Help - Another ER6n Problem

[Beardog]

I am far from an expert on the Er6n's But I did have a weird thing similar happen on mine when the jerk off scooter shop that put my LED's in my bike shorted the bikes electrical by hooking the lights up backwards( or just arcing it to ground) Anyway the main fuse while it looked alright was just a mere skeleton of a fuse left & was brittle & showed next to zero resistance when I checked with an ohm meter. The new one had plenty of resistance. Same thing bike shutdown while riding all functions in & out ceased.

Since it is an intermittent problem I would look at the wiring leading into the main fuse for a loose or shorted wire. The same would apply to a car setup for racing. The power goes off when the main is a dead circuit to protect the system from burning up. It may be as simple as the main fuse or wire loose leading to the fuse. Unfortunately the battery is the easiest part to troubleshoot & wiring on an intermittent part is a different hose entirely.

I hope you can locate the ghost in the circuit. Good you have other wheels to get around while doing your house- it sounds like you are not to near any major shops & I am not sure Somchais boys would know what to do.

[guzzi850m2]

I am far from an expert on the Er6n's But I did have a weird thing similar happen on mine when the jerk off scooter shop that put my LED's in my bike shorted the bikes electrical by hooking the lights up backwards( or just arcing it to ground) Anyway the main fuse while it looked alright was just a mere skeleton of a fuse left & was brittle & showed next to zero resistance when I checked with an ohm meter. The new one had plenty of resistance. Same thing bike shutdown while riding all functions in & out ceased.

Since it is an intermittent problem I would look at the wiring leading into the main fuse for a loose or shorted wire. The same would apply to a car setup for racing. The power goes off when the main is a dead circuit to protect the system from burning up. It may be as simple as the main fuse or wire loose leading to the fuse. Unfortunately the battery is the easiest part to troubleshoot & wiring on an intermittent part is a different hose entirely.

I hope you can locate the ghost in the circuit. Good you have other wheels to get around while doing your house- it sounds like you are not to near any major shops & I am not sure Somchais boys would know what to do.

Hold on a minute, if the fuse is burned you get infinity resistance though it and close to zero when the fuse is ok.

[KRS1]

if you want to see if there is excess current draw with the engine off, place a 2 ohm resistor inline with the positive terminal and measure the voltage across the resistor, then divide that by 2 ohms.

This is not and never has been a problem. My battery drew down when I was riding; not when I was parked.

As i said in my first post, check your acid level. Supposedly sealed batteries in thailand are just a gimmick they can all be opened and filled, unless its a true sealed gel or calcium cell.

Acid stratification is a primary culprit in battery failure. If the charges cannot move from plate to plate, there wont be enough current, however it will appear to have voltage.

The plates inside a battery are connected in series, each plate is actually a combination of 2 plates like a sandwich, electrons move from one slice of bread to the other slice of bread (2 different kinds of bread) creating current ( the bologna), if just one of the plate sandwiches cannot transfer charge do to sulphuric deposits (optional swiss cheese)- the circuit is not complete.

Each plate sandwich is usually 2.1-2.2 volts and a typical battery consist of 6 sandwiches...so when you connect them in series you get a voltage from 12.6-13.2 volts

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/what_causes_car_batteries_to_fail

[guzzi850m2]

I forgot to add, one very easy way to check if the fault is in the battery or electric system(s) is to disconnect the battery from the - & + wires to the electric system.

Charge the battery again and measure the voltage and leave it disconnected for 24 hours or more, it should keep the charge, if not fault is in the battery.

Before my wife learned to drive a car, ours were left for 2 month when I went overseas working and the only thing I did was disconnecting the battery.

Connected the battery when home again and the car always started right up.

[BSJ]

I've found the battery fluid evaporates out of the batteries fairly quickly. On the pick-up I top up the cells about every 3 months using distilled water.

Before we bought the Suki Smash for up country the Fino was left sitting for 3 months. I couldn't start it so suspecting a flat battery I pulled it out and decided to lever off the permanent cover.

