TOPIC:

dcarver220b wrote:

By chance are you running a Li battery?

As far as I know, Paul used an  Ultrabatt LIFEPO4
I looked into this battery and it has a PCB that protects against overcharging and overcurrent draws. Now I'm wondering if the battery has a circuit reset??? Or???? If it charges a remote battery but not the LIFEPO4 ......

Just cut and pasted this from their website

DescriptionUltrabatt Lithium Battery Module 300CCA / 400PCA / 5.0A. These batteries are very strong and very small. In addition, they have the most advanced integrated electronic system to prevent complete discharge, overcharging, over voltage and thermal overload. These Lithium Battery modules also have a fuse to prevent a short circuit.

Hi, here is my battery.



It seems OK and the fuse is fine, but I will contact them to see what they think. It charges nicely on the special charger I have for it, but discharges slowly when I'm riding, mainly due to the headlight.. 

I hooked the bike up to an ordinary car battery and that seems to charge fine, volts going up with revs. But on bike doesn't.... mystery!

Paul

Good to hear you know about the "fuse" and found it and checked it. Ultrabatt hid that fuse under a cover, under the label. Crazy !!

i struggle to understand your problem here. It's a funky one. The regulator should be cycling and maintaining a charge at a set output voltage usually between 14.2-14.5 V. (Lithium batteries typically want  the charge voltage at 14.1 V ) but Ultrabatt say as long as the charge voltage is below 15.0V everything will be fine. So that being said, once the bike is running and throttled up to 3000 rpm you should see 14.2-14.5 unless the electrical load is more than the charging output. If you turn off all the loads except the ignition you should achieve that voltage. If you achieve that voltage and then turn on your running gear (lights etc) and the voltage drops to below the resting voltage, then the charging system is not keeping up with the demand. I like to think of the resting voltage to be the neutral point. Voltage measured below the neutral point is a draw on the system and anything over the resting voltage is a charging voltage. Keeping the system voltage above the resting voltage and you'll always be fine.
So, what may not be working in your favor is the 5.0 A rating. Basically, this LiFe Po4 battery has an amazing output of 300 cold cranking amps but the capacity of 5.0 A is a quarter of the stock battery which is a Yuasa Y50-N18L-A (12V 20AH). So anytime your putting around at less than 3000 rpm, your relying on the reserve capacity of the battery to keep things running until you get back up to 3000rpm and start charging the battery. 
 

Aha, so pootling around in 1500-2000 rpm will actually deplete the battery when running with lights on (which is always).

I have charged the battery up to whatever the charger says is OK (presumably around 14.2-14.5V) and will reconnect it. Then switch all the lights off and rev up high (over 4000rpm) and see if I can see a voltage change. Hopefully there will be one.

If not, we still have a problem somewhere, but if there is a change and it is charging under those circumstances, then all is well and I need to ride faster.

I'll report back.

Thank you!
Paul
 

Erm... apologies for wasting everyones time. 

I bit the bullet and stripped the entire charging system and found a frayed wire in the middle of the loom under the tank. That was the feed wire from R/R to battery.... hence no charge went through, but when I checked for continuity is was connected through the starter solenoid, so I was not alerted to a broken connection.

Anyway, thank you all for your help (as ever), thankfully everything is OK and the bike is behaving again.

Now I can go back to the misfiring at low revs issue, but maybe that has now been solved as well. I live in hope!

Cheers (embarrassed)

Paul