Draw killing battery

[Bigheath410]

So I came out to get my bike ready for inspection for the season and it would not start and the battery would not accept a charge. I put a new battery in it thinking that would be the easy fix, it started right up, but then I had to go away for the weekend.

When I came back, it was completely dead and would not charge back up. I took the battery back to my local shop for them to recharge and test the battery for good measure as well as my charger. It seems like the battery dying prematurely killed it but they gave me a new battery and gave my charger a clean bill of health.

When I hooked the amp meter up before hooking up the battery, I found that the bike is drawing 12 volts with the ignition off. All fuses are good, and the ignition fuse is receiving juice while the switch is off (not sure if it should be or not). Does this sound like a bad ignition? Or possibly something with the charging system? Is there a solenoid or relay that may be stuck open?

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

The dash clock will draw just a knats hair of current but not enough to kill a new battery (it would need at least several months to do so). Do you have an aftermarket alarm or other accessory just added?

You have an electrical issue somewhere.



[MENTION=2579]Motogiro[/MENTION]
[MENTION=15974]FinalImpact[/MENTION]

 

[mnuttall87]

I think the trio of [MENTION=2579]Motogiro[/MENTION], [MENTION=15974]FinalImpact[/MENTION], and [MENTION=6338]TownsendsFJR1300[/MENTION] should just quit your day jobs and become full time on call mechanics for the FZ6 forum members.

Carry on -- I'm learning tons from these threads.

 

[Motogiro]

My first guess (because I'm not there taking measurements) is you might unplug the regulator rectifier. The plug should have 2 wires a red wire and a black wire. If the drain stops the RR is bad. If your RR is bad it will also be important to check your stator windings. The stator has 3 white wires. Unplug the stator plug and check the resistance between the 3 wires from the stator with an ohm meter. You should see .22 to .34 ohms. Then check from each white wire to ground (a clean engine bolt or negative terminal). You should see no resistance and all 3 wires should show wide open against ground. The reason I add the stator check is to insure the RR failure is not due to some stator problem.
I have some questions: Has the bike been jump started from a car while the car engine was running? Was the bike charged using a motorcycle tender type charger or a larger car type battery charger?

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I think the trio of [MENTION=2579]Motogiro[/MENTION], [MENTION=15974]FinalImpact[/MENTION], and [MENTION=6338]TownsendsFJR1300[/MENTION] should just quit your day jobs and become full time on call mechanics for the FZ6 forum members.

Carry on -- I'm learning tons from these threads.

Electrical is my admitted, weak point (short of adding on Farkles), don't be listening to me...No formal wrenching schooling, just 40 years wrenching and riding. Now, Cliff and Randy, they've done it for a living...

There's others too, hardcore, who've been deep into the engine but maintain a low profile...

Ok, back to the thread and see who finds the issue first! (and it isn't me)

 

[FinalImpact]

.. .. ..
When I hooked the amp meter up before hooking up the battery, I found that the bike is drawing 12 volts with the ignition off. All fuses are good, and the ignition fuse is receiving juice while the switch is off (not sure if it should be or not). Does this sound like a bad ignition? Or possibly something with the charging system? Is there a solenoid or relay that may be stuck open?

After doing the RR and stator inspection:
Yes, the ignition key does have power all the time and this is normal.

It takes a fairly decent quality meter to measure current, so if your meter is not capable of a couple amps here is another option. The automotive 12V test lamp. You disconnect a terminal from the battery (negative is a good choice) and place the lamp between the battery GND and the ground lead. A healthy system with no drain should NOT light the lamp fully or even dimly for that matter. A system with a short, a leaky electrical component that is in fact drawing energy from the battery will light the lamp. Please keep in mind the initial contact of the test lamp will likely light on most systems and then fade.

So, with the test lamp in place start pulling fuses. When you remove the fuse which is related to drain on your battery you should see the light dim or go completely out. The fuse and branch of wires that the fuse powers is now the path you follow to see what it powers and find where its compromised (bad part etc).

Its quick, inexpensive and fairly effective means of determining what path to follow.

Some quick math on the battery;
It a 10.0 Amp hr battery. In the ideal world you could extract 10 amps for one hour before its dead.

So leaving the bike and finding the battery dead works out something like this:
10.0A/hr / 0.065 Amp = 153.8hrs

153.8hr / 24 hrs = 6.4days

So roughly speaking the loss could be something like 65mA or nearly a WATT! My point, if it dies in a week at this rate something was making heat! Heat can be found! 0.065A X 12.0V = 0.78 WATTS Grant its not allot but it should bring some perspective to the source of what can do this.

I like Cliff's idea! Its a good stating point when coupled with the test lamp (watch lamp, unplug RR). Let us know what you find.

