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BTTD
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| Courier265 |
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Courier265
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| RhynoCZ |
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RhynoCZ
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| Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike
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 Posted: 10:39 - 12 Nov 2017  Post subject: |
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| RhynoCZ wrote: | | Courier265 wrote: | Running with lights at night and sometimes heated grips at the same time will kill my battery at 1500, the increased tickover means the battery will not die on me, quite simple and I've done this for over 10
years on a CB250... |
The last time I rode a motorcycle that wouldn't charge the battery at standard idle with the lights on was a 60's Jawa. What year is your CB250?  |
See underlined..... but I'm surprised that a 1960's Jawa even had a battery TBH; minimalist mechanics meant many old two-smokes had no more than a magneto with a lighting winding in it delivering AC direct to the lamps! Many smaller bikes, even into this century, and benefiting from a battery have still has AC direct headlamp supply, straight off the mag.
However; it is a phenomena low-lighted since CBT in the early 90's, and the Safety-Nazi mantra for Day-Time-Running-Lamps to be used for conspicuity, to use the head-lamp all the time, even in day light....
This actually doesn't do a heck of a lot for conspicuity, TBH, the bright bowl of a fully lit headlamp often shadows the outline of the rider behind it, so SMIDSY does 'see' ... a light... but doesn't get any clue what it actually is! Whilst in half light of dawn/dusk, and or in the confusion of over-lit city streets, or the more confused atmospherics of rain or mist etc, a very bright headlamp, can be completely lost in the plathora of other lamps of confusion of scene.
Studies have shown that a side-light, much less bright, but lighting up the bowl, without shaddowing the rider behind or casing glare, CAN actually more helpful for conspicuity... but that's another debate.
Meanwhile..... batteries!
The 125 Super-Dream actually has a pretty beefy geerator by 125 standards; Giving it e-start only, they were quite concerned to make it 'dependable', hence it has a 150W generator, which is still pretty generous; most 125 commuters have to make do with something around 90-100W. Takes a 45/40 headlamp; 4w side, 21/5 tail; indies are rated at 21w, and the instrument bulbs are 3.5W each, which is a far bit whem there are two just back-lighting the speedo, and one for the high-beam warning, one for the neutral warning and one for the ignition. But, the headlight tail light and instrument back-lights, between them consume over 1/3 the power the 'maximum' power the generator may make.It is bang on the limit whether tick-over the generator would maintain that ampage, and it is likely that just a small drop in delivered from a low idle speed would see the battery discharging rather than charging, before you sit at the end of the road, with the added draw of the brake lamp on, as well as two indicators. And as said, that is on a system deliberately over-rated when developed... to leave enough current to recharge a battery deep-cycled by a heft load of electric starter....
There in lies a can of worms.... starting systems hammer batteries, particularly little bike batteries. The battery of a lightweight is usually rated at around 9Ah, often less on the more humble models. That means that it should deliver 9Amps for one hour; but a starter motor may draw as much as 90A... OK, so that would dead the battery in 1/10 of an hour, or 6min of cranking.... only it doesn't; that discharge rate is far beyond the nominal rating, and will tend to 'boil' electrolyte and deplete plates, and the actual charge delivery will drop off quite quickly, which is why you get the apparent symptom of batteries 'self charging' when a bike wont start, and you flat the battery trying, only for it to have 'recovered' or apparently self-recharged by the time you have found some jump-leads! B-U-T this sort of 'deep-discharge' does lead to reduced battery life and premature failure, in which the battery's nominal charge capacity will drop off.
Now a battery can, very quickly loose around 1/2 of its charge capacity, making starting harder, leading to even longer duration of 'deep-cycle-discharge' , making it loose even more charge capacity in a vicious circle.... easily exacerbating and exacerbated by wear and tear in the starter, where as brushes wear, carbon build up on the armature sees more coils in the motor able to try and draw current and create magnetic fields to work against each other rather than with, whilst drawing even more current from the extra coils added to the circuit, that thinning and increasing resistance of braided brush straps and/or supply wiring... adding to the vicious circle.
Remember the system was right on the margins to start with as far as being able to supply the amps for 'nominal' running equipment, at or close to idle.
Add in normal wear and tear, on a system now probably a decade or more old, and even without any bright-spark fitting higher-wattage bulbs, or adding accessories like heated grips of an alarm, or a USB socket for their smart-phone, it would be very easy to see a little bike like this start to loose light, especially at or close to idle revs, as its unable to charge a tired battery up, after its been hammered by a tired starter motor.
Before looking for more than standard, make sure you have all you should AS standard AND you are making the most of it...
And avoiding the short shift tendency on a little bike, using the revs, giving the genny a change to make more juice than is asked, and deliver that bit extra to top up a deep-discharged battery is good form.
