R/R Help... Just need confirmation!!! Help!

[djscottymiami]

You might also want to try the test posplayer suggested on the ground side.
Check to see how much voltage there is, testing between the black wire at the R/R and the negative post of the battery.

But its starting to look like your R/R is shot.
By the way, I wasn't trying to suggest that it absolutely wasn't at the beginning of the thread ... just that there were more things to rule out before you spent money on a new one.

The black wire of the RR is already at the negative battery post. Didnt make a difference from where it was before.

No worries... I'm stubborn and don't take no for an answer easily either

[posplayr]

A little unusual to say the least

But assuming that your stator is putting out 60-80 VAC, then the R/R must be toast.

The measurements don't make a whole lot of sense, you do have the test leads plugged into the plugs on the right side of the meter looking at the face right?

OK going on the data at hand and assuming you are reading it correctly, some observations:

* With ignition on your battery is supplying power to the R/R (i.e. the (+) battery is higher voltage than the R/R (+)). As I recall that indicates significant current flow back through what should be reverse biased diodes in the R/R; I think this is too much current. Micro amps should be flowing not amps to produce a 0.2 volt difference.

* At idle the bike is charging barely enough to supply the ignition and what ever else is on. See R/R + is 0.03 volts above the battery and the battery is back to the voltage when the bike is off (big effort for the charging system I guess). You could still have bad connections, but there is so little current coming from the R/R you cant tell :shock:.

* At 4000 RPM the R/R is still producing some current albeit very small and the battery voltage has actually dropped from idle, so it is producing something but not much.

* Coming back to off, the net effect of the cycle is there is less charge in your battery as indicated by the lower voltage.

Basically your R/R is putting out a feeble charging current and actually drawing current when the ignition is off. This is entirely contrary to how the diode bride should be operating and so it is probably toast.

You should not be able to sink current from the battery as you indicated in the ignition on test.

The R/R doesn't seem to supply any current indicating that the diode bridge is unable to supply output current, possibly because it is damaged as also indicated above.

At some point with electrical stuff you stop trying to figure out what is going on and explain all of the observations and you start changing parts. The R/R is primary on the list. Again I'm assuming you have verified proper output voltages of the stator AC. But with the current sink in the ignition on test, pretty much says the R/R is toast.

Swap it out with an OEM version and see if that doesn't fix the problem or go for broke and get the Honda unit .

Posplayr

[bakalorz]

But assuming that your stator is putting out 60-80 VAC, then the R/R must be toast. (only conditionally true, see below)

The measurements don't make a whole lot of sense, you do have the test leads plugged into the plugs on the right side of the meter looking at the face right?

OK going on the data at hand and assuming you are reading it correctly, some observations:

* With ignition on your battery is supplying power to the R/R (i.e. the (+) battery is higher voltage than the R/R (+)). As I recall that indicates significant current flow back through what should be reverse biased diodes in the R/R; I think this is too much current. Micro amps should be flowing not amps to produce a 0.2 volt difference.

* At idle the bike is charging barely enough to supply the ignition and what ever else is on. See R/R + is 0.03 volts above the battery and the battery is back to the voltage when the bike is off (big effort for the charging system I guess). You could still have bad connections, but there is so little current coming from the R/R you cant tell :shock:.

* At 4000 RPM the R/R is still producing some current albeit very small and the battery voltage has actually dropped from idle, so it is producing something but not much.

* Coming back to off, the net effect of the cycle is there is less charge in your battery as indicated by the lower voltage.

Basically your R/R is putting out a feeble charging current and actually drawing current when the ignition is off. This is entirely contrary to how the diode bride should be operating and so it is probably toast.

You should not be able to sink current from the battery as you indicated in the ignition on test.

The R/R doesn't seem to supply any current indicating that the diode bridge is unable to supply output current, possibly because it is damaged as also indicated above.

