TOPIC:

I'll keep this as short and simple as possible to start as to not muddy the waters.

I rode my 81 KZ 1000 about a 120 miles last week fully assembled. Runs perfect, all lights and electrical functions seem to work normally - other than it is presumably overcharging the battery. The battery is like 100 degrees F after an evening of riding and is bubbling out acid. This is with a brand new Electrosport R&R and Electrosport stator.

My KZ1000 shows 13v at the battery when off.

I disconnected the charging system.

The regulator / rectifier is on the bench. and the 3 yellows from the stator are hanging in the air far away from anything.

I start the bike and get wildly jumpy readings of 14-19v at the battery terminal with two different digital multimeters in the 20VDC range.

Any ideas?

I have prefect continuity between battery negative and points all over the chassis and engine. WIth the bike running and the meter in 200VDC range, between the negative battery terminal and the chassis I see 30-110VDC!!! What is going on?

Can 3 ohm green Dyna coils be leaking current into the bike chassis?

Please someone engage me on this one, I am going crazy. I have other info but I'll wait to provide info as it is asked for.


THanks!

Jason

Our local electrical gurus will pop in soon but have you tried another battery? Could your battery just be going nuts?

yeah id say either pull the battery and have it checked or somehow power is being fed back through the system somehow have you checked to see what happens to the voltage if you crack the throttle with everything disconnected?

are you sure none of the stator wires are grounded inside the cover or where they pass through the grommet.
I'm not sure about this but it doesn't seem to me to be a good idea to be running it too much with the wires hanging free. being the later charging system with the permanent magnet system I think it is still putting out full voltage from the stator. that power has to be going somewhere.

PM loudhvx and ask him to pop in and give his ideas on what's happening.

I'd like to know what happens when the alternator wires are disconnected and the motors running myself. I just rode my bike ~50 miles with the reg/rec ground disconnected so the battery wasn't getting any power, and the reg/rec never got warm. Charged the battery and fixed the ground, worked fine after that, so I guess I didn't fry anything.

I can say with certainty that a 750 twin with electronic ignition runs like crap when the voltage gets to low, thought I was going to have to hook a couple of belts together and let the Turbo tow me home. That would have been really embarrassing

sheik*yerbouti wrote:

I'll keep this as short and simple as possible to start as to not muddy the waters.

I rode my 81 KZ 1000 about a 120 miles last week fully assembled. Runs perfect, all lights and electrical functions seem to work normally - other than it is presumably overcharging the battery. The battery is like 100 degrees F after an evening of riding and is bubbling out acid. This is with a brand new Electrosport R&R and Electrosport stator.

My KZ1000 shows 13v at the battery when off.

I disconnected the charging system.

The regulator / rectifier is on the bench. and the 3 yellows from the stator are hanging in the air far away from anything.

I start the bike and get wildly jumpy readings of 14-19v at the battery terminal with two different digital multimeters in the 20VDC range.

Any ideas?

I have prefect continuity between battery negative and points all over the chassis and engine. WIth the bike running and the meter in 200VDC range, between the negative battery terminal and the chassis I see 30-110VDC!!! What is going on?

Can 3 ohm green Dyna coils be leaking current into the bike chassis?

Please someone engage me on this one, I am going crazy. I have other info but I'll wait to provide info as it is asked for.


THanks!

Jason

That is pretty crazy. My first guess is there is a bad ground somewhere. If there were truly zero ohms between the battery-negative and the frame, there can't be 110vDC on the frame (relative to the battery negative).

You didn't say what the voltage was while the charging system is connected. It may be overcharging, which would explain the acid bubbling out, but it's probably not a bad regulator. It's probably the bad ground messing up the regulation.

All voltage measurements should be done from the battery negative terminal. Run an extra wire from the battery negative to a good clean point on the engine, then run another wire from the engine to the frame, and do the voltage tests again (charging system disconnected). Hopefully the readings should make more sense.

A bad ground is difficult to identify with ohm readings. You can have an apparent ground when using the ohm meter because the meter uses very little current to measure the resistance. What you are actually measuring is the resistance of all of the bulbs and other devices in parallel, which will be near zero ohms combined. However, as soon as there is significant current, the ground is "lifted" (no longer a true ground). Spikes from the ignition might cause the meter to register a high DC voltage even though it's not really a steady DC voltage. (DC voltmeters read average voltage.)

If hooking up the extra ground wires makes the readings less crazy, try hooking up the charging system again (making sure the reg/rec gets a solid ground and solid connection to the battery). If the reg/rec uses a brown wire, make sure the voltage on the brown wire is very near the voltage on the battery positive terminal (while running).

To Steell's question, when the stator wires are open (not connected), there is no electrical current, just voltage. It should not hurt anything. Also, in your case, if only the rec (or reg/rec combo) loses it's ground, the DC output of the recitifier is open so once again, there is no current, so no damage, just a dead battery.

To Steell's question, when the stator wires are open (not connected), there is no electrical current, just voltage. It should not hurt anything. Also, in your case, if only the rec (or reg/rec combo) loses it's ground, the DC output of the recitifier is open so once again, there is no current, so no damage, just a dead battery.

That's what I thought, but I figured you'd know for sure.
Thanks!

sheik*yerbouti wrote:

I have prefect continuity between battery negative and points all over the chassis and engine. WIth the bike running and the meter in 200VDC range, between the negative battery terminal and the chassis I see 30-110VDC!!! What is going on?

You may have continuity when that tiny meter pushes a few hundred micro amps through a connection to test read continuity, but you clearly don't have good continuity when something in circuit starts pumping Amps through it. If there is actually 100V between two points, there must be significant impedance between those points.

Alternators can put out a lot of current, not sure how it is getting back to the battery if the output of the rectifier is not connected.

But, if you see acid in a battery bubbling, it is definitely getting charging current pumped into it from someplace.

loudhvx wrote:

sheik*yerbouti wrote:

To Steell's question, when the stator wires are open (not connected), there is no electrical current, just voltage. It should not hurt anything.

Hopefully, as long as the higher open circuit voltage doesn't go high enough to break down the insulation between windings or winding layers.

Ok I'm not an electrical guru or anything but I know that some electric motors can also be used as generators if something else is turning them. So is it possible that the starter motor clutch is sticking and that is turning the starter motor creating current?? Would this have to go through the starter relay too to be charging the battery?? Just a theory but who knows.

Becker wrote:

Ok I'm not an electrical guru or anything but I know that some electric motors can also be used as generators if something else is turning them. So is it possible that the starter motor clutch is sticking and that is turning the starter motor creating current?? Would this have to go through the starter relay too to be charging the battery?? Just a theory but who knows.

I think the starter clutch would have to be frozen in order for the engine to turn the starter motor, but I guess it's not impossible.

Try your meter on another battery.

But, if meter is only jumping around when it's running, I'd suspect that your meter is responding to back emf from the coils. The ignition circuit is the only thing that can put a higher voltage than the battery back into the harness.

-Duck