All the cells were showing the plates! Some more than others. I topped it up with distilled water, charged it and a year later it's still fine.

[Shurup]

I can't know exactly what went wrong but it looks to me it was a battery, draining all of the power produced by bike's charging system, obviously when you rev higher you get higher power output so your bike kept running until you let RPMs drop. The fact that it kept running tells us the charging system worked.

I'd personally check if the bike can be push started with out the battery or if it fails, check if it keeps running after the battery is disconnected. If there is a ghost, like others say, and you couldn't find it, this incident can repeat itself and then you can just disconnect the batt and ride it home to troubleshoot.

I just recalled of the similar occurrence with my ATV back in Alberta, after using a winch for a while to unstuck myself, my lights and display everything would dim out when I use the winch and if I don't rev it, the engine would die. A winch is a huge drain on the bike's electrical system and the symptoms are consistent with your bike's electrical being under load, most likely from a short somewhere.

I'm too lazy to go and look but I think there is a direct connection from the charging system to the battery, at least on my bike, so if the battery is the culprit, there will be no fuse to blow.

I'd also check and see if everything is tight, all the screws and plugs and battery terminals, if something is loose and you get arching, your get high power draw.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Wong!]

TM - I'm not saying this will help with your current situation, but I bought one of these off ebay and it's the dog's dangly bits.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTEK-MXS-5-0-Batterie-Ladegerat-12V-5-0-8-Auto-Motorrad-PKW-KfZ-Gel-AGM-MF-/231036052177?pt=Elektroger%C3%A4te&hash=item35cad262d1

Or search for "CTEK MXS 5.0 Batterie Ladegerät"

[VocalNeal]

A fully charged battery can't become discharged all of a sudden unless it fails somehow, if it was an alternator, a battery would loose the charge slowly (dependent how many gadgets you have plugged in).

With the bike running check the voltage at the battery, it should be high 13s. If it is, then the charging system works.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

It didn't discharge all of a sudden. Park your bike and turn on the headlight, taillights, auxiliary front and rear lights, Scottoiler and just leave everything on and see how long it takes to discharge your battery.

I borrowed a better digital multimeter and checked the battery after charging. It was 12.26V -- yesterday afternoon.

Whoa, I was getting ready to write: "There is nothing wrong with my battery! The system is not charging, and I will just need to find time to do the troubleshooting." Then I thought, hey, why the hell didn't I check the voltage with the engine running? Am I stupid,or what? Thanks for the wake-up call, Shurup. That would tell its own story. So I just ran down there and did it.

First, I checked the battery voltage and only had about 11.47 this morning. I started the engine and checked it again and damed if I didn't have 13.76V with the engine running. I cut the engine and checked it again and it was back up to 12.35V with the engine off. I can hardly say the system is not charging -- at least this morning.

I am both chastened and baffled.

So we have all these battery experts out there. Somebody please explain something that in my mind defies all logic. First, assume the system is charging normally. I have enough juice in the battery to start the bike and ride away. WHY did all my electrical components fail, as in NO JUICE, while I was riding? I mean,if the engine is running, everything is running on the power produced by the charging system. Somebody please explain how a battery can cause my motorcycle to get no electricity while the engine is running and the charging system is operational. This makes no sense to me.

Put another way, with some vehicles, the battery must be "in the loop" for the engine to run. Others, you can disconnect the battery while the vehicle is running. I do not know about the Kawa at this point. But assume it is of the latter type. With an operational charging system, I could start the motorcycle, then take out the battery and toss it, then ride off and keep riding until I ran out of gas with no ill effect. So, how can a bad battery be different than no battery?

Can a "shorted battery" actually somehow block the juice from the alternator? How does a battery suddenly and spontaneously become shorted? I have some research to do.

