XT600e battery drain

[Mario_Kempes]

I've got a 98 xt600e for a commuter hack and it's been giving me some grief.

It sucked a good battery dead about a month ago completely without warning. Started impressively in the morning (I remember thinking "that's a decent battery it's got") and about 3 hours later I went to the car park to find it wouldn't start. The ride home saw it such the battery dead - no horn, indicators etc.

New battery, charged it up, stuck it in. Running like a dream. 3 days later, it's not get enough power to turn over the starter. Just backfires weakly.

So, I'm charging up the battery before it's completely dead but obviously I need to get to the bottom of this.

From digging around it sounds like the regulator. Any ideas? Just bought a multimeter with absolutely no idea how to use it

[Itchy]

XT600E is incredibly basic and simple.

First check the simple stuff i.e. are the battery terminals screwed in tight. I got all the way to Mongolia and had weird issues finding out it was lose terminals due to the vibrations.

Record your battery voltage under the follow conditions


1) Ignition off, unloaded battery.
2) Ignition on, headlights on, not running
3) Bike started, running at idle the revved.

1, should be at least in the high 12.1-8 range if fully charged.

2, your voltage should not drop much below 12.0 at worst.

If it does drop immediately into the 11’s, your battery is insufficiently charged or narfed

3 is what we are most interested in with respect to charging.

Voltage should be at least in the 13+ at all engine rpm. You may detect it will fall off slightly as you raise engine rpm. This is not unusual. A simpler test is to rev the bike with the headlamp on it SHOULD get brighter as the revs increase.


You might want to grow two extra arms to do this, i.e. you need to keep the multimeter pins on the battery while starting and revving the bike.



IIRC the regulator is just above the tail light, its a simple switch over jobbie, undo the plastics and look at it, reg/recs which break often crack or burn the wires attached to it.
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[Mario_Kempes]

Thanks.

The battery's on charge just now so I'll do the checks you mentioned tomorrow.

It's definitely screwed in tight. It just seems that the bike isn't maintaining the charge and is just sucking it dry.

Did you ever have any issues with the battery not charging?

[Itchy]

[Mario_Kempes]

Thanks for the help. Checking out parts numbers for a regulator. It's a '98, so that means 95 and before won't go, right?

[Itchy]

[Mario_Kempes]

Tons of good info. Cheers.

[Mario_Kempes]

This is just a saga now.

An absolute nightmare trying to get the old regulator/rectifier out. I've used a hacksaw blade to cut the chewed up philips screws down to flatheads and they're still chewing and not budging.

I connected up the new regulator/rectifier anyway to see what difference it made to the voltage.

The battery itself is at 12.6 with the bike off. When the bike's at idle that drops to 12.1 and as low as 12.05 when revved. With the lights on it drops below 12.

I'm charging up the drill to drill out these old screws but I'm concerned that I've clearly misdiagnosed the problem and that the regulator/rectifier isn't the issue after all.

Any ideas?

[P.addy]

The 3 wires coming from your stator to the regulator... 3 white wires I assume?

Check continuity on 1+2, 2+3 and 1+3. Should be zero/infinity. any readings that differ are bad, always retest though.

Then get the bike running, set multimeter to AC Volts, 100 or 200, mine has both. Check each wire to ground, so red on wire, black on frame. Should see equal amounts from each one. Unsure what your bike is supposed to output but my Blackbird was 60V AC on each, J.Ms Thundercat was ~80V AC on each.

If they read excessively low or one does not read, your stator is toasted.

[Mario_Kempes]

Resistance on all 3 combinations of the wires from the alternator is 0.7 which is within spec but there's absolutely no AC current coming through.

I'm hopeful there's a bad connection somewhere as, out of the blue, everything started working perfectly. 12.6 when off and 13.6 -14 when running. Checked it several times over the course of 2 days. Ran the engine for 15 minutes and it was perfect. Checked it the following morning - all good - and put it together again.

Used it for a day. Checked it the following morning and back to how it was.

Suppose it's time to take off the cover, check all the connections and then test the coils.

[P.addy]

Wouldn't bother testing coils. Looks evident your stator/wiring is problematic. I'd probably get it running, check AC voltage with the regulator removed. 200V AC on meter, probe on 1, negative probe on frame.

Hopefully you see decent 50-70V across each.

If not, cover off, check for scorching/charred bits.

[Mario_Kempes]

Thanks for the help, Paddy & Itchy.

Got the reg/rec off and stuck the new one on with the battery fresh of the charger and it's going perfect. Surprised as the diode test on the old one showed it to be fine. Whatever, it's all charging now; a ballhair over 14V when it's in the mid rev range.

The thing is back to its old self and hasn't missed a beat since. Took it on the ferry to Mallorca sunday night and it's been an absolute champ taking me and the woman round the island.

Cheers.