Battery only charging sometimes..

[Guest]

Hey all, so I'm having charging problems and that likely comes as no surprise.
It will charge occasionally, I ride about an hour a day, 30 minutes to work and 30 minutes back. Sometimes at the end of the day the battery will read 30% on my charger, other times 80% and I haven't been able to isolate any reason when it does or doesn't.
I charge it every day because of this.
Looking at all my connections they seem to be fine, but there is a pretty rusty wire connected to the battery tray and I'm guessing thats a ground.
Now, if it isnt charging because of a bad ground that would make sense because whenever I had to pass inspection I found out the only way the horn would work is if I jury rigged a wire from the horn to the frame.
That worked for a while and I had no problems of any sort, until it started blowing fuses like candy. Removing that wire fixed the fuse problem, but seems to have resulted in a lack of grounding for the charging system.
This is all speculation but based on the information of previous issues such as needing a ground for the horn to work, maybe my stator and all that needs a better ground?
Where are all the grounds and what is the best way to redo them? I have no soldering iron but I can get some wire and figure something out but I don't want to blow more fuses.
-
Thank you very much!

[posplayr]

Hey all, so I'm having charging problems and that likely comes as no surprise.
It will charge occasionally, I ride about an hour a day, 30 minutes to work and 30 minutes back. Sometimes at the end of the day the battery will read 30% on my charger, other times 80% and I haven't been able to isolate any reason when it does or doesn't.
I charge it every day because of this.
Looking at all my connections they seem to be fine, but there is a pretty rusty wire connected to the battery tray and I'm guessing thats a ground.
Now, if it isnt charging because of a bad ground that would make sense because whenever I had to pass inspection I found out the only way the horn would work is if I jury rigged a wire from the horn to the frame.
That worked for a while and I had no problems of any sort, until it started blowing fuses like candy. Removing that wire fixed the fuse problem, but seems to have resulted in a lack of grounding for the charging system.
This is all speculation but based on the information of previous issues such as needing a ground for the horn to work, maybe my stator and all that needs a better ground?
Where are all the grounds and what is the best way to redo them? I have no soldering iron but I can get some wire and figure something out but I don't want to blow more fuses.
-
Thank you very much!

Have you done a Quick Test (probably not)? Do one and report the results. (see my signature for the link)

[eil]

Sounds like you need to study the wiring diagram and get busy with the multimeter!

Sometimes at the end of the day the battery will read 30% on my charger

What do you mean, "on your charger?" You mean your charger is telling that the battery's charge is at 30% of total capacity? If so, I wouldn't put much stock in that. Due to how lead acid batteries work, there's no way it can know what exactly the capacity is at any given point. At best, consider it guess with a very wide margin of error.

If you suspect you have bad grounds, simply clean them up and remove all doubt.

[posplayr]

Sounds like you need to study the wiring diagram and get busy with the multimeter!



What do you mean, "on your charger?" You mean your charger is telling that the battery's charge is at 30% of total capacity? If so, I wouldn't put much stock in that. Due to how lead acid batteries work, there's no way it can know what exactly the capacity is at any given point. At best, consider it guess with a very wide margin of error.

If you suspect you have bad grounds, simply clean them up and remove all doubt.

Another imaginative test procedure for evaluating charging health. The less charging current (probably just needle deflection) he needs the better charged the battery.............