessing if used mine solely for commuting it would show signs of an empty bucket. But I don't so it has a chance to recover on spirited rides.
My work commute ride home should take 25 minutes (its 20 miles). W/traffic it takes 60min. 20 of those are sitting idle or crawling at a snails pace. Average speed is maybe 18 miles per hr.

Again; can you tell me what recharger you have? How many AMPS is it rated at?

 

[FB400]

Randy -

I like the analogy of the bucket with a hole in it. my use of the bike has changed a bit in the past year hence a new situation.
I know I am overanlyzing it. Just wish I knew what caused voltage to drop from a normal range of around 12.4v to 10 volts after 15-20 minutes of idling.

up to recently I rode the bike on weekends and on long trips. I did the occasional ride after work. Rarely did I ever encounter traffic where
idling for long periods of time. when the bike is not in use it lives on the battery tender.

Then this season somehow I seem to attract traffic jams. This due in part to taking the bike on my hellish commute 5 times in the past 30 days.
When I first reported the CEL come on back in June (ish) I took some action immediately
to reduce the load on the charging system 1) replaced 55 watt X 2 Ballasts with 35watt X 2 and also wired in toggle cutoff switches to enable
kill of 1 or both headlights. At the first sign of trouble I cutoff 1 headlight.
If things get dire I can cut off both headlights.

With that digital voltage guage installed it reallt gives good info as to what the charging system is doing.
as mentioned the system performs OK for about 15 minutes of idling then it goes into low output mode.

I pulled the stator cover and from what I can see with untrained eyes it looks ok. pristine even. no sign of any physical damage

So in summary:
headlights 35w X 2 HID. Cutoff when needed
charger: deltran junior. rated at 0.75 amps

My work commute home, btw, yesterday was almost 2 hours. Yep I will be taking the cage for awhile

 

[FinalImpact]

Off Hand I don't think your system is compromised. Your battery - YES, although it starts the bike its likely not capable of 10A/HR rating.

I'm gonna start trouble when I go here but here goes. Trickle chargers do not rearrange the sulfur on the batteries plates enough to keep them healthy and as such, they loose capacity. In your case, your idle time and drain exceeds what your putting back in to fill the bucket. In order to recover at night when home, you need a charger capable of at least 2.5A to properly recover that battery. Its slowly loosing capacity making the problem very obvious.
You said its a couple years old yes?

IMO the moment its under 13.0V you're loosing ground so the drain needs to stop before its actually compromises the battery and the bikes ability to recover. As Scott suggested, bump the idle to 1350 or 1400. And ASAP grab a new battery.

It would be interesting to place an actual AMP gauge in between battery charging circuit (by-pass starter circuit). Then you'd see which way the electrons are flowing. Too many leaving (negative current flow (i.e. -5.0A)) and its all over but the shouting. You wouldn't happen to have a current clamp-on AMP meter would you?

EDIT: Compromised: are you saying with both lights on it dips to 10V or with both lights off? Also, was the fan on when this happened? Your answer may change my opinion.

 

[stink989]

have been using the method I explained for over 4 years at least once a week on everything from ag bikes to big road bikes. works everytime.

 

[FB400]

EDIT: Compromised: are you saying with both lights on it dips to 10V or with both lights off? Also, was the fan on when this happened? Your answer may change my opinion.

I took those readings with 1 headlight off and fan on. It seems once the fan kicks on the system isn't able to recover.

I just took the bike to the auto parts store to get plugs. About a 45 minute round trip. Stopped a few long lights but nothing crazy. Fan cycles on and off then low power readings again although no chugging this time. Carefully monitoring, once resuming a good speed, voltage shows it takes 5 minute so to get back up to 13.7 volts

I am going to start with getting a new battery. Thinking I will go with a YUASA this time. I have a scorpion in it now.

And btw yes suggesting a battery tender can be bad could be taken as heresy (JK )

 

[PhotoAl]

View attachment 50017

This is what my stator looked like and yours looks very good. The RR is under the seat, mounted "upside down" and can be a little difficult to take out - have to take a couple of items off to get to it. As for a battery the Yusha is a good one or if you have the $$$$$ get a lithium. Very light and they don't discharge like a lead acid does. When I had my problems my bike died on the ride home because the voltage was too low. Once it quit there was no restarting!!! So I had to push it home (good part of the story is I got permission to purchase a new bike ). It took a while to work thru troubleshooting the bike but I rode it every day. Charged it overnight with a trickle charger (Schumacher 1 or 2 A). The voltage would start at 12.8 to 13 and after riding to work and back (15 min to and 30 min back) it would still be at 12.5 or so. I mad sure to keep the revs up and avoided stop and go traffic. When at stop lights would keep it at maybe 3,000 RPM. As others have said don't use a 10A charger as it will cook the battery. My battery was at least 4 years old when I replaced it and could have been much older. Road almost every day but it would sit for 2 to 3 weeks a couple of times a year w/o a trickle charger and would start w/o any problem.

