DR-Z 400 charging problem

[Womble]

That's exactly what happened to me when my VFR regufier went marginal - it could charge the battery or run the headlight, but just not both at the same time. However, from other posts in the thread, it looks like the DRZ electrics aren't best specced anyway.

More wine required

 

[alimey4u2]

I disconnected the headlamp bulb and the charging voltage went up to 14.7v.

Says 3 things, All, combination or one of the following,,

Battery has a shorted cell....
Charging system marginal... (IE F*cked)
You have a 1000 watt bulb fitted.....

 

[Greg Masters]

Says 3 things, All, combination or one of the following,,

Battery has a shorted cell....
Charging system marginal... (IE F*cked)
You have a 1000 watt bulb fitted.....

No 1,000 watt bulb (stock 50/55w item). But it doesn't help me much further.

As Tobermory Womble alludes, if a diode or two (of the 9 in the rectifier) has gone up the pictures, the output juice would be limited and show the effect I'm getting.

It still bothers me that the battery appears to be performing pretty well.

More wine.

Greg

 

[alimey4u2]

It still bothers me that the battery appears to be performing pretty well.

More wine.

Greg

Do a load test on the isolated battery, on the side it may say (if not ...research) amp/hrs. If you pull X amount of amps the battery should support that load for X hrs...
Garages should have the tester.....,
Fully charge, measure the electrolyte SG using a hydrometer ( if it's not GEL or AGM) & then conduct the test...

 

[Shep]

Do a load test on the isolated battery, on the side it may say (if not ...research) amp/hrs. If you pull X amount of amps the battery should support that load for X hrs...
Garages should have the tester.....,
Fully charge, measure the electrolyte SG using a hydrometer ( if it's not GEL or AGM) & then conduct the test...

You could get an idea by cranking the engine over whilst measuring the battery voltage, if the volts drop to below 11.5v whilst cranking there is a good chance its fekked. test to be done on a fully charged battery left to rest for 24hrs.

Shep

 

[Wreford Miles]

I read an Airhead tip that said carry a short lead to bypass the rectifier in the case of it becoming fecked.

Can you bypass the one on the DRZ...I'm assuming this will tell you if the generator is giving enough umphhhh but the rectifier is not managing it correctly.

 

[Womble]

I read an Airhead tip that said carry a short lead to bypass the rectifier in the case of it becoming fecked.

Can you bypass the one on the DRZ...I'm assuming this will tell you if the generator is giving enough umphhhh but the rectifier is not managing it correctly.

If there are separate rectifier packs and regulators, I could imagine a 'get you home' trick being to take the output from the rectifier. But it would be pretty dreadful for anything with an ECU or modern electrics, and the battery would probably die as a result.

As far as I know, most modern bikes like the DRZ have an integrated rectifier/regulator pack, referred to as a regufier. It's unlikely that this trick could even be tried on the DRZ, and I certainly wouldn't try it

 

[Timolgra]

If there are separate rectifier packs and regulators, I could imagine a 'get you home' trick being to take the output from the rectifier. But it would be pretty dreadful for anything with an ECU or modern electrics, and the battery would probably die as a result.

As far as I know, most modern bikes like the DRZ have an integrated rectifier/regulator pack, referred to as a regufier. It's unlikely that this trick could even be tried on the DRZ, and I certainly wouldn't try it

AC hmmm

 

[Womble]

AC hmmm

It's worse than that - half-wave rectified AC

 

[Timolgra]

It's worse than that - half-wave rectified AC

Oh no!!

 

[Greg Masters]

I shelled out yesterday on a nice new multi-meter with a diode-tester. The factory manual gives a set of diode-test values that you should expect from all the permutations of shoving your two probes into any two of the five leads coming out of the rectifier/regulator.

Both of the R/Rs that I have showed exactly the same readings - and only about half of the combinations were as per the spec-sheet.

Ordinarily, I'd say that they were both fecked, but with 9 diodes, what's the chances of both units suffering the identical failure?

I'm not going to do much more until I can compare with a known good bike - unfortunately, it's Phil Reynolds'!

Waiter, another bottle of wine, please.



Greg

 

[snoopy]

Greg, ride the bike not off-road with some sustained mileage and see if it still happens. I think the fact there's not enough watts getting to the battery is what's doing it. Do you off-road with the lights on?

 

[Timolgra]

Greg, ride the bike not off-road with some sustained mileage and see if it still happens. I think the fact there's not enough watts getting to the battery is what's doing it. Do you off-road with the lights on?

perhaps he's squashed a wire blocking some of the watts

 

[Greg Masters]

Greg, ride the bike not off-road with some sustained mileage and see if it still happens.

I ride it most days of the week going to/from work. The problem has not previously shown up because I plug it in an Optimate every night.

I think the fact there's not enough watts getting to the battery is what's doing it.

Yes

Do you off-road with the lights on?

Yes, my bike has no on/off light switch.

Greg

 

[Timolgra]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Suzuki-DRZ400...ryZ35594QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Greg Masters]

Here

.... and they're only down the road!



Greg

 

[snoopy]

A new battery isn't going to help. You road the bike off-road for a day with the lights on. No way would enough juice be getting back to the battery to charge it.

You have three choices;

1. rewind the stat
2. lower electricity consumption (LEDs...).
3. buy a light switchable unit from a < 03 bike.

 

[Timolgra]

A new battery isn't going to help. You road the bike off-road for a day with the lights on. No way would enough juice be getting back to the battery to charge it.

er, then why didn't it happen on the many times it was used in an identical situation?

This is not a usual situation for a DRZ-S when used off road, which indicates one or more of the charging components is at fault.

The first check after fuses broken wires etc. should always be the battery, it's cheap enough and can eliminate it as the cause, at worst you end up with a new battery.

 

[snoopy]

My understanding of it was he'd done a longer weekend of off-roading with lots of cranking, sure if not then ignore what I posted.

Unusual or not you'd have to have to keep the bike at 2000rpms all day just to power the lights.

 

[Greg Masters]

This weekend was nothing different to dozens of off-road rideouts before, except that one (or more) components of the bike's charging system have reached the end of their natural, resulting in a failure to restart.

As Tim points out, the bike is designed to be ridden off-road with the lights on (if it wasn't, there'd be a light switch).

As I said earlier, I'm doing nothing more until I can compare with a known 'good' bike.

Greg