Batteries And Stuff

Wouldn't the optimate indicate whether the battery was holding a charge or
not?

 

That's what I thought, unfortunately I was only out for about 40 minutes
last night and 10 of those were pushing the bike back from the chippy

 

Good point and to be honest I should perhaps have RTFM. Thing is I found
taking it off the Optimate leaving it for an hour or so and then
plugging back in and the charging LED came on. However the brand new
battery on my GPZ500 used to do that as well so I figured it was just
'topping' up.

 

Steve P wrote

40 minutes. an hour, what is the difference? The magic word is 'about'.

If your charging system is working, then even a fully flat but otherwise
sound battery should start and run your bike after as little as 5
minutes at normal road speeds, whatever they are. A whole hour just
makes sure it is filled right up to the top.

 

Unless the battery isn't holding the charge anyway which I think could
be the problem. I'll see tomorrow anyway.

I'm actually starting to suspect that it might be the charging system
but my testing at lunchtime was inconclusive.

 

Steve P wrote

Don't forget that if you have a meter you can see how the charging
system is working by putting it in series with the battery and watching
the Amps flow through it. It should be enough to ruin the meter.

 

It's a kakky pikey meter anyway. The inconclusive bit is because it only
measures up to 12v DC.

 

Steve P wrote

Which wouldn't be an issue if you had even half a clue about things
basic and electrical and a couple of resistors of equal value.

 

I think old Bill Occam should be hitting redline about now...

Of what possible value would such a scheme be? Surely it would be
simpler and make more sense to avoid charging problems at low RPM
by *not* artificially dumping the excess alternator output[1] until a
certain RPM is reached.

Especially considering that the Suzook alternator is a PM design, and
dumping current into the battery is hardly any more stressful to the
stator than dumping it to earth.

I think Haynes are doing their best in this case to live up to the
'BOL' moniker.

[1] IIRC the typical PM alternator regulator uses thyristors to shunt
one or more of the stator's phases to earth. E.g., here is the SV650
charging system schematic, AFAIK the GSX-R[750|1000] are similar.

http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/sv650_charging.pdf

 

It could be either the battery or the charging system, so you are
smart checking the alternator voltage first because they both work
together. For additional information on testing your battery, please
see Section 4 in the Car (including Motorcycle) and Deep Cycle Battery
FAQ on www.batteryfaq.org and Section 7.8 for buying tips for
replacement a battery..

Kindest regards,

BiLL........

 

Ah, well, here we run into a problem. You're arguing from
a position of knowing things, and I'm arguing from a
position of ignorace. So I shall just get my coat...

 

When someone at work suggests a meeting to hammer out the details of
a circuit design, etc. I usually respond with "Oh, so we can pool
our ignorance? Good plan."

 

heh. circuit design stuff here is generally left to one person,
and generally works nicely because of it. When two people are
designing bits that are meant to talk to each other...