Relay help

[Mjpcarbon]

Recently my battery went stone dead for no obvious reason. Charged it up and as I hooked it up I heard a clicking from under the tank. .5 A drain.. There is a relay under there that clicks and is draining my battery.. Whats if for and is it bad or is it getting told to be on ?

[DEEBS11]

Headlight relay.

[LAB3]

Looks like Deebs hit the nail on the head, now the question is why is it getting power when the key is off?

Here's the first thing I'd do. Check that your keyswitch is working properly by using a test light or voltmeter and check for 12v at the fuses. On my bike there's three separate contacts inside the keyswitch each of them feeding a separate positive wire going to the fuse box. It's entirely possible that one of these isn't opening all the way when the key is off, one of those is for the headlight circuit

If you do have 12v at the fuse box with the key off, the keyswitch can be removed and opened up, my guess is there's some kind of crud or metal etc shorting out and causing that circuit to stay alive.

[DEEBS11]

Also, In another post you have stated that the right control switch is non standard. The headlight switch was non functional. You may have possible wiring issues that need addressing.

[Mjpcarbon]

So here is the nutty part, Ive had the bike for about 2 months and all has been fine til it drained the battery. So I unplugged the relay and no more drain on the battery.
Next oddity is the ON/OFF headlamp switch now works as well as the headlamps( with relay removed), However the instrument lamps are out Neut etc

[DEEBS11]

Comment #4

https://xs11.club/forum/idle-talk-fo...ded#post881572

[Mjpcarbon]

I get all that but all was fine til it wasnt.. Going to see what is feeding it and all the wiring looks to be unaltered

Ddi some checking tonight, main fuse is always hot and has to be cause it comes right off the hot side of start solenoid. Check the schematic and hot goes up to the r/s handle bar switch and thats whats triggering the headlamp relay. Ran out of time to open up the handle bar switch.
Odd thing is if I unplug the relay the drain is gone and the lights ALL work properly. I must add the bike wiring hasn't been messed with

[DeanR]

I know didly about wiring stuff, but seem to always hear that a bad ground can cause all kinds of unusual problems.

[skids]

If you have an on/off switch it must be a 78 (or 79?) because it was deleted for later models. If so, the relay is a "latching relay" that is supposed to keep the headlight burning once the engine starts turning. I am not sure about the dash lights. The good thing is that you can get a relay to replace oem. You can run the wires to the headlight for the load side of the relay and make the switch operate low side. There are diagrams in Clymers for the lighting circuits. If you swap out the oem relay you will lose the automatic feature if a filament burns out.

[Mjpcarbon]

long and short, the relay must be bad however with it unplugged everything works, including the on/off switch and zero battery drain. I'm happy for now.

[DEEBS11]

[Mjpcarbon]

Exactly what I did !! per your outstanding replies. Love this machine
thanks so much