Blowing bulbs left and right, overcharging?

[Guest]

Ive been riding my GS1k cafe to work every day for the past few weeks. Its running great but Im having an issue with my bulbs blowing. My turn signals are wired up for running lights and for the turn signal. I have had to replace all 4 bulbs at least 2x in the last few weeks. The rear bulb blows constantly too. I have been assuming the turn signals are bowing because I have the rears mounted directly in a a hole in the frame with the fronts mounted to the headlight ears. since they are mounted directly to the frame, without some sort of cushion, I figured that the vibrations were just causing the filament to snap or something. I had some LEDs kicking around in the garage so I replaced the tail light bulb and turn signals with 1157 bulbs in the hope that, knowing about the flasher issue, but, again assuming, They would illuminate as running lights and that if it was an electrical issue, the fuse would kick since there weren't any filaments to blow. I went for a ride through an abandoned housing development site for a good 30mins. All of the bulbs were still on and working, fuses looked good and I thought I would be good to go from now on so I parked it in the garage and called it a night.

When I left for work today, I turned the power on on my bike and walked around it to check the bulbs. None of them were on so I checked the fuses. Sure enough, the fuse for the signals and headlight were fried. I then replaced the signals with filament bulbs and replaced the fuses with new, leaving the LED in the tail light. Rode to work and parked it, checking over everything first, everything was good. Came back out a few hours later to leave and when I turned it on, I had 1 turn signal out, and the fuse for the headlight was fried.

What do y'all think is going on?

[cowboyup3371]

Everything grounding right?

[Adler]

Some jerk is following you and swapping your bulbs when you aren't looking?

Maybe time to whip out the multimeter.

[lucabond]

Any chance your RR is not regulating and it is putting out to much voltage that is blowing your bulbs ? What is your voltage at the battery at 5k ?
Good luck

[posplayr]

Want to just get a feel for how the charging is working? Do a Quick_Test

[Redman]

+1 and +1 for the last two posts.

Yes, overcharging can cause bulbs to burn out quickly.

Get volt meter and check battery voltage at mid-high rpms.

Assuming things are stock: Typiccal cause of overcharging is that the R/R is not well grounded so it cant regulate (the R/R itself mayb be okay). And R/R is mounted to and grounded to the battery box, but maybe the battery box isnt wel grounded. THis is why folks recommend adding your own grond wire from where the R/R is grounded (solenoid mounting bolt) to the battery negitive.

Or maybe that R/R is bad.

First, check out the voltage.

.

[DrImodium]

The new battery neg cable is run directly from the battery, to the motor (top of trans) and uses one of the case bolts by the RS motor mount . I have also extended all of the ground wires and have them all bolted to the rear of the trans using one of the case bolts as the anchor. Ill try to get some pictures up tomorrow and I will also test the voltage at 5k tomorrow morning so Ill post up the results then.

[Steve]

One other thing, ... your fuses are NOT blowing because of over-voltage.

They are current-sensitive devices and will tolerate much more voltage than your bike is likely to produce.

They also do NOT blow to protect what is downstream from them. They blow because what is downstream has failed, and is drawing too much current.



One thing that really puzzles me:

Rode to work and parked it, checking over everything first, everything was good. Came back out a few hours later to leave and when I turned it on, I had 1 turn signal out, and the fuse for the headlight was fried.

If the bulb and fuse were good when you parked it, then blown when you came back, there is a SERIOUS problem here.

Adler might have a point, someone might be following you just to mess with you.

.

[simon kuether]

I was blowing head light bulbs and found , by running a wire from the R/R ground directly to the battery negative my problem was solved . Prior to this , I found I was getting 15.6 volts at the battery when I gave the bike some heavy revin' . Now sits at about 14 volts at any revs . More gooderer .

I have to agree with Steve though . If you are blowing fuses , overvoltage is not going to be the problem . You've got a short to ground somewhere . If you are blowing fuses while the bike is not running , you've got a real serious problem . It'd be a bummer to come back to your bike and find it on fire .

Cheers , Simon .