Headlight burned/blown out? Check your regulator

[ChicagoRob]

I thought that I'd pass along a lesson learned for people doing a search on burned out headlight.

I've been doing some carb tuning and after setting some float heights and a carb sync I was ready to give it a test ride one night. My stupid headlight was burned out, though. It was less than two seasons old too. Hmmm.

I got a new light and took it for a ride without any issues. A couple of nights later the same thing happened. Ok, something is up.

I checked the voltage and sure enough, it was hitting 17 volts at 5k rpm. Off to the stator pages and i found that my less than 2 year old Electrosport regulator was bad. Very disappointing considering the cost of that piece. I swapped the original back in (and yet another headlight) and I'm riding again. Ordered a new one from Duaneage that will hopefully fix the problem once and for all.

So the lesson learned here is whenever something out of the ordinary happens with an electrical part, check the charging system first.


Hopefully you won't be treating your headlight like a fuse like I did.

Rob

[bonanzadave]

Ordered a new one from Duaneage that will hopefully fix the problem once and for all.

Make sure your new RR has a dedicated ground to the neg battery post and your sense wire is connected somewhere with 0 voltage drop. My switched brake light wire was losing about a volt which caused the RR to regulate at about 15.5. I did a relay mod for the sense wire which brought it down to 14.5

[ChicagoRob]

Make sure your new RR has a dedicated ground to the neg battery post and your sense wire is connected somewhere with 0 voltage drop. My switched brake light wire was losing about a volt which caused the RR to regulate at about 15.5. I did a relay mod for the sense wire which brought it down to 14.5

Thanks for the tip. I should be getting it tomorrow so I'll check that before I hook it up.

What are you using for relays? I've been using the standard bosch style automotive ones but they are pretty big.

Rob

[tom203]

Make sure your new RR has a dedicated ground to the neg battery post and your sense wire is connected somewhere with 0 voltage drop. My switched brake light wire was losing about a volt which caused the RR to regulate at about 15.5. I did a relay mod for the sense wire which brought it down to 14.5

One member just connected the sense wire to the battery- he didn't noticed any excessive battery drain over time.I'll go this route when I have to replace my R/R with a Shindengen unit.