Lights Acting Funny

akpasta · Post by **akpasta** » Mon May 28, 2012 8:44 pm

Definitely not that. Voltage from the battery when the bike is off is 12.5 or so. It's been charged and is working fine. The bike charges it well too. Quite sure it is NOT the battery or charging system. Seems more like voltage regulation (spikes in voltage with high rpms), or grounding, but extra grounds don't seem to do anything.

LOUD MOUSE wrote:More often than not this is due to a bad/low voltage battery. .....lm

akpasta wrote:I tried attaching alligator clips from the ground terminal on the headlight to the main ground wire for the engine, which should give the strongest ground that there is on the engine. No avail. I also noticed that my tail light is blown out too. All of the lights flicker in this weird way. Perhaps there is a voltage regulator somewhere that isn't grounded properly and thus not regulating voltage. Hmm.

LOUD MOUSE · Post by **LOUD MOUSE** » Tue May 29, 2012 12:06 am

OK so what is it?. ...............lm

akpasta wrote:Definitely not that. Voltage from the battery when the bike is off is 12.5 or so. It's been charged and is working fine. The bike charges it well too. Quite sure it is NOT the battery or charging system. Seems more like voltage regulation (spikes in voltage with high rpms), or grounding, but extra grounds don't seem to do anything.

LOUD MOUSE wrote:More often than not this is due to a bad/low voltage battery. .....lm

akpasta wrote:I tried attaching alligator clips from the ground terminal on the headlight to the main ground wire for the engine, which should give the strongest ground that there is on the engine. No avail. I also noticed that my tail light is blown out too. All of the lights flicker in this weird way. Perhaps there is a voltage regulator somewhere that isn't grounded properly and thus not regulating voltage. Hmm.

akpasta · Post by **akpasta** » Tue May 29, 2012 12:10 am

Well if I knew I wouldn't be asking. Like I said, voltage off the battery is what I've read/been told it should be; I've tested with a multimeter. So unless it's a ground, which I've also tried to test since I've tried adding another ground wire, what else could it be? The only variable is a problem with the voltage regulation system, which I know nothing of (is there even one?), or something I haven't thought about, which is why I am asking the forum.

thanks.

davomoto · Post by **davomoto** » Tue May 29, 2012 7:34 am

Andy,

No regulator on these bikes, only a rectifier. The one on your bike is a modern replacement from retrobikes. i believe Charlies sells a regulaor / rectifier upgrade for these bikes, might be worth a try.

Davo

akpasta · Post by **akpasta** » Tue May 29, 2012 11:30 am

Thanks Davo,

I gotta stop by there anyways to get some new bulbs. As far as grounds go, do ALL the lights ground through the one green wire coming off the headlight? I tried adding a new ground wire off that terminal, like I said, to no avail. I just want to make sure I can cross 'ground' off my list of variables. Must be the rectifier then, right?

rzgkane · Post by **rzgkane** » Tue May 29, 2012 8:06 pm

akpasta wrote:Thanks Davo,

I gotta stop by there anyways to get some new bulbs. As far as grounds go, do ALL the lights ground through the one green wire coming off the headlight? I tried adding a new ground wire off that terminal, like I said, to no avail. I just want to make sure I can cross 'ground' off my list of variables. Must be the rectifier then, right?

Just to be certain, I would cut out all the middle men and run a ground wire directly from the headlight to the battery's negative terminal. At least then you know if you have a ground issue or not.

akpasta · Post by **akpasta** » Tue May 29, 2012 8:06 pm

So I went to Charlie's and they didn't recommend I try anything in terms of a grounding spot to check and only suggested I get the upgraded rectifier/voltage regulator, but it's $125! I bought some replacement headlights and will keep checking different ground spots.

Are all of you running updated voltage regulator/rectifiers? Is there a way of more cheaply installing a regulator that will solve my lighting problem?

The strange thing about my problem is I don't remember the lights acting this way when I got the bike, which leads me to think something has gone wrong since then, and it would have to be somewhere that affects ALL the lights.

thanks.