Sunday, September 05, 2010

Looking at the charging problem on the bike,

either I've not got the VOM meter set right, or the rectifier is fried. Completely.

If it's that, I hope it's ONLY that, as if any other electrical stuff is gone, that gets expensive fast.

3 comments:

Roger said...

1, Set your VOM to DC volts, scale 0 ~ 15 volts.
2, Connect VOM + to + on batt. - to -.
3, You will now be reading battery voltage. Should be showing 12.5 ~ 13.5 depending upon state of charge.
3, Start your engine & run it up to 2500 ~ 3000 rpm.
4, VOM should be reading 13.5 ~ 14.5 volts, showing a charge. OR at least 1 volt over the battery voltage you registered before you started the engine.
5, You may wish to temporarily disconnect the headlight & see then if the voltage rises at the battery.

6, it is worthy of note that SOME motorcycle alternators use brushes that wear out. You might check to see if yours is one of them.

SordidPanda said...

Other alternators use solid state electronics instead of brushes, but those too can die.

I hope it's a cheap part to replace!

Ride Safe.

Keith said...

it's also worth turning everything off, taking one lead off the battery and with the multi meter set to amps, connect the terminal and the loose lead through the meter to see if there is an amp size leak, if not, try mili amps.

if the lead sparks while you are disconnecting it, there's a big leak. finding it gets interesting.