Another starter problem!

[XS1100 Newbie]

Went to fire up my bike today, and the battery was dead, or so i thought. I put the charger on it for a half hour, and it fired right up. I went ahead and rode 50 miles to start scrubbing in the new tire i put on, and everything seemed ok. It started right up at the gas station, and at my son's house, but when i got home i tried to start it up, and the first time it fired right up, tried it again immediately, and it would not fire. I checked the battery voltage, and it was at 14.9 volts. Checked the charging system, and it was putting out 15.4 at idle, and 16.2 at 3000 RPM. Checked the battery cables, and ground, cleaned them to make sure. Checked the engine to frame ground, it was good. Took apart the kill switch, and cleaned it, because i know there has been discussion on this, and i had not done this yet. Still will not crank unless the battery charger is on it for a few minutes. The battery is about 14 months old. It won't crank with jumping the solenoid either. It seems that maybe i have a starter that is dragging. What is the concensus from you guys? Is there something i am missing?

[dpotter58]

I'm not one of the brightest on here but the voltages you posted sound high to me. I recall issues with charging systems before and found the systems were over charging and had ruined the battery. Maybe the regulater/ rectifier had gone bad?
Did you do a load test on it? A battery will take a charge but if a cell is bad it will get pulled down real quick. How has the liquid level been in it? I'm sure someone will come on here and straighten us both out

[XS1100 Newbie]

You might be right about the battery voltage. I thought it should be about 13.6 or so.

[DiverRay]

You have a bad battery. If you can take it out and down to most auto parts stores, they will check the battery. My guess is it will fail when they put a load on it. It will show the 14V, but at least one cell has an internal problem and isn't putting out the amps you need.
If you think the VR is bad, spend the $100 for one of Geezers units. They work well, AND have a lifetime warranty!

[XS1100 Newbie]

From what i am reading, it looks like it may be the regulator that caused the problem. The voltage should not be that high. It says that at 14 to 15 volts the reg. should dump it to ground. Might have burnt the battery up. I'll check that for sure in the morning.

[crazy steve]

I'll agree with Ray; it's probably a battery issue. And before you replace the regulator, make sure you do have a good battery installed, as a bad one will throw the regulator output off..

[DiverRay]

Forgot to post yesterday.
CHECK THE WIRE HARNESS/VOLTAGES!! I had an internal short that killed two batteries and one VR before I found it. Had a drop of about 2.5V on the brown "hot" wire, and that caused the VR to overcharge the battery. This was caused by a short, but can also be caused from bad connections. Clean and use dielectric grease on all the connectors, and use anti-seize on JUST the ground connections.

[XS1100 Newbie]

I read out the wires on my regulator this morning. All was fine except the red to black. There was no circuit there. I took a voltage reading at the two wire plug. The book says that the voltage should be less than 1.8 volts across the black and green. I had full battery voltage there. Maybe there is more than one problem here. I will look at the wiring diagram and see if there is something that should cut that voltage down.

[cywelchjr]

Ok, number one, those numbers don't sound rational to me. Make sure your meter is reading correctly, I'd start by checking the voltage on your car. The reason I say that, is that these systems have trouble getting the voltage up to 13.5 at idle, I can see being high at higher RPM's but not at idle, that plus needing the charger on there, I'd be interested in what that shows too. I would be more likely to expect things to turn out low than THIS high, as an experienced electronics tech this just doesn't make sense to me (and I could be wrong, I don't have THAT much experience with these charging systems, but all of it that I do points differently).

[Incubus]

I've never seen a battery at rest test out at 14.9 volts. That is incredibly high. Let it sit overnight and test the resting voltage again. It sound be around 12.7 volts. I kinda with Cy on this one. I am questioning the test equipment. And the battery.

Patrick

[XS1100 Newbie]

I am going to go get a new battery and install it, but i am a little concerned about it over charging. I think as long as i check the output right away, it should be ok.

[XS1100 Newbie]

Well, the battery was definitely the problem. My charging is now fine, starting is fine, and some how the bike runs a lot stronger now. I think maybe my coils were not getting the right voltage. All i know is something changed in the running of the bike with the new battery. It even seems to have more compression hold back when decelerating.