Went for a ride on the SECApocalypse last weekend and lost power after about 60 minutes. I went to pull the battery before my ride home and noticed it was very warm, an obvious sign of a short. I think maybe I never was making full power (was slow on highway) which might result from poor spark strength, another possible sign of a short.
A week later and I'm pulling it apart to find the short. None of the fuses are blown and I think I've been able to isolate it to one possible location; inside the reg/rec. I disconnected my positive terminal and probed from there to the wire, it lights up whenever the ignition is on, regardless of turning off / disconnecting all items that use power (aside from the ecu). If I disconnect the reg/rec and try the same, the probe does not light up. I don't think the problem is the reg/rec, as I tried a backup unit from another bike and got the same results, but its very possible I did something wrong in my wiring that allows this to happen....
Is this an expected result, or am I right in thinking I have a problem? Is there some external diode the reg/rec depends on? I'm pretty sure I pitched one while re-wiring...
I may just need to build a whole custom harness, but still need to know how things should be wired up if I do...
Yep. That's what I gathered. Also not sure what I got going on.
Seems to me that there's a red hot wire (direct from battery, for power in / charging voltage out), and a brown hot wire (regulated voltage out). But that's the "regulator" part of the job, what you described is the "rectifier" bit, yeah? They are in the same unit, but not electrically connected (or at least not inside the unit).
I think the problem is I have my fuse box and a few powered items hooked up on the red side... but I'm not exactly sure WHY that is a problem. And making it worse, it seems like it is NOT a problem, as long as I'm not using any of the items that draw power from the brown wire.
Plus NONE of this was a problem during the 200+ miles of non-stop highway riding I did... but I'm guessing that's because that was all at 4000+ rpm, so the alternator was kicking out enough voltage to keep power from going the "wrong way" through the regulator. I'm probably only having issues when I have stuff on but am not running the engine high enough to be charging the battery.
Ugh. Really thinking I need to build a whole new harness just so I know exactly what I am dealing with.
Seems to me that there's a red hot wire (direct from battery, for power in / charging voltage out), and a brown hot wire (regulated voltage out). But that's the "regulator" part of the job, what you described is the "rectifier" bit, yeah? They are in the same unit, but not electrically connected (or at least not inside the unit).
Yes, the phase wires Mongoose mentioned are the AC phases that gets rectified.
As far as the brown/red wires, different regulators act different ways. Some regulators have a sensing wire to determine battery voltage, then a separate power on and output wire to charge the battery. Some sense voltage through the power -in wire. If you get those jobs mixed up I can see problems being completely random. Are you sure you have the brown and red wires identified correctly? That stuff can get confusing fast.
Fixed it. After some thought It kinda dawned on me what the issue was, and some tests with the meter confirmed.
There's a red hot wire (always hot) and a tan hot wire (ignition switched). I had the fuse box connected directly to the battery, and the red hot wire as well as many others connected to the fuse box. You want the fuse box on the TAN (switched) hot wire.
The way I had it fed power to the electromagnet in the alternator whenever the battery was connected- not enough to start a fire or blow a fuse (because its SUPPOSED to be powered) but enough to sag the battery pretty bad if left on for even just 15-20 minutes.
So now it seems to do everything its supposed to. Only downside is I can't turn off the ignition and run dark any more.
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