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Starting Member
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Last Login: 1/11/2006 5:11:13 PM
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| If the load is forcing 10amps from the battery will the charging system put out a little more than 10amps(10amps for the load and a little more to charge the battery)?
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Junior Member
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if it's working correctly it should. On bikes that I've had a volt meter attached to and can montor it on a ongoing basis,
much below 12 it's draining the battery, anything above
and it's charging. With the engine off, it will read upper 12's and then drop the longer you have it on. Once it starts up, it jumps to 13.5 or 14, 'plenty to charge it up. A simple radio shack meter on the batter tender plug will show you that or, for around $30-50 you can wire one perminatly to the bike. Every bike is different but my guess is you'd need north of 12 at least on most to get a good charge. If the battery's not in good shape tho, it may not take or hold a charge which gets me to the rule of three: if it's more than three years old, buy a new one and save yourself a lot of grief.
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Senior Member
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FWIW this is how i understand it.
the spec for your charging system will be given in amps/volts if you are lucky. watts is the most common spec. divide the watts by your 12volts to get the amps.
the amps is the most power that the system will produce. this usually happens above 3000 rpm engine speed. below 3000rpm the battery makes up the needed watts. thus, if you are idling at a traffic light with 100watts of driving lights burning, most of the wattage is being maintained by the battery. when the light changes and you get back up to speed, there is enough excess wattage to run the lights plus charge the battery as needed.
my nearly stock trident shows 13.5+ volts at idle with an 80w headlite burning and my electic vest on. i would have to add some accessories to bring the voltage down to 12.6 while my bike is at idle.
when you have installed a voltmeter on your bike, note the battery voltage when the bike is not running. then start the bike without running any accessories and note the voltage at idle. it ought to be higher than the battery voltage. bring the rpm up slowly and watch the voltage rise. somewhere near 3000rpm the voltage will stop rising as the regulator bleeds off extra current, usually 14.5 volts is the maximum.
as long as the voltmeter reads about 1 volt above your battery voltage while you are underway, you should be fine. long periods of stop and go traffic might require shutting off some accessories. if you are running dual electric clothing and other stuff in town, you might want to ride in the next lower gear than usual to keep the engine spinning a bit more and the volts up.
10 extra amps over stock on a modern bike should be well within the capabilities of the stock design.
let us know what you are doing and how well it works out.
nobody rides half as well as they know how.
nobody rides half as well as they know how.
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| Starting having problems with batt charging after installing some elec. accy while running low rpm's Removed the accys. problem did not go away. Did not know age of batt so got a new one. On new batt., measured volts with all systems off and measured 12.6v then forced the volts down to 12v. Ran engine 1200 rpm(idle) for 15min with all accy on, turned off all systems and volts showed 12.6
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as ibafran points out, it's very RPM related.
If it clocks in at 12.6 tho, drops with the power
on but comes back up after idle, it must be charging.
Ideally tho, you'd need to get it up at higher sustained revs to find out for sure. Since you have
a meter on it what you want to find out is what's the static
load (engine off, elec on_) what the static load with the engine on, and then what happens with the toys turned on
as well. If you are 12.6, jump to 13.5 but drop down to 12
or 11 while you ride w/toys on, odds are good your over your limit. For instance, on my KLR (not the last word in cutting edge electrical systems) I can run the elec. gloves
OR the vest but usually not both, particuarly at lower revs
(in the city). On the Harely tho, I can run both, a stereo
& likely a coffee maker if I could figure out how to lash it on. Different bikes have different electrical head room. The trick is to figure yours out so you don't run down the battery. While it could be red herring, my guess is the toys you added were to much, your battery tried to make up the difference and eventually, it just got too low. That may happen again unless you do the math.
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Starting Member
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| With toys on and 1200rpm(idle), the volts read about 13.5. With toys off and idle, volts read 14.5
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Junior Member
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from the bikes I've owned, 13.5 at idle w/all the toys
on should not be a problem. Remember, at speed the available juice is likely going up from there so recharging the battery should not be an issue. Just remember, everything you add/do impacts it. Turn the high beams on, the turn signals, all impacts load. As you add toys, you just want to be sure you don't exceed the bike available juice. You should be able to get there from the specs but as with wet weights, they tend to be a bit optimistic. Knowing what the load is a various states (engine off, on, with toys, at higher revs etc) is the one sure way to know I think. 'Sounds like you should be good at this point tho unless there is some
other issue at work here.
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