Help with Charging System

[posplayr]

A very large part of helping anyone who has come to the GSR to post about their Electrical ills is to figure out when the poster is getting good measurements or if they are doing something just plain wrong and reporting inaccurate results for any of a variety of reasons.

The Quick Tests is specifically designed to be A.) as simple as possible with respect to operating an voltmeter and B.) the full sets of measurements provide enough information to identify and separate 1.) operator measurements errors and 2.) electrical system faults from just 3.) low battery conditions.

There have been plenty of people reading the Quick Test and doing it but glossing over certain measurements assuming they fully understand the diagnostic usefulness (for example telling the difference between a failing stator vs dirty conenctions vs a discharged battery).

We now seem to be entering a new phase where the loosely reported findings of Quick Test results are being viewed as sufficient information/instruction to conduct "unspecified test methodologies" which are reported for the purpose of diagnostic help.

When Geol first posted this quote below, it drew more than a raised eyebrow from me and it is fully the reason I started recommending he read the stator pages to which he seemed to rail in defiance. Just another form of entropy generation I guess I will just have to accept it , but would hope people see it for what it is. In engineering circles it is called NIH ("Not Invented Here" syndrome ). "If I did not think of it I don't care what it is".

Your methodology is fine so far

Now I go back and read this which is what I assumed was a measurement of the the Phase A connection voltage drops and see that it was done with everything off!!!!! Whereas the real Phase A test is with the bike at 5000 RPM.

Attached Multimeter between ground wire and negative terminal on battery: without anything on, the voltage read about 2.2v, which seemed like maybe it was a problem area.

Uhgh.............................................. ............

[GSXR7ED]

Don't Worry Be Happy

Defiance="Not Invented Here" syndrome

I like the explanation. Kinda like how the interpretation of lessons learned from cagers.

"Definitely great situational awareness. It's never a good idea to chase after a cager. Take the good decision-making as your success and press on with your riding. Don't let the actions of the less considerate affect your day...they are not worth it. Ride Happy!"

Except in this situation, if someone provides guidance that interferes with your own feedback, take the constructive criticism and move on. Just sayin' and not enforcing it on anyone.



Ed

[posplayr]

Except in this situation, if someone provides guidance that interferes with your own feedback, take the constructive criticism and move on. Just sayin' and not enforcing it on anyone.

Not exactly sure what you are getting at here. My objectives and motives have been to improve what was started with the original "Stator Pages". The Original Stator pages were an attempt to provide an end to end ,step by step process for debugging charging systems. It had a lot of duplication with the standard information in the manual, but did offer a top down approach that is missing from the manuals. Nothing is perfect and those stator pages fault finding procedure did have some problems.

I started using the work experience that I had in generalized diagnostics for vehicle health management systems (which the company I worked for was actively involved for the US Army HBCT heavy tank vehicles ) and specialized those approaches to the GS motorcycles to come up with the Quick Test. Additionally I have offered up for discussion improvements to the original Stator pages much of which has now been incorporated into the revised website by Frank. There has been plenty of opportunity for discussion, field experience in terms of component failure rates and diagnostic performance in at least all the threads I have initiated on the subject.

I finally rolled all that up into GS Charging System Health which tries to take a very pragmatic looks at the charging system by adding a preventative maintenance elements to "best practices" for electrical system maintenance and step by step of what to do.

I can say without reservation, that had I not been involved so heavily with VHMS Diagnostics and Prognostic analysis for the US Army TACOM HBCT, I would never have gone to the lengths that I have in attempting to formulate the methodologies that I have been trying to foster here. I don't regret it; it has been a mutually beneficial learning experience.

Bearing all that in mind, it might be understandable, that I have a predisposition to not give exactly equal weight to someone else who in all probability has never considered the problem space and it's solution on anything to the same depths. Of course, I would allow that person sufficient rope to prove that to me.

[GSXR7ED]

Not exactly sure what you are getting at here.

Not intended at you. It is directed to someone like me who doesn't know a whole lot about charging systems on a bike but gave advice and was greeted by someone more knowledgeable who provided feedback in a tactful way.


Ed

EDIT: Now this I like...you're smart, no argument there!

"Bearing all that in mind, it might be understandable, that I have a predisposition to not give exactly equal weight to someone else who in all probability has never considered the problem space and it's solution on anything to the same depths. Of course, I would allow that person sufficient rope to prove that to me."

[posplayr]

Not intended at you. It is directed to someone like me who doesn't know a whole lot about electricity on a bike but gave advice and was greeted by someone more knowledgeable who provided feedback in a tactful way.


