Aprilia RSV charging circuit?

[loply]

Hi folks,

I bought an '02 Mille about 5 weeks ago, bloody love it!

I fitted a new XB14 battery but I've found it flat twice now, in 4 weeks. It seems like if I just start the motor a few times without a night on trickle, it'll be almost flat.

I used a trickle charger frequently, however, the bike was used every other day (sometimes every day) so I was expecting the trickle charger to not be that relevant anyway. Surely if you use the bike every day it should top itself up? My journeys are sometimes not that long though.

Anyhow, I've heard murmurings of bypassing a block connector near the fuel pump to upgrade the charging system? Something to do wiith letting more than 13.5v through? Is this true, what's the crack?

I'm wondering if my charging circuit is either weak or not working at all. Can anybody advise how to test it properly?

I've ordered a new Optimate 4 but I don't regard it as very practical to constantly need a trickle charger; fine if you're going home but what about touring etc!

Cheers for any help,
Rich
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[Finglonga]

The battery shouldn't need charging that often full stop. Sounds like you have a problem with the chraging system somewhere. Have you had a meter on it to check. that would be the first thing to do.
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Andy Sez....
F.Y.Y.F.F.

[loply]

How exactly do you check the charging system?

I've heard murmurings of the charge that goes to the battery on RSV's being limited, and you can bypass a connector somewhere in the loom to boost it. Perhaps this, in combnination with my alarm, is the issue.
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[MarkJ]

The charging system can go on Millies quite easily (apparently) and it's something you really need to sort - trying to start a bike with low battery can sometimes make the engine kick back against the sprag clutch/starter motor which eventually destroys them, and is apparently quite expensive.

I think the quickest was to check the charging system is to start the bike up and monitor the battery's charge using the right side LCD screen by pressing the D button (I think it's D button anyway). If you hold the revs at a few thousand RPM it should go up to around 13.6V. If it stays around 12V then the charging system could be out. If the charge goes up to 13.6 ish then the battery could be dead.

There's threads on rsvr.net about this, so check them first to make sure I'm correct in what i say - it was a while ago since I read up on this.

[cheekythomas]

The loom mod your talking about is regarding removing the stator output mulitplug and wiring it direct into the regulator wiring as the plug is a known issue for corrosion which increases wiring resistance, and therefore doesnt allow the bike to charge as much....

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

[cheekythomas]

Yeah your right, the dash voltage is useless... use a multimeter on the battery and see whats what.