Headlight / electrical

Dodgy Kips motor? CDI? battery? diode? reg/rect? its all gobbledygook to me but some people understand it ask tham a question here
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glidercoach
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Headlight / electrical

Post by glidercoach »

KR250a... When my headlight is on and the engine is at idle, my headlight seems normal. Off idle it gets dimmer. When I hit the brakes, it brightens up. So when I ride at night, everytime I hit the brakes, the person who is in front of me surely can notice this! Any suggestions on where to start? I also noticed my tach drops by 25%, when I turn on my headlight. And on occasion the turn indicators flash too fast. But not always...
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JanBros
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Re: Headlight / electrical

Post by JanBros »

check the regulator output.
check battery connections.
check for a dead battery that might drain too much current.
check for bad grounds everywhere. you can do this by for example placing an extra ground directly to the head light and see if it changes the working of the head light.
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glidercoach
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Re: Headlight / electrical

Post by glidercoach »

Thanks JanBros! I have a new battery, will check the rest...
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glidercoach
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Re: Headlight / electrical

Post by glidercoach »

Here's the results. Voltage check at idle 12.3 volts, off idle 7.5 volts. Cleaned and polished all the ground terminals near the battery. Pulled the electrical connector off the regulator / rectifier and saw a very faint sign of corrosion. Polished everything and success! But now I think the voltage is too high! It hits 15 volts when I rev her. I like reving her! :)

15 volts? Any comments?
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JanBros
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Re: Headlight / electrical

Post by JanBros »

In some manuals (bikes/cars/forklifts/...) 15.5V is the highest I've seen mentionned.
15V would be ok for me, even though it is already on the high side (what's mentionned in the Kr250 manual ?), but I would check battery after a longer ride if it didn't get too hot.
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glidercoach
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Re: Headlight / electrical

Post by glidercoach »

Great advice! Wouldn't have thought about checking the heat of the battery. For now it's 3km to work and 3km home. Everything else is no more than that in my village. But come summer time... Rome might be nice. My dream is to go to where the Italian MotoGP race will be held with her! I love my Tandem Twin. We have been all over the world together. Thanks mate!
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