Say What? Too much charging?

[e3steve]

Do you have a higher-output rotor, Wilf? That's a good light-switch-off voltage.

[Wilf]

The rotor is a CB72 6 U. I think it's the regular one as opposed to the lighter duty version.

Wilf

[Goodysnap]

Are these stabilized numbers? at certain RPM's. My numbers were good on short bursts and at idle. But if I held R's at 4-6K the voltage just kept climbing. I'm gonna recheck this weekend and repost my findings.

[Wilf]

I'm not sure what you mean by stabilized numbers. I held the throttle so that the rpm's were as stable as I could maintain for several seconds before recording a measurement.

Wilf

[e3steve]

Are these stabilized numbers? at certain RPM's. My numbers were good on short bursts and at idle. But if I held R's at 4-6K the voltage just kept climbing. I'm gonna recheck this weekend and repost my findings.

Brent, the key stabilising component within the system is the battery. If you pull your plug caps off and crank the motor on the starter it should easily spin for 20 or 30secs with little or no decay. You can monitor the terminal voltage with your meter; it will probably drop to between 9 & 11V, under load.

Did you 'calibrate' your meter on another DCV source? Also, try the same 'on-charge' voltage checking with your meter on another bike/car (or another meter on your bike).

Something's amiss here, and it might not be as it appears. The battery may have an internal resistance between one or more cells; the cranking test should reveal such a problem.

[Goodysnap]

Ok guys. Rode to work yesterday and today 70 miles round trip. So far I'm thinking I was worried over nothing. I truly believe now my troubles are from my vibration and not from excessive voltage. But here goes with my findings as of tonight.

Verified proper voltage readings of my Snap-On Vantage on my pickup before running these test.

Initail voltage nothing on 12.89V
Warm idle w/ nothing on and started w/ the starter .8 amps 12.54 after 1min.
4-5K for 1 min 1.3amps 13.6V still nothing on
Idle stabilized for 1 min 1.0 amps 13.0V
Headlamp low beam on idle 2.5amps 12.3V
4-5K for 1min 3amps 13V low beam on
Headlamp sw on, Dimmer off (center)3amps 16.85V after 1 min@4-5K

These are with the 60/65 H4 capsule. Standard 1157 tail.

Starter Test
Initail voltage 12.65V
Good cranking speed for 25-30 sec. w/ plug caps off
Voltage during cranking 10.3V lowest
Recovery voltage 12.3V

Voltages taken from the battery terminals and amps from DC lead at rectifier.

As I now realize my excessive voltage was from my hadlamp switch being on w/ my sealed beam blown out . (How lame is that)I'm thinking with the stock sealed beam my numbers may be slightly higher but still tolerable.

So I'll be fine tuning this weekend to see if I can nip this Engine vibration in the butt. I did notice this morning that my LH speedo illumination light was out as well. Coincidence? Proly not. They were both new too.

Sorry to create a bunch of ruckus, but whatever i found I wanted to share with yas.

Brent

[Wilf]

No problem with the ruckus--it always leads to finding out something new or confirming something old. In this case, it confirms Honda's voltage graph (under no load).

Glad it's all working for you now, except for the vibration....

Wilf