Electrical Issues/Digital Volt Meter

[MountainTiger]

This is my first real post. It's taken some time to put things together especially getting the pics ready to go. Hopefully this will help and some will find the information useful.

I am on my second Girly, the first an 02 (57k miles) and now an 06 (8k miles).

On the 02 I routienly ran heated jacket and gloves, garmin, satellite radio

On the 06 heated jacket and gloves or grips, auxiliary lights, garmin, volt meter, and a tank bag outlet to charge a phone etc.

I had some electrical issues along the way on the 02. I fried the connector coming from the stator twice and the second time it included the stator. Both times I had some warning as the bike just didn't fire up right away as before the total failure. I ride almost daily and think that the warning was maybe as much as 2 or 3 days. Pic's from the plug failures below



First One



Second One
I think the burned insulation could have the reason for the stator failure. As I said I think I had some warning both times. This brings me to the Volt meter.

One added note before that. The stator wiring on the 02 went from the stator into the harness up and around /over the top of engine back  to the RR located 10-15" away from the stator. By going directly to the RR from the stator I eliminated 30"+/- of wire and one connector. Sometime by 06 this had been corrected in the factory routing.

Volt Meters

Based on my experience and experience of some of the friends I ride with routinely I believe a voltmeter is critical to monitor the bikes electrical system. I think in some cases it can prevent stator / regulator rectifier failures and in a lot of cases keep me from getting stranded. When you know what is normal/typical for your machine you can see potential problems coming.

My volt meter is installed unswitched (always on). This way I can monitor the charge of the battery when not running and the charging in the system when running.

As a battery gets older its ability to hold a charge diminishes. The table below shows the state of charge vs. voltage based on a static condition.

State of    Sealed   CX&   
Charge    VRLA    YuMicron    Conventional
100%   13.0v   12.7v   12.6v
75%   12.8v   12.5v   12.4v
50%   12.5v   12.2v   12.1v
25%   12.2v   12.0v   11.9v
0%   12.0v or less   11.9v or less    11.8v or less

With this table you can monitor the general condition of the battery.
Source  http://www.yuasabatteries.com/pdfs/TechMan.pdf

I have installed one of the DATEL Digital Voltmeters on the 06 Tiger. Max power consumption is 13mA or less than .2 watts. http://www.digitalmeter.com/cgi-bin/web ... figspc.txt

Pic from the bike which has been parked for about 24 hours.




Also did the VOLTAGE FIX, by Sasquatch, on the 06

Testing on the 02 after the second failure, riding under normal load with a fully charged battery, went something like this (Written down at the time but cant find it now)

RPM      VOLTAGE

2000      13.9
3000      13.8
4000      13.7
5000      13.6


I did the VOLTAGE FIX and the voltmeter at the same time on the 06 so I don't have a baseline for the 06. But after the voltage fix, riding under normal load with a fully charged battery here's what I have

RPM      VOLTAGE

2000      14.5
3000      14.5
4000      14.5
5000      14.5

This changes to 14.4 or 14.6 volts depending on  conditions like heavy stop and go traffic or long open road runs. Heated gear, heated hand grips, auxiliary lights, Gamin etc. has only a small effect on the output voltage (-.1 volts).

My thanks to Sasquatch on this one.

[matttys]

Good testimonial!

[Stretch]

Great post.  I've been going through the same sort of thing on my 2005.  Out there on the intywebs, there are quite a few tricks to deal with these issues.  Tigers are not alone in the abyss of charging system failures.  Several other bikes have been designed with small wires of too great of length, insufficient grounding, and Regulator / Rectifiers (designed to generate heat) tucked into unventilated spaces.

But this is 2009, the year for Hope and Change.  We shall overcome.