TOPIC:

I swithced the battery with a good battery from my other bike, still the same problem. Now i am steering towards the ignition switch. Gotta be something grounding out. Stator and rectifer all checked out as well as the regulator.

It might be, the switch gets a lot of vibration and wear over the years.

Is there a way to see how many amps are being drawn from my battery when i turn the ignition switch on? If so i can cross reference those numbers with my good bike and probally narrow it down.

Most test meters will be able to test for 10AMPs. Digital or Analog, this is the normal limit built in most of them. So you may have to do 1 circuit at a time and not the total draw at once. If you have a Harbor Freight/ China Tools close by, they would have meters, or they have a in dash mount AMP meter that you can test the full amount of draw and charge Amperage, good for 50 AMPs. I set one up for checking my stuff with some 10 Gauge wire and heavy duty clips.
If interested here's the thread, kzrider.com/forum/4-electrical/388730-ju...cking-system-current
It also leads to two threads, one for single phase, the other three phase charging system tests.

Ok... Quick question for the 76 KZ900. The generator sends the current through the rectifer first...then from the rectifer through the regulator....from the regulator the brown wire is sending the current up to the ignition switch...then back down through the white wire past the 20amp fuse into the battery...does this sound correct? I am trying to understand the wiring diagram. I have the new regulator/rectifer combo unit on my bike. There is also a short white lead coming off the combo unit that plugs into a connector going to the battery. Next question is... does the current do a loop through the ignition switch first and back to the battery or is the generating current coming off that small white lead to the battery first? I wish the diagram would have shown which way the current flows.

Kaw900 wrote: ...76 KZ900...trying to understand the wiring diagram....

Don't know if this will help, but basic understanding of the bike's electrical system may aid trouble shooting and understanding of the wiring diagram.

It's important to realize and keep in mind that the ignition system and the charging system are two separate systems.

The charging system's sole purpose in life is to keep the battery charged.
The charging system includes alternator (dynamo), rectifier and regulator.
The alternator generates AC (alternating current) which goes to the rectifier which converts the AC to DC (direct current).
The DC from the rectifier goes to the regulator which maintains correct DC voltage for keeping the battery charged.

All other parts of the bike's electrical system (ignition and chassis such as lights) operate off the battery -- not the charging system -- and don't care how the battery stays charged.

With a good charged battery, and no charging system components whatever, the bike will perform just fine, until the battery runs down.

Here's a simple method to check performance of the charging system:
With all the electrics hooked up, and a good fully charged battery, engine running, with headlight off --- use a voltmeter to measure voltage across the battery terminals. At idle rpm, look for about 13 volts. At 3000~4000 rpm, look for 14~15 volts.

Good Fortune!

Here is a link to OMR's thread and had a great simple schematic for just the charging system.
kzrider.com/forum/4-electrical/382738-voltage-regulator-#382800
AC voltage once converted and regulated will go tho the battery and the load to the main fuse, then from the main fuse to the switch, the brown wire senses load on the system so the regulator knows how much to supply.

The alternator feeds the rectifier and regulator simultaneously. The output of the rectifier should go directly to the battery (sometimes using the connection at the starter solenoid just as a contact point). The ignition switch will not reduce output to the battery, since it is not in that path.

However, if the combo unit is using a brown wire, that is the sense input to the regulator. The ignition switch can drop the voltage on that wire, but that ends up with more output going to the battery. It's only a one-way deal... a bad ignition switch or fuses or wires etc. will result in the combo unit putting out more power (if it's available), but not less.

If there is no sense line, then the regulator uses the rectifier output as the sense line and then the ignition switch has no bearing on the reg/rec output.

The thick white (sometimes red) wire on the combo unit is the output.

I understand. So what else could possibly be the issue of the bike not charging properly? All the charging components check out fine. I'm just not getting the proper voltage back to the battery.

The only time I've encountered this type of problem was on bikes using the Dyna S (or Dyna III) ignition. This uses roughly double the power of the stock ignition, and more if the coils were also replaced with lower resistance ones.

Sometimes it's just enough to weed out the strong alternators from the weak. In your case, it means the rotor. It's possible the magnets are just weak enough that they can't handle the extra load of the Dyna S.

Does your other bike also use a Dyna S? And have you tried swapping rotors?

Patton wrote:

Kaw900 wrote: The charging system's sole purpose in life is to keep the battery charged.

um, well... what if, like me, you don't have a battery? Then what does the charging system do?

If the new unit has the brown sense wire, disconnect from 12v switched source. This should fool it into a max output, 15+ DCV @ Battery. If not then back to checking ACV from Stator before entering R/R.