Weekly top-up charge, on a bike like this, to replenish amps in the battery the generator hasn't been able to replace isn't necessarily symptomatic of a fault in the system, though there probably is, just endemic to the sort of use its seeing.
Another 'little thing'; Start-Up practice. Usual to walk over to bike, stick key in ignition, turn it on,then start prodding the start switch playing with the choke.... if the 'always have the headlamp on' mantra has been drummed in, or (as I suspect is the case with the EN) the manufacturers have actually hard-wired the head-lamp 'on', then that lamp is coming on and robbing amps before the crank is even turning let alone the engine running and the genny has chance to stick amps back in the battery.
If the bike has a light switch; good form says turn the lamps 'off' before you turn the engine 'off'. Few moments of engine still running, lamps not drawing amps gives genny a chance to wack a few back in the battery. Likewise; on start up, make sure that the lights are turned 'off' before you put the key in the hole; give the starter all the amps from the battery to get the engine running; AND another bite at the cherry to wack a few more back in the battery, before asking for them to light bulbs. Simple, cost-less, and effective, and may save a weekly top-up charge!
If the bike doesn't have a lamp-switch; the lights are 'hard-wired' to come on with the ignition. Then if any 'mods' may be considered, adding a accessory switch to isolate feed to lamps on start-up, may be as much as is needed, is cheap, simple and effective IF you adhere to a little technique outlined above, rather rely on the technology to do it all for you.
Bottom line is, little bike electrics are right on the margins 'as standard' and loaded up with equipment and accessories expected in modern market ever more so; batteries can go flat, lamps can get dim, but a little know-how and a little good practice can go an awful long way to remedy.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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| Snod Blatter |
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Snod Blatter
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| Posted: 12:13 - 12 Nov 2017 Post subject: |
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| smegballs wrote: | If I ever get the motivation, I'll put headlight relays on the bike and put on a standard H4 55/60W bulb. I've already replaced all other running lights to led so there should easily be enough headroom on the alternator. |
I did this on my GS125, the light was good after this. Beforehand I was messing with 45w P21D (I think?) bulbs from Halfords, with the original wiring they were no brighter than the stock 35w bulb due to voltage droop and once I fitted relays they would blow every week, apparently they are not meant to handle 14v. Eventually moving to an H4 halogen headlight fixed the blowing bulb and gave me yet more light.
Relays all the way, or some fancy lower wattage setup in a projector.
I saved watts elsewhere by replacing the incandescent bulbs in the clocks with LEDs (which didn't light up the clocks at all well), the tail light bulb was also replaced with LED (this was not bright enough to be seen in the day time, I went back to incandescent after a while) and the front side light became LED. Hopefully LEDs have come on since then (~2009) so you may get away with it now.
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1994 CB250, 1984 CBX250RS-E, 1989 K100RS, 1995 TRX850, 2016 Z250SL |
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| RhynoCZ |
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RhynoCZ
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| Posted: 13:27 - 12 Nov 2017 Post subject: |
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| Teflon-Mike wrote: | Jawa, Nazis, heated grips... |
It was a 350/360, maybe a 250 variant, with a 6V battery. The charging system was quite similar to what the MZ150 has. It requires a battery to actually start the engine and then the battery is not vital for the engine to keep running.
Nazi stuff, it's funny how you use the word Nazi, yet Germany is one of not many European countries, where they do not have day-time-running lights. Manufacturers do put them on, but you are not legaly obliged to use them.
I do understand the grips are a major power draw, but then I do not quite understand the urge to have them, while compensating lower power output of the charging system at idle with higher idle speed. As you've stated, and I've been fidling with it as well, all the bulbs on a motorcycle have quite a significant power draw if/when combined. Even a ZX7R would dim the headlight when you used the brake light 2x5/21W, just swaping those two double filament bulbs for a pair of LED bulbs made a significant difference, while not sacrificing the tail light legibility. Worth noting the low beam projector was a joke even when it wasn't dimmed by the tail light with the standard double filament bulbs.
There was a car type of alternator, I think it was rated at 30A/14V @ around 6000rpm.
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'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor |
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cresad
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Posted: 22:48 - 12 Nov 2017  Post subject: |
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Right , Checked the system over. Measured at the battery and at tickover - w/o lights 14.05/.15 - w lights 13.90/14.00 , at the headlight 12.45/.55.
The front side and rear stop / tail are both led. And the light doesn't seem to get any brighter on the ground the higher the revs
The battery was changed just after I'd bought the bike , because I had a new one lying around after doing some work on daughters/boyfriends Chinese 125.
The bulb I tried when it kept needing recharging was a osram nightbreaker combined with short journeys.
The lens looks to be more plastic than glass , might be looking into getting one of these - https://goo.gl/B8dhn1 - any thoughts?
Thanks , Adam |
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Courier265
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BTTD
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 6 years, 154 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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