 

[Motogiro]

have been using the method I explained for over 4 years at least once a week on everything from ag bikes to big road bikes. works everytime.

I don't doubt that it works.
If we take a very thin gauge wire and put it in series with the voltage measurement we're taking with the meter we'll see our voltage because the impedance of our voltmeter is not seen by the stator as a load. There is next to no voltage drop. If however we expect the thin gauge wire to pass the current required by the charging system it would fail because of inadequate cross section to pass current. If forced it will heat, the resistance will increase and eventually that small cross section will fail. If we had a partially burned section of stator winding and it still had continuity it might be the same as putting the thin wire in series and doing our voltage test. It would show the voltage but there is no known load. It passes the voltage test but fails to deliver the current required.
Maybe take a 110 vac, 100 watt bulb (less wattage for lower wattage stators) and put the lamp across the winding and then take the voltage measurements. Record the voltage with a specific standard load. How will we know our specific standard load if we use a 100 watt household light? Measure the resistance of the lamp so that the loads and measurements are standards. We can have 2 different lamps marked as 100 watt but they may not be the same resistance and therefor are not good as a standard resistive load. We can use an ohm meter to read the resistance of the lamp to establish it as a standard resistive load. So, for example, we set our standard 100 watt, 110 vac lamp as having 10.7 -11 ohms. We only use lamps that meet this spec. as our standard. One more step we might take is consideration for inductive reactance of the lamp's filament. Now we're getting into the area of developing a high wattage, non inductive load. Why!?

If I take 6 magnets and spin them past only one winding at 8,000 rpm. I could guess that the alternating signal frequency could be around 24,000 cycles or 24 khz. Add all of the windings, their configuration with each other as well as inductive reactances, we can see we have a device that might change it's impedance within it self as it changes frequency. This is a variable frequency, alternating current device. Understanding the device I'm testing can be important in understanding how to test and repair the symbiotic charging system.
I have also successfully repaired a few bikes, cars and other stuff.

Getting back to the OP's dilemma: A bad R/R diode that is open or shorted will naturally reduce the amount of current that gets passed to the system. If your stator passes it's resistance test, your battery passes a load test and your plugs/connections are good but you still have a poor charging system, the R/R is probably the problem. Good luck!

 

[FinalImpact]

OK - I found this interesting; R6 vs FZ6

Our brother the R6: _________________: FZ6
System type: A.C. magneto _____________: FZ6 = A.C. magneto
Model (manufacturer): LLZ68 (DENSO)_____: FZ6 = F5VX/MORIC
Normal output: 14V, 300W 5,000 r/min____: FZ6 = 14.0V 310W, 5000 r/min
Stator coil resistance/color: 0.18 ~ 0.26 Ω at 20C (68F)/W-W_: FZ6 0.22–0.34 Ω at 20°C (68°F)

Notice the minor difference 300W vs 310W total output?
Take note that the bike came equipped with factory dual headlights rated at 55W each. Notice below their battery drops from 10Ah to 8Ah... IMO - thats likely about weight reduction an the charging system likely has more output to make off for the reduced capacity.

R6 BATTERY:
Battery type: GT9B-4
Battery voltage/capacity: 12 V/8 Ah___ FZ6: 12V 10Ah
Specific gravity: 1.320
Manufacturer: GS
Ten hour rate amperage: 0.8A

Obviously Yamaha never thought they'd sit in traffic! aha - but wait, there's MORE!!!! So they run a battery with less Ah capacity and run dual head lights. How you ask?

FZ6 RR is rated at 25A
R6 RR is rated at 35A but both are 300W? FSM Error or could we pickup 10A?

Rectifier/regulator - - - -: FZ6 FZ6 FZ6 - - - - - - R6 R6 R6
Regulator type: Semi conductor-short circuit _____
Model/manufacturer: SH719AA/SHINDENGEN ______: SH713AA (SHINDENGEN)
No load regulated voltage -: 14.1–14.9 V _________: 14.1 ~ 14.9 V
Rectifier capacity - - - - -: 25.0 A ______________: 35A
Withstand voltage - - - --:240.0 V ______________: 200V

So, the question is; could the FZ6 stator/magneto handle another 10A? If not, we know someone who can rewind them with the proper gauge wire and pick up 10A! but this doesn't explain the discrepancy with the wattage: W = V * I
Which should come out like this:
FZ6 = 12V X 25A = 300W
R6 = 12V X 35A = 420W

So what gives???????? I suspect the R6 can handle a higher momentary load and recover. However if the stator was asked to sustain 420W as requested from the RR the Stator burns up. :don'tknow::don'tknow::don'tknow::don'tknow: