TOPIC:

Thanks for all the replies guys. Let me expand some more.

With the complete new charging system fully hooked up a couple weeks ago is when the battery was presumably overcharging and getting hot / losing acid. I would start the bike and check the voltage at the battery and it would be normal in the 14-14.7v range at idle or at 4000rpm so i couldn't understand why it was overcharging.

I zip tied my multimeter meter to the top triple and made a set of leads with ring terminals all the way back and connected directly to the battery. I went for a 1 mile ride. At first is stayed in the 14vdc range. After about 1 minute of slow riding the voltage started increasing. 15... 16... 17... 18... 19... then went off the 20VDC scale.

Thoroughly confused, I unhooked the reg/rec and stator and tested them both with the 4 page electrosport fault finding flow chart.

The reg/rec tested perfect, all the right voltage drops and more resistance one direction than the other. Also the rec / reg was already wired straight to the battery, its a three yellow and red/black setup - no brown.

The stator has no continuity to ground on any of it's leads, and when running shows 30VAC at idle and high 50VAC at higher RPM across any combo of it's three yellows.

At this point is when I decided that it is probably somthing to do with the coils backfeeding voltage into
the system.

I've got two brand new Odyssey PC545 batteries and have run it also with the battery out of my perfectly normal running Triumph, a Yuasa YTX14-BS and it acts just the same.

I also have two multimeters, both give the same results across all conditions.

I started the bike with no charging system at all, and the voltage at the battery was higher than it's 13v when resting and off. It would jump around 14-15 volts which greatly confused me. Checking voltage in the 200VDC range at the fuse block to ground can show 30+ VDC and sometimes spikes to 110 or even 130VDC0! I can't understand this because the bulbs would never last a minute like this. Remember I rode the completed bike for over 100 miles the week prior. It would have blown every bulb on the bike! Other than the battery being warm to kinda hot after the ride, everything works 100% perfect.

My ground is a fat 4ga cable ring terminaled to a clean bare metal spot on the engine with a 115mm allen bolt going deep into the motor and i can't imagine it not being a perfect ground.

I have Dyna-S ignition and green 3 ohm coils. If they are backfeeding votlage into the system or it's merely RFI / EMI interference, how can I stop this to get accurate readings? They are mounted on powercoated bars, but the bolts that go through the metal mounting bars on the coils, have presumably scraped of some powdercoat on the frame where they mount because they do show 0 ohm continutiy to the battery, or any bare metal point on the chassis.

Now I didn't know, as one of you pointed out, that 0 ohm restiance with a meter can be misleading as it is such a low current. But how do I find out? Should run a wire with a ring terminal from the coils mount bolt straight to the battery negative. Do the coils have to even be grounded. I also tried unbolting the coils and wrapping them in rags so I had no ground between there metal mount bars and the chassis ground. Same result, wildly jumpy voltages all over.

Also I get crazy readings between battery negative and chassis of extremely high voltages.

I just don't understand what is wrong and don't know what to do. I am trying to get someone to come look at it and help me out.

Other than to ground the coils to the battery negative - and run another ground from battery to the bare aluminum cylinder head, I don't know what else to try. Could a coil be defective in such a way that it works but puts voltage in the chassis?

I will probably waste another night of riding tonight trying to figure it out, I'm going to try the above items and then I am out of ideas.

The stator can't be putting those high of voltages back into the chassis even if it's leads were grounded, but they show absolutely no continutity to the ground so it cannot be that.

This is pretty far out there, and more in Lou's area of expertise than mine.

I'm wondering if there is some kind of coupling going on between the secondary side of the ignition and the bikes electrical system. Maybe through the plug wires? Try moving the plug wires so they don't run parallel to the frame/tank/motor and see if that changes the readings.

Might be inductive coupling.

I cornered three mechanics here on a smoke break, all ride and wrench on bikes. It's a heavy equipment shop, one guy does hydraulic generators and electro mags on excavators, the others are semi mechanics so all have a pretty good background.

They all seem to think that it's a bad ground. Even though i have a heavy cable from the battery to a clean spot on the aluminum motor, that shows no resistance, they think i should run a ground to the frame on bare steel. The fact that the whole frame is encapsulated in powdercoat makes this somthing i hate to try, i am going to grind off a spot on the frame somewhere, and run a really short ground wire to it and see what happens.

They also think the the coils sitting on pcoated frame are not grounded enough. The small amount of pcoat scraped off by the bolts that hold the coils to the frame is not good enough.

So tonight I'm going to run another ground to the frame in addition to the ground to that motor that has run the bike for 2300 miles since rebuild. And I'm going to run ground leads from the coils to the battery too and see what happens.

The mechanic that was the most outspoken said that all the crazy fluctuating voltages show him that the electrical system is not grounded and is looking for a ground, or may even be grounding back through the Acewell speedometer or some other path that is not nearly enough to carry the amps of the running bike.

It sounds good to me, at least i've got somthing to try. If it doesn't work i'm going to drag one of the mechanics home with me tomorrow to have a look at it.

I guess the meter showing me big volts between the negative battery term and the frame is enough to show that the system is not grounded right. I fired up my Triumph and checked from it's battery negative and to the frame and it showed 0.00.

Will advise, thanks for all the comments - keep them coming I might need to go down one of these obscure avenues if the additional grounds from frame to battery do not help.

Thanks guys, wish me luck I am so ready for this to be over!

sheik*yerbouti wrote:

I cornered three mechanics here on a smoke break, all ride and wrench on bikes. It's a heavy equipment shop, one guy does hydraulic generators and electro mags on excavators, the others are semi mechanics so all have a pretty good background.

They all seem to think that it's a bad ground.

They are correct. As I said above, if you read 100V between the neg batt terminal and the frame or some other ground point, IT AIN'T GROUNDED. It is connected via some high impedance path that will read ground with a multimeter's small test current but not when running the engine.

I drilled and tapped an M6 threaded hole into the frame and ran an 8 gauge 10" wire to the battery neg with ring terminals on both ends. This is in addition to the ground to the motor thats been there since the rebuild.

I ran a wire and ring terminal from a mounting bolt on each dyna coil to battery negative.

I also ran a jumper from the engine to the new chassis ground.

Exact same issue.

The battery voltage when off is 12.8. Running at the battery jumps between 13.0-13.2v in the 20VDC range, switching to 200VDC range it shows 30-36VDC at the battery, then again switching back to 20VDC range it is a nice steady 13-13.2v. THis has to be some type of interference.

From the battery negative terminal to the new chassis ground ten inches away show about 7v and battery negative to the cylinder head the voltage is going nuts 1700, 1200 you name it.

This has to be interference from the coils. I am running B8ES plugs, do i need BR8ES resistor plugs?

Do i need a diode or some type of resistor on the 12v going to the coils?

My wiring harness lays across top of the right hand (#2-#3) coil. Is it interfering there? THere is no way to change that without rewiring the entire bike.

Should I just hook the stator and RR back up and see what happens with voltage at the battery? Originally battery voltage when running would show 14v at idle and jump around 14.3-14.7v at high RPM. THen after about a minute of running it would take off 15, 16, 17, and on up it went.

I am absolutely at wits end. This makes no sence and it sure ain't rocket science!

Any more thoughts?

sheik*yerbouti wrote:

Any more thoughts?

Borrow or buy an analog (needle type) voltmeter to make sure your readings are not bogus.

The battery voltage when off is 12.8. Running at the battery jumps between 13.0-13.2v in the 20VDC range, switching to 200VDC range it shows 30-36VDC at the battery, then again switching back to 20VDC range it is a nice steady 13-13.2v. THis has to be some type of interference.

two things I can think of:

1) The meter is broken/useless

2) It's a high impedance meter that is "peak reading" the AC peaks riding on the DC voltage.

You need an oscilloscope to see those if that is the case.

Thanks for the continued support BH.

I was getting these kind of readings with my trusty 10 year old GB (gerber bender or somesuch) meter and went and bought a new one on Friday from ESCO an electric supply house. It gives me the same info. It is a $50 meter, i think i paid around $25 for the old GB. THey both have a fresh 9 volt as of Friday.

I do have an old analog meter however. I will go back out and try it.

I just disconnected each coil and ran on two cylinders and get the same crazy readings.

Would AC voltage be coming from the stator even if it is disconnected? Is it correct to say the stator central hub itself is grounded (as it is screwed to the engine cover) but the three individal phases are isolated from each other and from ground? I know the three yellows have no continuity to the engine so I'm assuming this.

A ha! A change in results!!!

Analog meter shows 0.00 volts between battery negative and any point on the frame or engine! The friggin needle doesn't even twitch!

It is also rock steady between the battery terminals when running, not jumping around at all!

What does this tell me guys!?

Is it EMI / RFI then?

So what is my regulator going to see and what will it pass to the battery when I hook this all back up tomorrow?

What do you think BH and others?

Well the charging system is all hooked back up and ready to fire tomorrow when I get back home from work around 530PM EST. I'd light it up now but it's just too late and too loud to fire in this apartment complex.

I wonder what it will show with the analog and digital meter at the battery. And from the battery to frame...?

God I hope it is fixed!

I will certainly report back after I find out.

I checked my plug wires, they are 7mm dyna ultra copper and show 0.4 ohms of resistance, so they are non-resistor and the B8ES plugs are non resistor. I might grab 4 BR8ES's and try those too to see what it does to the digital meter readings.

That's pretty strong RFI if it can screw up two meters and a regulator (if that's why it's over-charging). Are you running resistor wire, or caps, (you said the plugs are not resistor)? If not, then the RFI definitely will screw up digital electronics.

EDIT: wrote the above before I saw your last post. Yeah, you may need some BR plugs to keep the new reg from acting crazy.

My plug wires are 7mm dyna ultra copper and show 0.4 ohm resistance so i think those are non resistor wires... And we know they are non resistor plugs...

Maybe some R plugs will do the trick, cause i'll tell you what that analog meter is telling me a whole different story!

God hurry up 5PM, I can't wait to find out if this is the answer!

I believe your ignition setup would be outlawed by some racing sanctions because it would mess up the digital ignitions of other competitors. Probably kills weaker AM radio stations in the area too!