Electrical Gurus:

[LoHo]

My brothers, what would it tell me if a new, charged battery (13.5V) was not enough to get a spark, but adding a starting boost from my charger results in sparks? Does this point to a likely resistance choke point? I am thinking that my components must be okay (TCI, coils, etc) or else there would still be no spark regardless of battery power..

[ManagerMike]

Indeed it does sound like a "choke" point as you phrased it, typically a charger boost will provide around 16 volts which seems to be enough to get the threshold voltage for the TCI (which is around 9-11 volts) past whatever high resistance (s) between the battery and the TCI. It would seem an electrical search and destroy mission is in your immediate future.
Study the schematic for your model, locate and inspect every connector between the battery and the TCI for corrosion. Jumper around the ingnition switch as well, it is a known culprit for poor contunuity.
Good luck.

[LoHo]

Check this out: if I crank the engine for a second or two, I can get four or five sparks by flipping the engine stop switch back and forth.

[SFSPECBIKER79]

stop switch

id take the stop switch off and check the wires. sometimes they will pinch when tightend down on handlebars cutting into the wires. causeing short circuit.could be you kill switch is faulty,corroded. of coarse i'd check out the rest of the wireing circuits also.

[DGXSER]

You could jumper that switch out for testing purposes. The wire runs from the Ignition fuse directly to the switch, from the switch to the resistor if your bike has one, and then to the coils. It also branches to power the starter solenoid. You could take a jumper wire form the ignition fuse directly to the coils. If you get spark, it is a good bet something in that circuit is our culprit.

[rpgoerlich]

Sounds like your getting voltage to the coils. What about pulling off the plug caps and checking them? I've had quite a few that would not spark because of corroded resistors/springs & that little copper washer inside of them.

[cywelchjr]

My brothers, what would it tell me if a new, charged battery (13.5V) was not enough to get a spark, but adding a starting boost from my charger results in sparks? Does this point to a likely resistance choke point? I am thinking that my components must be okay (TCI, coils, etc) or else there would still be no spark regardless of battery power..

Are you saying that adding the starting boost gets it to start? That sounds like you might have a bad battery cable? I'd check the voltage during starting at both ends of both the battery cables to see how much voltage is dropping through them, and do the same with other wires as well, as I'd guess that voltage is dropping somewhere.