Hi all, its nearly 2 in the morning and ive just been dropped home by the breakdown recovery chaps.
Hopefully there are a few night owls out there who are also electrical wizards!

The story is; riding home from work down the motorway (at a perfectly natural speed when there's no one about) theres no motorway lights on this particular stretch, coming up to a bend so hit the high beam. Suddenly no lights whatsoever on the bird, they just go out and it is black as, well night actually. The high beam, i believe is meant to make things a little brighter, not try to kill you and make wee come out. Sobbing ever so slightly i find the hard shoulder, pull up and hit the kill switch. Turn off the lights at the switch and then turn back on and they come on straight away.

Coolio i think and go to start the bike and get an ominous click click click that tells me there's not enough juice in the battery.

Check fuses, jiggle wires and connectors and nothings come adrift.
The reg/rec has less than 20k on it.
The battery is a month old.
I also have a HID upgrade on the low beam only.

Back home the battery reads 11.6v (now on an over night trickle charge)

Does anyone have any ideas before i go for the spanners and wire strippers?

All joking aside it was a bloody scary experience and one i don't particularly want to go through again so suggestions gratefully received.

The HID ballasts will shut down if they are not given enough voltage. It sounds like you have a charging issue. Sorry.

Hi Pisswig,
Am hoping that your charging system is ok on the bike. ie: alternator and reg/rec. Had a problem recently with mine, ( i have a light that monitors my battery voltage) anyway it went red showing me that the battery was below 13V. I changed the reg/rectifier as we were going on a 500 mile tour. Everytime i put the lights on the indicator light went below 13V. So rode the tour during the day without the lights on . Turns out my alternator was burnt out. have since changed it and all seems ok now. Good luck buddy. Tony

I would lean towards probably stator,good luck

Originally Posted by bullit

I would lean towards probably stator,good luck

Yes, it certainly looks like that......
Probably a bad stator that killed your previous rectifier and battery in the first place......

Collective thanks. Sorry i couldn't hang around last night to respond but i was dead on my feet. I think im leaning towards the stator generator. What a bugger.

Check with Jaws. I've replaced two stators, oem, in 171,000 kms. One R&R, two batteries, last one is a motobatt.

Well, trickle charged over night and fired up first time this morning with no fuss what so ever. Rode to work (not with lights on) and all was fine. Rode home (with lights on) and all was fine until i hit almost exactly the same place on the motorway and the HID went off. Luckily it was still reasonably light and the side light stayed on. got home, parked in garage, turned engine off and tried to restart it. Of course it wouldn't start! 11.6v and when i hit the starter dropped to 8.5v. Im ordering a stator from that well known internet action site this evening. Thanks all for the advice.

Hi Pisswig,
Before you shell out the dosh make sure the stator is the problem, without teaching you to suck eggs you only have to get an ohmmeter and go between the 3 windings ( yellow cables ). Mine seemed like they balanced out ok but when i went from one of the cables to the body of the bike it showed it was touching.
Think the winding readings are 1.0 ohm between each yellow cable. Good luck.

Tony

Cheers Tony, sucking eggs is something im more than willing to do. Im getting together with my genius mechanic mate today to see if we can get to the bottom of it. (that sentence sounds slightly more gay than i intended)

good luck with it man!

Did you notice any other symptoms prior to the power failure of the HID lights? What model year is your machine...my 98 (carb'd) lost the speedo, then in short order the tach quit...then a bit latter the motor faltered then died. I'm still waiting for parts (stator, reg/rec) but a new battery sits in wait. Like you the bike took a trickle charge over night and started fine the next morning as per normal,...but it's not going out on the road until the new parts are installed. My 07 1000RR/R suffered a stator failure last year, same routine...stator replacement and a new battery. I'm also waiting on a new reg/rec for it, although it is working fine at the moment. Since the melt down in Japan parts delivery has been much slower then in past months. I believe the Canadian parts depotss stock pile has been slowly depleted but has not be re-stocked at the same rate it once was.

Tony

Originally Posted by TigreST

<span style="font-family: Arial"><font size="2">Did you notice any other symptoms prior to the power failure of the HID lights? What model year is your machine...my 98 (carb'd) lost the speedo, then in short order the tach quit...then a bit latter the motor faltered then died. I'm still waiting for parts (stator, reg/rec) but a new battery sits in wait. Like you the bike took a trickle charge over night and started fine the next morning as per normal,...but it's not going out on the road until the new parts are installed. My 07 1000RR/R suffered a stator failure last year, same routine...stator replacement and a new battery. I'm also waiting on a new reg/rec for it, although it is working fine at the moment. Since the melt down in Japan parts delivery has been much slower then in past months. I believe the Canadian parts depotss stock pile has been slowly depleted but has not be re-stocked at the same rate it once was.<br>
<br>
Tony</font></span>

Hi tony, it's a 2000 fi model. There nothing really noticeable before it tried to kill me! About 6 weeks ago the battery was flat after a short journey but it had been standing for a couple of weeks so i just put it down to that.<br>Super mechanic had a look at it today and when the reg/rec was disconnected the power was flowing through at just over 15v. (so not alternator) when it was reconnected, the volts dropper to about 12.6 but struggling to reach 13v. He stripped out the block connector where the reg/rec connects to the loom and replaced with normal spade connectors and the voltage rose to just over 13v. Still not perfect but it got me home and still started on the first push of the button. So im now thinking it's the reg/rec which is slowly failing. I think im just gonna live with it for a few days and see what happens (unless there are ant more ideas out there)

ok, so im not going to live with it! I knew things were bad when every time i used the indicators i lost the speedo and rev counter. then my motorcycle turned into a bucking bronko. Engine on, engine off, engine on....etc. finally broke down completely about 100 metres from home so at least not far to push!! down to 8.5v and 5v when i hit the starter. bollocks.

OK there, if anyone's still interested the problem is solved. It turns out there was another block connector between the alternator and reg/rec that has melted and fused. fifty pence worth of bullet connectors and a few days running the bike connected to a volt meter and all in the world is fine!