Bandit Alley
MODEL SPECIFIC => SUZUKI BANDIT 250 & 400 => Topic started by: SubieHo on August 13, 2008, 12:05:10 AM
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Hi there,
Newbie here.
I just replaced a 7-year old battery and checked my charging system, and found something pretty curious. At idle, I was getting a DC voltage reading of 13.5. The curious part is that the voltage would drop as engine speed increased -- around 12.8V at 5K rpm. This doesn't seem right, and I was wondering of those on this forum had any ideas?
Generator output is good at around 80-90 AC volts.
I should add that this bike has been rarely ridden and hooked up to a battery tender inside a friend's garage for the past 3 years. I've had it out for about 3 weeks now, except it wouldn't start after a ride of about 60 miles. I pushed started it and it ran fine, but would not crank over even after riding it for another 60 miles.
I searched around and downloaded that handy flow chart but am hoping it was just the old battery.
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Voltage seems fine to me.
Remember that when the rev goes up it needs more sparks and thus uses more energy, nothing to worry about :grin:
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Yes, I'm hoping that it's just the battery, but the the factory manual says that voltage should be between 13.5 & 15.5 volts at 5K rpm. At least I know it's not overcharging.
BTW, this is a '92 B4 with 21K miles (33.6K kms. for everyone else) on the odometer.
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It maybe your in need of a new reg rec.
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It maybe your in need of a new reg rec.
:thumb:
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Where do you guys get your new regulators from?
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Mine is from a GS500: same regulator, plugs et al. Plug and play installation.
Is going to 12.5v at 5k a problem? My new-to-me one does this and is at 13-14.5 at idle. I'd think that it isn't such a big deal considering my old one was at l7v at the same revs.
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rgv250 also has the same one, only a bit smaller so it can only be connected with one bolt. but works perfectly.
however I would first test the reg rec before buying another one (I once bought 2 extra ones just to find out I had a loose wire :banghead: at least now I have some spares...)
still I think 12,5V is enough.
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I have 2 doing the same thing. One is original bandid the other is a used gs-500 one
How hot do they get during normal operation?
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Thanks for all the input, fellas.
Mine is from a GS500: same regulator, plugs et al. Plug and play installation.
Is going to 12.5v at 5k a problem? My new-to-me one does this and is at 13-14.5 at idle. I'd think that it isn't such a big deal considering my old one was at l7v at the same revs.
Yes, I'm inclined to think the same thing, and a bad regulator/rectifier (RR) will usually cause the voltage to overcharge the battery as you experienced.
however I would first test the reg rec before buying another one (I once bought 2 extra ones just to find out I had a loose wire banghead at least now I have some spares...)
still I think 12,5V is enough.
Yes, I'm thinking the same thing, but I'll pop everything off and check all my connections today.
I have 2 doing the same thing. One is original bandid the other is a used gs-500 one
How hot do they get during normal operation?
VW_NUT, this is good to hear as this may mean that mine is acting normally. Mine gets hot, but I can still put my fingers on it. It's definitely not overjuicing things.
At this point, I'm inclined to think that the RR is functioning fine because even with the 7-year-old battery, the bike was getting enough juice to run -- it just wasn't charging the old battery enough to run the starter.
The other thing I should add is that when I flick on the high beams, the voltage will increase by .4-.5 v, which indicates that the RR is functioning.
I'll post some more numbers after I pull everything off today and test things.
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ok..
I don't know that mine (hangin_biposto's) is perfect....
I've been chasing down a random hot stall for a while & I am beginning to think its not carb/fuel related. Bike runs 100% no hitches good jetting, good carb synch, etc. but after say 1/2 hour + of riding when I come to a stop and pull in the clutch the bike dies. It will restart with some throttle and after its running perfect. THe bike still rides perfect, it just wants to stall when you pull the clutch in. It seams to be worse if you baby the bike.
I am wondering if this is some sort of electrical issue. I have checked/cleaned the connections at the voltage regulator and the connections to the coils are good. :annoy: Battery is less than 1 year old and holds a good charge.
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Do the Electrosport test that Stormi has in her sig and see if that's the case for you RR.
Also, I do find mine gets warm, it's the heat that kills them and running additional things like the headlight, highbeam etc take the load off of the RR which basically turns the excess juice into heat. The heat just goes somewhere else as opposed to the hidden heatsink. I've also added some additional grounds to the RR as well. It was suggested and figured it couldn't hurt.
