UKSasquatch Posted March 6, 2011 Posted March 6, 2011 Hi All, First time on here so firstly, hello! I have an XV535 that is eating batteries and I wondered if anyone can tell me what's wrong with it. I've put two new ones on now and they both just flattened within a few months. The first time it happened I assumed it was because I didn't look after it very well over winter. Since then I've put another one on and it's flattened that too. If I don't ride the thing every day then after about a month it'll need charging. I think it's getting worse too, the last battery lasted about 2 months total and now it's fried. It's also had performance problems for as long as I can remember. Several garages have looked at it and told me they can't find anything wrong, but a mate told me it might be a dodgy regulator/rectifier causing it to flatten the batteries. Can anyone confirm is this is likely? Is there a way I can easily test the regulator/rectifier to see if it's faulty before I buy a new one? Thanks in advance for any advice, Adam.
pilninggas Posted March 6, 2011 Posted March 6, 2011 Welcome Adam, might be worth putting a post in the noobs section to introduce yourself properly... ....do you have an alarm? if yes look there. If no alarm... To test whether you rectifier/regulator is working, check the battery voltage with the ignition off, should be 12.55/12.60ish volts (lower is not good, less than 12v is very bad and higher indicates a an overcharge problem- lead acid batteries 'memorise' their overcharge condition for some time after last being overcharged). Then run the engine, give it a few seconds at least, then check the voltage across battery should be between 13v and 15v, less than 13v means it probably ain't charging (reg/rect, wiring, generator), more than 15v (14.5v in some cases) will mean the rec/rectifier is overcharging and is goosed. The voltage should also be reasonably stable (providing the idle is stable). If at idle it checks ok, then check the voltages again at 4000rpm (some reg/recs only work at higher rpms, unlikely on a factory custom, but someone may have substituted parts over the years). Get this sorted and then if you have performance issues move onto that. HTH merv
pilninggas Posted March 6, 2011 Posted March 6, 2011 btw use a good voltmeter, personally a cheap digital one is better than an old moving coil (which may have been bumped or gone out of calibration)
UKSasquatch Posted March 6, 2011 Author Posted March 6, 2011 btw use a good voltmeter, personally a cheap digital one is better than an old moving coil (which may have been bumped or gone out of calibration) Thanks man. Will go and buy myself a digital voltmeter. Cheers for the help.
UKSasquatch Posted May 9, 2011 Author Posted May 9, 2011 Hi All, It's been a while since I replied on this thread but i went out and got myself a voltmeter. I charged the battery using a wall charger and measured the voltage every day for a week or so. It held steady at 12.5v for over a week. I put it back on the bike and measured the voltage again with the engine off. Still 12.5v. I started the engine, waited a short while and measured again, now it was 13.5v. So, everything was looking good. However, a week later I came to start the bike and it was flat again. Now the battery is off the bike again and only showing 10.1 volts, so something has flattened it. Can anyone tell me how I use my multimeter to test where the fault/short is? I don't know where to start. Any help gratefully received. Thanks, Adam.
Moderator DirtyDT Posted May 9, 2011 Moderator Posted May 9, 2011 Assuming you haven't ridden the bike and you are saying that the battery, when connected to the bike, is going flat and you have a newish battery I would guess that some "addition" is shorting somewhere. What has been fitted that is not stock? (Alarm, heated grips, Aux plug, extra lights etc.) If you have any of these then I would look at these first. If you have ridden it and it looses battery power over time then I would do the battery test as mentioned before at 5k revs to see what voltage you are getting.
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