How do you test electrical components for excessive power consumption?

[Smellii]

Been on this site and at my bike all day. Great resource btw. My charging system tested fine (per stater papers) but I think I still have a drain somewhere cuz I have to use a trickle charger every night to keep a charge. My questions are:

1) How many startups should I expect from a fully charged battery that doesn't get recharged by the bike assuming all other electricals are functioning properly.

2) How do I check the various electrical components to see if they are pulling more power than they should? I have a good multimeter but just don't know where to put the terminals. Do I simply find the hot and ground wires on a given component and check voltage (AC or DC???) at 2500 or 4000 rpm?

3) What is an acceptable range for the components? Should they all be the same?

---a little bit of advice will go a long way with me--- thanks in advance.

[JEEPRUSTY]

Well You should expect your battery to be able to consistenlty start you bike providing it is recharged by the bike's charging system.

It would depend on how long you have to crank etc.

All in all if the battery is going flat on you then you have a bad battery or you ar not driving long enough at sufficiently high enough RPMs

there is no doubt some wonderful way of measuring the drain and replenishment but dead is dead regardless of multimeters.

Oddly my bike which is all twitchy in terms of charging always has a fully charged battery. Not over or under charged. It is perverse.

[tom203]

Just disconnect the negative cable at battery tonight and see what you have for battery voltage in the morning. If it's still low, time for new battery (assuming it had been fully charged)- otherwise it's in the harness or some component.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Start with the bike off, see what the battery voltage is, meter set to DC volts and put the red lead on the positive battery terminal and the black lead on the negative terminal. Verify you have 12 - 12.5 volts showing a good battery.
With the bike running still set to Volts DC and again you meter leads red on positive, black on negative. At idle you may see less than 12 volts but when RPM's are raised it should show somewhere around 14 Volts.
To check for something draining your battery overnight, with the igniton off, remove the positive cable from your battery. Put one test leads of your meter (set to volts DC) on the battery post and the other on the cable. You should see no voltage. If you do, switch the meter to the Amp setting and you can see how much current is flowing... Should be zero. My meter has two settings for Amperage, a low and a high, to read the high end I need to move the test lead to a diffferent socket on the meter so be sure you are in the right one.
If you see amperage with the key off something is draining your battery when it shouldn't. You can start by pulling fuses one by one to isolate it to a specific circut, then, with the fuse back in and still showing the draw, unplugging each componant on that circut to track the culprit down.
Hope that helps answer your question.

[Smellii]

Thanks.

@Hoosier Daddy Perfect! I will try to narrow down the culprit today. Thanks for the reply.

[Smellii]

I detached the positive lead and connected my multimeter terminals to the positive lead wire and the positive battery terminal. Assuming this is correct I got these readings:

0.28 voltage
0 amps

Is it normal to have voltage but no amperage?

[Hoosier Daddy]

Yea, 0.28 volts is nothing.... and along with the 0 amps I say you have no key off draw. Nothing that is draining your battery. Need to look for another reason you have to keep the battery on trickle charge.
How old is the battery?

[Smellii]

Brand new battery.

Brand new battery. hmmm. How long does it take the bike to top off the charge on the battery? I've been running maybe 30-45 minutes at a time city traffic with an average rpm of maybe 3000. Perhaps I just have an incorrect expectation of my charging system.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Is it a battery that came dry and you had to add the acid to? If so, did you do a good initial charge per the instructions? Depending on the amperage of your trickle charger, it could take MANY hours (over-night) before ever put into service. You can buy a cheap hydrometer at the autoparts store that checks the "specific Gravity" of the acid in each cell and acurately tell you its state of charge.
Will look like a fat eyedropper that has tiny balls inside. Suck up some acid and count the number of balls that are floating.

[Smellii]

Got it from a battery store. It's sealed and was precharged, ready to go. Battery is 100%. I'm going to retest per stator papers and if all reads ok again then I'm going to ask my bike mechanic on Tuesday about it when he is changing my tires. Thanks for your time.

[Hoosier Daddy]

no problem... let us know what you find or his diagnosis.

[Smellii]

Blew fuse

Wow! What timing! Blew my "15A Main" fuse as I pulled into my driveway and put it into neutral....going to do a forum search before I ask a bunch of questions...

[Smellii]

Haha. I accidently put a 10A fuse in a 15A slot. Replaced and I'm good to go. (Didn't realize there were different amperage when I put them all back in...oops)

[Hoosier Daddy]

Yea, that'll do it! Glad thats all it was. When I read the main fuse had blown, I thought Oh CRAP... he does have trouble. But a 10A just wont take what was set up for a 15A.