 

[FinalImpact]

Something else I thought of; for those who don't need or want to lift the tank just yet - apply the same test lamp theory but do it to the removed fuse. i.e. remove fuse, connect test lamp across fuse contacts. It should not light with everything off.

This however, does not monitor whole system, just the small branches. So a part like the RR which is always connected to the battery would not be detected.

 

[Motogiro]

Something else I thought of; for those who don't need or want to lift the tank just yet - apply the same test lamp theory but do it to the removed fuse. i.e. remove fuse, connect test lamp across fuse contacts. It should not light with everything off.

This however, does not monitor whole system, just the small branches. So a part like the RR which is always connected to the battery would not be detected.

Also, sometimes when doing a leak test either at the battery or fuse you will encounter what seems to be current flow which would be considered a leak but is actually a capacitor in a circuit charging. As the capacitor charges the apparent leak should disappear. Some times you have to put your test device inline and then open the line so that any capacitor becomes fully charged first.

 

[FinalImpact]

Also, sometimes when doing a leak test either at the battery or fuse you will encounter what seems to be current flow which would be considered a leak but is actually a capacitor in a circuit charging. As the capacitor charges the apparent leak should disappear. Some times you have to put your test device inline and then open the line so that any capacitor becomes fully charged first.

Very True and I 'tried' to account for it with this little blurb....

.. .. ..
Please keep in mind the initial contact of the test lamp will likely light on most systems and then fade.
.. .. ..

Cause you said I get too technical! :Flip: haha! J/K

my friend!!! Blah

 

[FinalImpact]

Also, sometimes when doing a leak test either at the battery or fuse you will encounter what seems to be current flow which would be considered a leak but is actually a capacitor in a circuit charging. As the capacitor charges the apparent leak should disappear. Some times you have to put your test device inline and then open the line so that any capacitor becomes fully charged first.

^^ and in cases of expensive current meters it protects them from in-rush current which happens when power is applied. i.e. place jumper in test location, insert meter in test location (same jumper), and then remove jumper and measure current.

In the case of the test lamp, you can't hurt it as its a 12v lamp and it just gets brighter on its way to inifnity and beyond (think Super Nova the light bulb). << yes, i lied - it can hurt it!

 

[Bigheath410]

Hey all, sorry for the delay, ive been out of town/fighting this virginia weather for the last few days, and only had an hour or so to play with it today.

The bike was jumped from a car through a fused battery tender jumper cable, but the car was off. Last year (around october I believe), the bike died on me while riding about a mile from my apt. After attempting to jump it with the car, it would not turn over so I pushed it back to my apt. After unsuccessfully trying to hook it up to a battery tender(before finding out that the tender will not turn on if the battery is too dead), and without a proper battery charger, I left it alone for the winter and only put a new battery in it a few weeks ago.

Ive had the newest battery out of it since I made the last post, and it is at a full charge. I reinstalled it, and connected the positive, and used the multimeter to bridge the negative cable and the negative terminal. I pulled every fuse in the fuse block, pulled every relay on the other side, and disconnected every wire harness I could find trying to see if any of them were contributing to the draw. Nothing.

With the ignition off, it was still showing ~12 volts, and with the Rectifier unplugged it was showing ~11 volts. I had to rush to check it out because I work two jobs, one in the AM and one in at 4, so Im not 100% on which reading was which. The draw did not disappear when I unplugged the rectifier but it did change the reading.

Im at my wits end at this point and may just take it in to my local shop and get them to track it down.

 

[Motogiro]

Hey all, sorry for the delay, ive been out of town/fighting this virginia weather for the last few days, and only had an hour or so to play with it today.

The bike was jumped from a car through a fused battery tender jumper cable, but the car was off. Last year (around october I believe), the bike died on me while riding about a mile from my apt. After attempting to jump it with the car, it would not turn over so I pushed it back to my apt. After unsuccessfully trying to hook it up to a battery tender(before finding out that the tender will not turn on if the battery is too dead), and without a proper battery charger, I left it alone for the winter and only put a new battery in it a few weeks ago.

Ive had the newest battery out of it since I made the last post, and it is at a full charge. I reinstalled it, and connected the positive, and used the multimeter to bridge the negative cable and the negative terminal. I pulled every fuse in the fuse block, pulled every relay on the other side, and disconnected every wire harness I could find trying to see if any of them were contributing to the draw. Nothing.

With the ignition off, it was still showing ~12 volts, and with the Rectifier unplugged it was showing ~11 volts. I had to rush to check it out because I work two jobs, one in the AM and one in at 4, so Im not 100% on which reading was which. The draw did not disappear when I unplugged the rectifier but it did change the reading.