Well I think we all jumped on the battery because that is the most common electrical problem in the tropics. You are correct that even with a dead battery the bike should still run. So... Check the main ground connection on the bike this is another possible cause of an intermittent problem. Then the main fuse connection and then the loom to see if it has worn because of vibration and it shorting out on the frame.

Not ER6 but some modern Vespas have electrical problems because the wiring harness is pinched under the seat hinge.

Edited September 6, 2013 by VocalNeal

[Woodsie888]

The original symptoms do seem to be what to expect from an alternator or rectifier failure, not only battery.

I simply cannot see how any battery problem could cause the "original symptoms" detailed in my original post.

Sounds to me like you don't need advice.

[Wong!]

You are correct that even with a dead battery the bike should still run

Not always the case

[A1Str8]

Battery! That is responsible for the entire electrical system.

I had the same problem not long ago while riding at about 80.

Got the battery changed, everything is cool.

Sent from one of my devices using the internet

[BSJ]

TM - I'm not saying this will help with your current situation, but I bought one of these off ebay and it's the dog's dangly bits.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTEK-MXS-5-0-Batterie-Ladegerat-12V-5-0-8-Auto-Motorrad-PKW-KfZ-Gel-AGM-MF-/231036052177?pt=Elektroger%C3%A4te&hash=item35cad262d1

Or search for "CTEK MXS 5.0 Batterie Ladegerät"

I have the C-tek 3 for nearly a year. Great little unit.

[Litlos]

Not much experience with bikes, but a reasonable amount with cars and in industry and willing to share. Forget the ammeter idea as it is a problem in the making as all the amps have to go through the cheap arse ammeter plus the usually dodgy wiring. Much better to go with a voltmeter as that tells you the current state of charge of the battery which does not require high amp connections.

First step is check you connections to the battery, tight and clean.

The battery is prone to vibration induced failure and this can be as a short, open circuit or variations of both, absolute pain in the butt to find.

Ok so how do we isolate the fault? Basically a 300baht digital voltmeter from Amorn/Home pro etc is going to give you a fair idea. Position the probes from the voltmeter on the battery and start the engine, with a few revs (approx. 2000) should get up around 14 volts, maybe 14.5, if so looking good so far. Then put on headlight high beam and any other normal load (foot on brake is good) and give the same revs, voltage should come close ( no more than approx. - 0.5volts) to first reading. This then proves alternator working ok. If with steady rpm the voltage is fluctuating +-1.0v then maybe alternator system is no good. If voltage falls to less than about12.5v then alternator is no good or there is excessive load. Bring loads on gradually and look what happens ie headlight on nothing much, brake light on and it fails badly, maybe a short in the brake light system. Do it step by step and it can be interesting.

This from a guy who does fault finding on industrial systems for a living.

Cheers

[Beardog]

I am far from an expert on the Er6n's But I did have a weird thing similar happen on mine when the jerk off scooter shop that put my LED's in my bike shorted the bikes electrical by hooking the lights up backwards( or just arcing it to ground) Anyway the main fuse while it looked alright was just a mere skeleton of a fuse left & was brittle & showed next to zero resistance when I checked with an ohm meter. The new one had plenty of resistance. Same thing bike shutdown while riding all functions in & out ceased.

Since it is an intermittent problem I would look at the wiring leading into the main fuse for a loose or shorted wire. The same would apply to a car setup for racing. The power goes off when the main is a dead circuit to protect the system from burning up. It may be as simple as the main fuse or wire loose leading to the fuse. Unfortunately the battery is the easiest part to troubleshoot & wiring on an intermittent part is a different hose entirely.

I hope you can locate the ghost in the circuit. Good you have other wheels to get around while doing your house- it sounds like you are not to near any major shops & I am not sure Somchais boys would know what to do.

My bad sorry guys If the circuit is dead doesn't mean anything about the resistance just not a complete circuit is what I meant , The electrical wiring schematics in a Kawasaki work manual will give you the info to probe the wires to possibly see if a wire or wires are compromised.

