Electrical Noise - What to do?

[dpep]

I just completed a long road trip on my 850 on which I wanted to listen to MP3 tunes & tales on a nice top-of-the line Sony Walkman CD player my ol' lady got me for Christmas. I learned how to rip CD's and make the disks and I thought I was all set. BUT

Once I go on the road, the player would either not play or would cut off. What I figured out was that electrical noise from my motorcycle was actually turning off my CD player. At lower rpms I could hear the static generated by bike. Then as I revved it up, at around 5000 rpm, the player just turned off. I tried some tricks like shielding with alum foil, but no luck.

On the Maine ride Skip who has a nice radio listening set up in his helmet told me that whenever he got within 50 feet of my bike on the ride, he would pick up bad interference on his radio.

I am not an electrical whizz by any means, and I am not sure how to troubleshoot the problem. I am guessing that it could be a bad ground or it could be coming from one of the actual devices. The interference varies directly with the RPMs of the engine. I have Dyna S ignition and Dyna 3 ohm coils. I also have a Winjammer fairing with its attendant wiring bundle and connections.

I have a multimeter but I am not sure where to start. Anyone ever had something similiar or have any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Are you running resistor type spark plugs? They are designated by an "R" in the second letter of the type. For example, my ZX-9 takes CR9EK plugs, where the R means resistor. I can also use C9EK and get the same plug, minus the resistor function. Some people swear that the non-resistor plugs make more power, but I think it is BS and makes no difference.
Mark

[daveo]

what Mark says is right on, non-resistor plug wires(solid core) will also create this problem, I can't use a digital multimeter near the 1100 when running because of the RF interference from the wires

[Nobby 'C ']

You might want to check all your earthing points as well, bad earth are often the cause of electrical interference. With a bike of this age you may not get rid of all electrical noise.

[sv650]

Don, did you solve radio noise?

Don,
The thread contains no resolotion -- did you find a solution?

David

[focus frenzy]

the GS used resistor plug caps standard instead of resistor plugs.
if you did not go back with resistor caps or resistor plugs when you upgraded the ignition system this will cause the problem you described.

[bwringer]

I've noticed this interference problem with my GS850G.

And come to think of it, I'm using Dyna coils and wires, which I think are non-resistor wires, and NGK B8ES plugs, which are non-resistor plugs.

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Methinks I'll sniff around for a set of BR8ES plugs. A little bit of Googling came up with stock number 5422 (I've found that many auto parts stores, like Pep Boys and Advance, stock NGK plugs, but can only look them up by the stock number.)

[Poot]

why couldnt it make radars turn off????

[Jethro]

Love your sig, Poot!

[bwringer]

I installed some BR8-ES resistor plugs on my GS850 this weekend to replace the usual B8-ES non-resistor plugs.

The bike runs exactly the same, which is good.

I'm not sure yet if it helped with interference. I'll have to dig up a radio and headphones to see, and I have no idea where I put them...

Has anyone else tried switching to resistor plugs? Any results?

[duaneage]

You could try wiring some capacitors across the coils on the + side, very close to the coil. Radio Shack sells them for interference problems with car radios. The capacitor will help.
If you are powering the cd player from the bike, you may need to use a filter choke between the battery and the adapter that powers the cd player, again radio shack sells these types of noise filters.

The charging system of a motorcycle produces very different rms voltages than a car and this may be difficult for the cd player adapter power supply to filter.