I know on mine, after really caning it and coming to a stop, sometimes the revs will come down close to dying but it'll come back up and idle normally. When I did the failed exhaust cam mod, the bike would stall doing the same thing. There was something in jetting where I think if the bike's too fat it will dip in rev and come back up but I can't remember at the moment.
Set the idle when the bike is storming hot as opposed to just sitting. I've found it makes a difference when the bike has actually been run versus: crank it over, warm it up and then set idle.
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Bartjan :thumb: has a good point some times the wires to the reg rec get corroded or fried and you can cut and splice them back together and sometimes the reg rec works fine
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I did set the idle when it was very hot. It is a little high probably 1700 or so. What you describe is exactly what happens. It dips a little then its fine.
I would guess that the jetting is rich, however, the plugs are really clean which suggests its not right?
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I am wondering if this is some sort of electrical issue. I have checked/cleaned the connections at the voltage regulator and the connections to the coils are good. :annoy: Battery is less than 1 year old and holds a good charge.
Check you see if your clutch is dragging. Is it hard to find nuetral while stopped?
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I will check. It will do it though even if you are rolling. Say you are coming up to a light and pull in the clutch while you brake bam it'll stall.
Now if you restart it at the light give it a blip it will idle the rest of the light just fine.... :annoy: :annoy:
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Ok fellas, I hooked things up and checked the RR and also went through the Electrosport flow chart.
I've also copied the chart for specified values from section 6 of the service manual.
My readings seem way off. I had to switch the range on multimeter to the 2 M ohm range to get any reading other than infinite. However, when I went through the Electrosport flow chart, I either stop at "Bad connection from the positive lead from the RR to the battery" or "Bad connection at from the negative lead of the RR to the battery." What am I doing wrong?
In the following charts, the red lead is connected to points in top row and the black lead to points in the first column.
Y=Yellow R=Red B/W=Black&White a=infinite
Specified Readings:
scale = x 1,000 ohms
Y1 Y2 Y3 R B/W
Y1 a a 3.5 a
Y2 a a 3.5 a
Y3 a a 3.5 a
R a a a a
B/W 3.5 3.5 3.5 6
2 M ohm Range
Y1 Y2 Y3 R B/W
Y1 a a a 0.991
Y2 a a a 1.013
Y3 a a a 0.981
R 1.038 1.001 1.004 1.575
B/W a a a a
Electrosport Readings with bike running at idle:
Voltage between battery terminals: 13 V - 13.5V -- it goes up as the engine warms up to operating temp.
If I rev it up to 5K rpm, it goes down to around 12.9V - 13V and stays there as I rev beyond 5K rpm.
If I assume that the voltage reading is fine and move from left to right in the flow chart, then all is ok because my voltage stays way below 14.8 V. If I take the 13V reading, assume that it's low and move down in the chart, then I get a reading of .23-.24 V at idle (above .2 V), indicating that I have a bad connection between the positive lead of RR and the battery. To make things interesting, I brought the engine up to 5K rpm and saw that the reading dipped down to .14 V.
To make things more interesting, I moved down in the flow chart and and got a reading of .38 V at the negative lead, and if I rev up to 5K rpm, the reading jumps up to .7 V, which is above .2 V and indicates a bad connection from the negative lead of the RR to the battery.
All the fuses checked out fine.
Question: Where do the + and - leads from the RR go after they enter the wiring harness? Do I need to slice open the bundle and check the wires?
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Just did the test you guys speak of above and I did have a problem between the battery post and the RR. The wires go from the RR to the 25 amp fuse to the battery. The connections to the fuse block and at the fuse were corroded. Voltage is now 13.5-14v now & no more headlight flickering.
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Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely recheck the connections at the fuse box.
My headlight doesn't flicker, but the low beams did not come on a couple of times after I first turned on and started the bike. When this happens, the high beams work fine, and neither ever flicker. I wondered if I had a loose connection that lost contact from vibration so I opened the headlight and checked all the connections. It hasn't happened again in the past 300 miles or so.
The bulb did look a little burned, but it's been working so I haven't swapped in a new one. I have almost 22K miles on my bike. How long do these bulbs last and would a bad bulb fail intermittently like this?
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It's pretty rare for a filament type bulb to fail intermittantly... and the couple of times I've seem it, the bulb actually had failed, but the when the filament broke, it didn't fall apart, like theu usually do, but would maintain connection through vibration. This would usually make it normally "off" and occasionally make contact and come back "on". So I'm voting you had a poor connection.