[Ticketmaster]

The original symptoms do seem to be what to expect from an alternator or rectifier failure, not only battery.

I simply cannot see how any battery problem could cause the "original symptoms" detailed in my original post.

Sounds to me like you don't need advice.

Rejecting advice and seeking understanding are not the same thing. But thanks for your observation.

[Ticketmaster]

Okay, Thanks for the wealth of information here. Unfortunately, I'll just have to leave the bike parked for a couple weeks, as I have no time for trouble shooting (except the battery tests that won't take a lot of time). I am sanding, mortising and finishing doors and frames for my house and the workers will need them soon. Why am I doing it myself? For the same reason I do my own bike work. I am using an oil stain n the doors and frames and simply, with all due respect, don't trust the Thais to get it right. My workers are good workers. The biggest problem with a Thai doing anything is that he will NOT ever tell you, "I don't know how," or "I am not sure how, can you help me?" It just isn't worth the risk. I digress.

I'll start with the battery. I'll begin disconnecting the battery, charging, and see if it holds the charge a couple of days. If no, there's the problem. If yes, I'll start the bike, disconnect the battery, and go for a ride with no battery in the loop. If the bike dies out there somewhere, I'll have enough juice in the battery to reconnect and get back home. If the bike performs flawlessly with the battery disconnected, the battery would seem to be the culprit. If the problem does rear its ugly head, then I'll have to delve deeper. Recheck fuses, wiring, test the alternator and regulator/rectifier. In any event, I'll pry the covers off the "sealed battery" and check the water level. I should have done this first. "No maintenance" in this weather is a joke.

Hopefully the buck will stop at the battery -- that sure would be the simple and easy one! It will also be a new one on be as I have never experienced such a thing in 46 years of driving/riding and working on cars and motorcycles.

I'll post what I find when I find it. Above, I was nearly swearing it could not be the battery. But that sure would be the easy solution, and little roast crow for lunch doesn't sound so bad. It would certainly add to my knowledge base.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Ticketmaster

[Ticketmaster]

TM - I'm not saying this will help with your current situation, but I bought one of these off ebay and it's the dog's dangly bits.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CTEK-MXS-5-0-Batterie-Ladegerat-12V-5-0-8-Auto-Motorrad-PKW-KfZ-Gel-AGM-MF-/231036052177?pt=Elektroger%C3%A4te&hash=item35cad262d1

Or search for "CTEK MXS 5.0 Batterie Ladegerät"

I have the C-tek 3 for nearly a year. Great little unit.

CropperCapture50.jpg

I just looked at these on Amazon and eBay. They look a darned sight better than the Battery Tender. The nice thing abut the Battery Tender was its small size -- good for packing along.

[Litlos]

I can recall from my days fiddling with car electrics you could disconnect the battery with a generator system, but not with an alternator system. Something about the generator having an overvoltage cut-out which is not present with an alternator I think. So maybe check anything in the book along this lines before trying the disconnect may be a good idea. Have a look at this on Youtube, he waffles on a bit, but the procedure and numbers are accurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvRe9g_2gyM

Something I have found over the years is 50% of electrical/electronic faults are push on connectors. If there any of these in the charging circuit try resetting. By resetting I mean pull apart, check for dirt and corrosion, clean as required, ensure is clean and dry then reassemble.

Cheers

[karlos]

With all the rain we have had recently it's worth giving all charging system cables a clean and a bit of grease.
Your bike does have a regulator / rectifier. mine is under the headstock on my 2012 ninja 650, if it's faulty it could very well give you satisfactory results at home when testing the charging system's voltage but once the 'R/R warms up, gets wet or it takes a knock it might start playing up again but you wouldn't know this until the bike's battery gets low again (hours later)

Edited September 7, 2013 by karlos

[Wong!]

The nice thing abut the Battery Tender was its small size -- good for packing along.

These CTEK units are small too and top quality.

Oh, it's your battery. No need to thank me.