Ed

OK thanks for your support. While the technical aspects of charging system diagnostics is starting to become a real bore, the GS does provide a unique view of a variety of people's thought processes and that is probably of most interest to me at the moment.

[Tenshots1]

OK thanks for your support. While the technical aspects of charging system diagnostics is starting to become a real bore, the GS does provide a unique view of a variety of people's thought processes and that is probably of most interest to me at the moment.

Hey Pos,

I do really appreciate the help. I apologize for the frustration you're feeling due to my incompetence. I've always been horrible at reading instructions and following them. Also, I stopped mid test since I was confused on why a battery i presumed good would only read 12V while everything is resting, so i came here to get some insight on that. Anyway, if i finally end up with some free time, I will make a better effort to follow the quick charge guide as well as the info you've shared here in order to yield some more useful results.

GT

[posplayr]

Just to be a bit more specific and to show I'm not "just blowing smoke" consider the problem trying to diagnose the GS charging problems as fast as possible. In addition, knowing what to do to avoid as much down time as possible in the future; this has the same effect as being able to minimize diagnostic time.

In order to do this you need to have the very best understanding how the GS fleet tends to fail, which is the equivalent to having the benefit of the work/repair experience of all the GS mechanics in the world. In the case of the US Army the objective would be to give the most inexperienced mechanic the full benefit derived from cumulative knowledge of the all of the most experienced mechanics.

In addition to this fleet wide average set of failure likelihoods, an optimized automated diagnostics systems would be designed to develop tests results that allowed the mechanics to sequentially decide on a set of next test steps that would time optimally get the vehicle fixed and back running as quickly as possible.

The system has to optimally combine the pool of general knowledge about the fleet wide failures (repair histories) with the specific results from each test on the current vehicle to figure out what the next best step is that will minimize the time it takes to diagnose and fix the charging systems problems for this particular motorcycle.

For charging systems the best approach is an integrated approach( tests evaluate the interaction of the components under test instead of trying to test them independently). This is in contrast with the Stator pages that tries to isolate each part and test them independently. This creates a lot more test complexity and as we have seen in the past can lead people to chasing their tails. As I have posted many times in the past the Quick Test is a sanity check and often a deeper dive into the Revised Phase A and B tests are warranted.

The Quick tests gives a quick overview and avoids an immediate deep dive as in the original stator pages. You can think of starting with a sanity check Quick test that tells you whether to go to Phase A, Phase B or Phase C. After completing that selected phase, you complete the indicated repairs and come back to teh Quick tests to do another assessment.Generally you should probably find yourself ending with Phase A to confirm that the voltage drops are low after every thing is working.

The Phase B stator tests trying to determine whether there is insulation breakdown is some of the hardest for people to get their heads around which further adds to the confusion, although I think it is much better now with the Leg to ground test in addition to the leg to leg tests.

[posplayr]

Hey Pos,

I do really appreciate the help. I apologize for the frustration you're feeling due to my incompetence. I've always been horrible at reading instructions and following them. Also, I stopped mid test since I was confused on why a battery i presumed good would only read 12V while everything is resting, so i came here to get some insight on that. Anyway, if i finally end up with some free time, I will make a better effort to follow the quick charge guide as well as the info you've shared here in order to yield some more useful results.

GT

You are not the first get the numbers and post them; Good deal........

[AMK]

My two cents. You cannot go cheap here. There is enough evidence on this website that there is an issue with the charging system on these bikes.
I've been reading post after post of the same things.
I tested the battery on my 82 1100l and all was good. Started the bike and got 12 volts at all rpm's. Pulled the stator wires and got 30 volts at idle and 40 volts at all other rpm's. Decided to order an SH775 and a Caltrics stator.
Installed the stator got 87 volts across all the legs. Got in a hurry to ride and neglected to install the SH775 because it didn't come with pigtails I assumed it would have.
I tested the old R/R and still got 12 volts at all rpm's. When I shut the bike off my harness was smoking at the stator connections. Fried. I went ahead and wired the SH775 in direct from the stator (which by the way bolted directly to my battery box with no mods )but it was to late. My brand new Caltrics stator now reads 40 volts across the legs and 2 to 3 volts from leg to ground.
I installed a volt meter on the bike to determine voltage while running and I get an inconsistent 13 volts. The gauge dances from 11 to 14.
I will be the first to admit posplayr knows his s**t.
The moral of my story; replace with a new stator, series R/R, fix grounds, clean connections and bypass headlight loop... period! Stop chasing your tail and finally trust your bike. I found I'm better off at following directions than trying to figure it out to save some money.

Thank you posplayr for all you do.