Headlight sucking the battery dry?

[mjstef]

Put a new battery in a few weeks ago. Been fine running around my place, Down the lane to the mailbox Ect. Just went on a 33 mile road ride and turned the headlight on to be legal. Got home, Stopped to talk to a neighbor turning the key off. Chatted for about 5 minutes, turned they key on, Hit the button and nothing but a buzz. Battery was DEAD! Thank god for a kickstart lol! Anyways does the headlight draw that much juice that the stator cannot keep up? Like i said, I have NOT had this issue with the headlight off.......

[BlackBike]

Sounds like time for an led bulb

[dpl096]

Wonder if the stator is putting out just a trickle.......enuff to keep a fair charge in the battery but not enuff to handle a "load"....

[jct842]

Better get out your meter after you get a charge on the battery. See what the battery reads after running rpms up then put the light on. With out a load it should be some where around 13.6 to a little over 14 at 5k an hour or two after riding it should still be 12.6 if much lower is a bad battery.

['16 TT250]

You didn't say what bike it is, but if it came with a headlight the system should be designed to support it and something may have taken a dump. Could even be that something got disconnected when the battery was swapped. Check charging voltage with the light on and off and see what it's doing. Also check that the headlight turns off with the key off, maybe it stayed on while chatting with the neighbor draining the battery.

[mjstef]

Got the meter out tonight. Battery was 13.7 running, Turned on the headlight and it started dropping like a rock. Rev-ed up to 4,000 RPM and it kept dropping. Bad stator or regulator???

[mjstef]

Does this Hawk need the stator to run? Anyone know how to test the regulator?

[dpl096]

My Polaris 4wheeler had those symptoms and it was the regulator.

[mjstef]

My Polaris 4wheeler had those symptoms and it was the regulator.

How can i test the regulator?

[humanbeing]

General idea: http://www.dansmc.com/electricaltesting.htm
===
Which type? https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=38711300886
r/r Ω reading of some model: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsanxin.com.cn%2FInfo1%2Fcpdt.asp

[dpl096]

HB's link pretty well covers it. You dont need a 150.00 SnapOn tester for this stuff either. Harbor freight has them at reasonable prices and so does WalMart. I prefer the digital models over the older style gauges. Getting harder to read those small needle sweep numbers with every passing year!

['16 TT250]

I don't know of any reliable tests for the regulator itself and your symptoms indicate a stator or connection issue to me. The stator is always making as much power as it can, the regulator then absorbs the excess not needed by the bike/battery. It's rare to have a regulator fault cause what you describe.

Test the stator, check ALL connections, if those are good then you likely have a bad regulator.

[Adjuster]

The regulator is so inexpensive that I would just buy a new one and try it out. Hopefully problem solved.


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[mjstef]

Here is a short video of what it's doing....

https://youtu.be/Ys68xlDejzA

[mq1991]

I would guess the stator is bad... If the regulator failed, I believe you would have way too much voltage, and be burning out your bulbs, and possibly damaging other components.

It seems like the stator isnt putting anything out, or there is no connection to it.

You could try and probe the connections coming out of the case, and see if you see a high voltage there. If you dont, bad stator. If you do, something else is causing trouble.

[humanbeing]

It can checked by 1 of these: http://gd3.alicdn.com/imgextra/i3/2628676545/TB2Jy4cepXXXXXfXpXXXXXXXXXX_!!2628676545.jpg
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.motoyes.cn%2FBBS%2Fforum.php%3F mod%3Dviewthread%26tid%3D787230%26page%3D1%26autho rid%3D2790
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Check parasitic draw... http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/showthread.php?8050-New-battery-loses-power-by-standing-a-day-or-two!-Dead-weak-charger-in-the-bike

[darmst6829]

Here is a short video of what it's doing....

https://youtu.be/Ys68xlDejzA


Wow. Scary unloaded RPM. I hope you figure out the problem without blowing up the motor.

[Adjuster]

Was the meter hooked up to your battery? It does appear your not getting any incoming power to the battery. I would double check all wiring connections including continuity before I would blame a failed stator. If all wiring is good then it must be your stator. Take the cover off the stator and make sure the wiring is all good, not pinched etc under the cover.


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[pete]

hook a multimeter up to the battrey while the bike is running
as long as it shows better than 13.8 volts it is chargeing...
14.4 is the number you want to see....



....

[mjstef]

Wow. Scary unloaded RPM. I hope you figure out the problem without blowing up the motor.


Old wives tail from the mechanical tach days. Easy to over-rev with a mechanical tach. Bringing the RPM up slow to redline won't hurt a thing. They do it on dyno's all the time. RPM's are limited by valve springs. Valves will "float" at a certain RPM on all engines. I have had this one up to nearly 8,000 on the street without issue. In AG mechanics in high school back 30 years ago, we had to machine and rebuild a 3 HP vertical Briggs. The test was running it at WOT against the governor on the test stand for 5 minutes without failure. I passed. It's not the "free-rev" that's bad, it's the "over-rev"........