1978 CB550 - Electrical Woes Regarding Discharge of Battery

H

Hellapeno

New Member
I'm hoping someone would be kind enough to guide me through some steps to troubleshoot my electrical problem on a 1978 CB550. I have been trying to tackle this problem for about year now, so all of my rides have been 30 minutes or less (followed by a nice walk home at times) and I can't wait for the day that I have a reliable electrical system.

Current hardware on bike:

Antigravity Battery - 8 cell
Electronic Ignition
Rick's Regulator Rectifier
Motogadget M-Lock RFID ignition switch
LED Headlight, Turnsignals, Brake Lights, back lights, etc.

Either my charging system is not working, or I have a parasitic loss. I have taken the bike to two reputable shops in the Houston area and they had both mentioned they thought it was the R/R. I switched from an Electrosport to a Rick's Regulator Rectifier and thought the problem was resolved. Voltage at the battery is around 4K RPM is at 13.5. I rode around for a good 25 minutes the other day - no problem. The next day I turned the bike on without a problem and revved it a bit just to see if it was able to turn on (I was working on a different portion of the bike). 4 days later I return to my garage to go for a ride, and voila, the bike is dead. This sequence of events leads me to believe that I have a short or a parasitic loss somewhere but I do not know where. I've taken my battery to a local auto parts store and they deem it in healthy condition with a load (not sure I can trust their test on a LiFePo battery, though).

1) First off, is my assessment correct?

2) Is there a way to definitively check if there is a parasitic loss when the bike is sitting and off?

3) Is it possible that the Motogadget M-Lock could drain my system in a few days?

4) Whenever I hook the positive cable (and the + Voltage cable to the M-Lock) to the battery the relay clicks on, this is normal?

Any guidance is truly helpful at this time!
 
I suggest measuring any drain with a multimeter set to amps.

Connect it in series with the battery , ie connect the bikes positive wire to the meter negative and the meter positive to the battery positive.

Do not turn anything on.

The meter will show any 'leakage' current.

Steve
 
Not sure if this will help but there was a post the other day with a similar issue and it was linked to the Rectifier.

Link is below if it helps.

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=70886.new;topicseen#new
Regards
 
Sderbyshire, I'll check to see if there is a current draw later today and report back. Thanks.

Kokoda, I appreciate the head's up. I can't help but wonder if my Rick's regulator rectifier was in this batch. Crazy that we have to consider these things on brand new 'premium' reg/recs! Great to know tho, thanks.

As a side note, I'm currently going through and replacing connectors that are marginally questionable in my harness in hopes that this will cure something... probably not but doesn't hurt nonetheless.

Any other suggestions are much appreciated since I'd like to experience this motorcycle for more than 25 minutes at a time!
 
Sderbyshire, 0.00 amp drain.

I'm now going to monitor the voltage on my battery with everything hooked up and see if the battery drains on its own...

Any other ideas?
 
Hellapeno said:
Sderbyshire, 0.00 amp drain.

I'm now going to monitor the voltage on my battery with everything hooked up and see if the battery drains on its own...

Any other ideas?
Click to expand...

So the bike isn't draining the battery.

Does the battery go flat when left off the bike for a few days?

Steve
 
Haven't tried yet, but don't think so. I'll verify this. I'm monitoring voltage on a daily basis as we speak, but the battery is hooked up to the bikes main 12V and ground cables...
 
For what it's worth, for the past 2 or 3 days my battery voltage has been stable at 13.11 V. It is still hooked up to the electrical system of the bike.

Also, when holding the engine at 5-6K RPM, the peak voltage I get at the battery is 13.4 V is that enough to keep my system charged if I ride around spiritedly (above 4000 RPM more than 50% of the time)?
 
*knocks on wood*

Thanks guys. So, from my very limited understanding of how this system fundamentally works, if the strength of the magnetic field is based on the battery voltage, would it be possible to trick the system into sending slightly higher voltages to the battery by sayyyy adding a resistor in series?

Also, could this imply a "weak" stator?? Just getting creative here. :)

And I totally feel you zwade... and all I want to do is enjoy that thing after 2.5 years of labor! I'm confident we'll get to the bottom of it.
 
Hellapeno said:
*knocks on wood*

Thanks guys. So, from my very limited understanding of how this system fundamentally works, if the strength of the magnetic field is based on the battery voltage, would it be possible to trick the system into sending slightly higher voltages to the battery by sayyyy adding a resistor in series?

Also, could this imply a "weak" stator?? Just getting creative here. :)

And I totally feel you zwade... and all I want to do is enjoy that thing after 2.5 years of labor! I'm confident we'll get to the bottom of it.
Click to expand...

If you run an R/R from a DOHC model you can.
 
Hellapeno said:
*knocks on wood*

Thanks guys. So, from my very limited understanding of how this system fundamentally works, if the strength of the magnetic field is based on the battery voltage, would it be possible to trick the system into sending slightly higher voltages to the battery by sayyyy adding a resistor in series?

Also, could this imply a "weak" stator?? Just getting creative here. :)

And I totally feel you zwade... and all I want to do is enjoy that thing after 2.5 years of labor! I'm confident we'll get to the bottom of it.
Click to expand...

lol, yeah I had 2 years of labor on mine. I ended up getting a new battery put in yesterday( after having rewired my r/r like Sonreir said) and the voltage was similar to yours. When I was high revving around 4-5k the battery voltage was at 13.3-13.4 (which is lower than shorai recommends at 2k rpm rev). I was scared to ride it last night but said fuck it and took it out. Rode it about an hour and got back and the battery was at 15.2v (uh oh!). So now it's actually charging too much, but I think it has to do with how I was riding it. I was so scared it was going to die on me again that I kept it revved high the whole ride and never let it properly idle. I'm going to take it out and ride normal now and see how she does, hopefully I didn't overload the battery too much.

I would go ride it around for a bit, keep it revved up but not too high like I did and see how it does. I took the chance and it worked, worked a little too much actually lol
 
Great to hear zwade... sounds like you're getting her dialed in at least. What kind of Shorai battery are you running?

I have an Antigravity 8-cell. Other than being super light, I'm not sure how I feel about them just yet.
 
Hellapeno said:
Great to hear zwade... sounds like you're getting her dialed in at least. What kind of Shorai battery are you running?

I have an Antigravity 8-cell. Other than being super light, I'm not sure how I feel about them just yet.
Click to expand...

I've got this one: http://shoraipower.com/lfx14a2-bs12-p66
 
Well, she hasn't died yet, a total of about 35-45 minutes of riding... I went through and switched out some old beaten up connectors in the harness, and also went through all the connections in the headlight to ensure they were connected correctly.

Something that I found rather strange was the Brown/Blue wire in the headlight bucket. I believe this is for the turn signal buzzer, which I deleted from the harness. It's very possible that wire was accidentally connected to ground. I don't think it gets voltage unless the turn signal is on (which it rarely was) so essentially I was creating a short when the blinkers were on...maybe? Not sure if that matters. If someone could verify this, I'd be a happy man.

Anyway, I just put electrical tape over the entire Brown/Blue wire connector so now it's connected to nothing. Hope this solved it?
 
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