DC Voltage Drops While Running

[veloduke]

Something is drawing a lot of current.
With everything connected as you think it should be, put a multimeter where the battery earth lead should be, between the battery and frame. Set the meter to the 10A scale DC.
Now run the bike to see what current is being drawn from or fed to the battery.
The alternator should easily cope with any normal load, and theoretically should supply about 10 amps.
An analogue meter would be best, but you should be able to get an idea if you have a digital meter.

[blaat!]

Ok, finally got back to this project. As Bill said, Tolstoy Epic

This electrical diagram is my new set up:

199.jpg

The previous battery wouldn't hold a charge after just a few months, so I bought another brand new battery and added the fuses in hopes of avoiding another catastrophe.

With the bike running there was 2.5-4.0 amps flowing through the ammeter:

IMG_6396.jpg

I measured 7.32V at the battery while running. Initially I was excited to have so much voltage to charge the battery, but then I noticed the battery was leaking out the overflow tube onto the ground:

acid.jpg

Not sure how I went from too little voltage to too much voltage.

Thoughts?

[Jordan]

I don't think 7.32V at the battery with the bike running is too much.
With the bike engine not running, the battery voltage will be less than that.

[mrkprsn]

7.32 is perfect. X 4 amps = 29 watts. That's no a lot but enough to run a bike with a 10+ watt led headlight. That's pretty good for an original stator

I just installed a Electrex stator/ flywheel and RR. I am getting 7.5v at the battery.

Your battery shouldn't be boiling over like that. Have you tried an SLA battery?

[blaat!]

I do have a 6V SLA battery and by chance I measured its voltage today after sitting for weeks without a charge and it came in at 6.4V. Maybe it is serviceable

I need to pray for some warm weather before winter really sets in so I can go for a long ride and test it out!

Will report back!

[veloduke]

Your charging system looks like it's working well. I'd be happy with that.
Bear in mind that you are measuring regulator output, so only some of that is going to the battery, the rest is powering the ignition coil.
Has the battery been overfilled by any chance?

[mrkprsn]

delete

[Nick]

Have you checked the magnetism of the flywheel? (Sorry, I haven't read all the posts I this thread.)

I knew the gentleman who got many of the tools from Berliner in the U.S. when they went belly up. Among them was a flux meter, I believe it's called, with which he could measure the magnets in the flywheel. My Mach one's FW was weak and he charged it for me, as he also had the charging machine.

This was quite a few years ago, and what became of him and his stash of Ducati stuff I don't know.

I would guess that most of the NC bikes have weak magnets after so many years.

[LaceyDucati]

Not read the whole of this topic, but have you tried disconnecting the brown wire from the electrex reg/rec. I only mention this as I'm not convinced the narrow and widecase models are the same regarding the "charging light" and electrex don't discriminate. It would be worth disconnecting it to see if it affects your symptoms. I've never used the brown wire in conjunction with an original wiring system and I don't think Electrex has reviewed all the original systems. I think the reg/reg was originally specified with a widecase model in mind.

Just a thought.

Nigel

[mrkprsn]

So what exactly did you do to the stator to get it to raise it's voltage out put so much?