At some point with electrical stuff you stop trying to figure out what is going on and explain all of the observations and you start changing parts. The R/R is primary on the list. Again I'm assuming you have verified proper output voltages of the stator AC. But with the current sink in the ignition on test, pretty much says the R/R is toast.

Swap it out with an OEM version and see if that doesn't fix the problem or go for broke and get the Honda unit .

Posplayr

I kind of agree with the course of action, but disagree with a lot of your analysis above

If the wiring on his bike is like most, the R/R is connected to the battery even when the ignition is off.
So it is not behaving as you seem to think, and a lot of your conclusions are wrong.

I bolded all the stuff above that I consider incorrect (not to offend you, but so you could see which parts I disagree with)

The reason the draw goes up when the ignition is turned on is that the lights and/or igniter are now drawing current, but the R/R was already connected when the ignition was off.

That said, if the connections are not the problem, its almost has to be either the R/R or the stator.
(Regarding the stator ... I believe I rememeber reading that sometimes a stator will produce the right voltage in the no load test, but short out under load)

At this point I would try replacing the R/R first just because it's cheaper and easier to do.
But I would be equally suspicious of the stator.

I would get a honda R/R from Duanage or ebay, don't even bother with an OEM one.

[doctorgonzo]

Having re-wired a fuseblock, you are correct. The Stator to the R/R unit to the battery is always on. When you replace a fuseblock with a ganged together ATC one, this has to be made a separate line with an inline fuse. This was also the source of my last R/R failure, too much resistance in that line.

[posplayr]

bakalorz

I appreciate your considerably modified tone. I will try and reciprocate.

While you were clear as to what you disagreed with, you are not real clear as to why you disagreed. You seems to assume that most of my conclusions are wrong because I seem to have ignored electrical system loads when the engine is static, but with the ignition on. 8-[

Well I do agree there are other loads than the R/R (that was not an oversight) . When I made the original comments I was assuming that there was a single direct wire between the battery and the R/R (that is how my bike is wired now). If there is a branch point for current as say in the fuse box, then we would get the same measurement as djscotty's observation with a good R/R. The 1 amp flow is to the coils or lights and it is causing the drop. This is an artifact of the harness and not a broken R/R. I dont know if that was your point, but that is certainly possible from what I have seen of the various stock wiring harnesses.

So to clarify my prior comments, I have made an implicit (if not stated explicitly) assumption, that there is a single supply line without branches from the R/R output to the battery connector (and essentially to the post). This wire along with additional parasitic resistance acts as a sensing resistor and monitoring of the voltage polarity will give a good indication of R/R current output.

Now if you bike R/R supplies a portion of the electrical system outside of the fusebox or in some other way there is a branch between the R/R output and then this complicates things and the observations will probably be altered. You have a voltage divider and or two separate sources supply current to the load, so things are more complicated.

I dont know if this answers the issues you have , but it might explain a portion of the points of contention.

Posplayr

[djscottymiami]

Update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well what a good day it's been.

I got my R/R and my parts from Z1 today! Not bad for shipping from the states last tuesday up to northern canada on the following monday.


I got the R/R installed tonight and I believe I found what I did wrong with my stock R/R:

The ground is a black with white stripe that veers left out of the R/R when you're looking right at it.... Well, I mistook another wire for the R/R ground. Turns out the ground for my R/R went to the far bolt that held the R/R down. Once I took the old R/R out I saw how corroded how the ring connector was. That was most likely my problem (but I would have had to take the old R/R out anyways to find the problem).


The Honda unit that Mr. Duaneage supplied worked like a charm! I've got ~13.5V at idle and it goes up to ~14.4V when it's at 4k rpm. For the first time my gear indicator light doesn't dim when i've got it in neutral and the turn signal on. It's really nice. Getting the old screws and the new bolts in there was a REAL pain in the ass though. Oh well it's done.



MY BIKE IS FIXED... WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE \\/\\/\\/\\/