Im at my wits end at this point and may just take it in to my local shop and get them to track it down.

If you're using a multimeter to do the test you should be using the current measurement (Amperes)and not the voltage. You can do a really fast check using just a cheapo low current 12 volt test light. That test light is the auto electric technicians most used tool. After you do your cursive primary, go/no go testing with the test light you can jump to your meter for more in depth data/ measurements.

 

[FinalImpact]

If you're using a multimeter to do the test you should be using the current measurement (Amperes)and not the voltage. You can do a really fast check using just a cheapo low current 12 volt test light. That test light is the auto electric technicians most used tool. After you do your cursive primary, go/no go testing with the test light you can jump to your meter for more in depth data/ measurements.

^^ +1

I reinstalled it, and connected the positive, and used the multimeter to bridge the negative cable and the negative terminal.

That was indeed a great effort however what you did will in fact follow and track the battery voltage so the test is inconclusive. You see without a load, across your meter, the meter has such high internal impedance (no loss or load imposed on it) that it simply reads battery voltage.

Also you must be very careful placing an AMP or Current meter in a circuit as its easy to damage them by making the initial connection.

A few months back I did some current testing on an incandescent light bulb and HID ballast. My current meter is only rated at 10 amps max which seems like allot. However, its the initial connection to a load that can compromise a meter. An example is a simple incandescent lamp. Its initial current draw to heat the filament can be 5X what it actually operates at once the element is glowing. That inrush of current can exceed the meters ability and damage it. Most will have a fuse so hopefully the worst case is the fuse is blown.

The same applies to you bikes electrical system. Electronic components have to power on and become stable. Just like when you first connect your car battery you see a little spark. Thats electrical components drawing current to power on and stabilize. If you know the ACTUAL LOAD is within the meters ability to measure current, you jumper from the battery to the negative ground lead with wire capable of handling the load (protects your meter while things stabilize) and then connect the meter to the same points the jumper wire is attached to thus by-passing the meter for a moment. Then remove the jumper so the meter sees the circuit. Now you can measure the current.

In this thread I used two meters to measure wattage. One to obtain voltage, the other to read current. I also had concerns about damage to the meter while the ballast powers up.
http://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-electrical/51497-35-watt-hid-ballast-current-4-0-amps.html

Something I didn't say. Current was measured as drawn by the ballast. Also, when tearing it apart just now to work on other stuff I found a wire which was warm. It had a bad connection (bum gator). This test was done with bananas and alligators and compared to ABOVE, it matters!! Nothing beats a solid connection! So I redid the connections to eliminate the compromised electrical connection and the current demand dropped a full half amp while the Watts remained stable!!!

After doing the math on the load for a both conditions (13.5 and 11.5V) you can see the load on the electrical system is the same Watts when wired properly (far less variation). So, a set of these may in fact get us more light and allow use of "other accessories" should there be a need for them. So, if running two of these at 80 watts or 2 halogens at a 110 watts, well this could give you a little more leeway when playing in traffic with the fan on.

Anyway - call me green, I don't know if a Xenon HID D2S system is measuring Watts at the bulb or the ballast. I went after the ballast as that's what matters to us.

3.5A @ 11.5V (40.25 Watts). This is good news as I wasn't happy with the initial results. My own doings for being in a hurry.

This is more what I expected to see. I just wish the manufacture would have posted the specs.... NOTICE THE WATTAGE!! Mind you it runs down to 9.0v and up to 25V or something like that.

<3.0A @ 13.5Vdc = 40.5 Watts Also using a MAX function and at room temp, startup current was less than 6 Amps. Yes, I said I wouldn't but I wanted to know!

 

[FinalImpact]

Did some testing on the bike tonight while putting it back together.

KEY OFF - POWERING THE METER TO KEEP TIME:
CURRENT = 0.001Amps Although it kept switching from 0.001 - 0.000A. Given the range of the meter - I'll call it 0.0005 Amps. I placed a current meter between the battery and the Negative lead. The current measured was 0.0005A

10Ahr battery loosing 0.0005A
10Ahr/0.0005A = 20,000 hrs
OR 20,000hrs/24hrs day = 833 days to kill that battery.

In short, the battery will kill itself before my bike does. Batteries have their own internal resistance which is more than the load of the meter keeping time.

On to more exciting things.
What if we leave the key on and don't start the bike?? OUCH! This one hurts the battery FAST!!! once the fuel pump does its thing and shuts off, the ECM and lighting are drawing 1.7A!!!!

10Ahr battery loosing 1.7A per hour - your done in a couple hours I bet. Don't leave the key on!

10Ahr / 1.7A = 5.8 hrs. But I doubt it will start the bike in 3 hours.