Key vs kill switch (stupid question)

[andym]

What's the difference between using the key to switch off the engine compared to using the kill switch first?


I've had my ninja for just under 3 years and pretty much since day 1 I've had random starting issues.

Press the start button and it will either: start within a second, turn over a couple of times then act like the battery is flat (several presses and it starts normally), turn over a couple of times then thump to a halt (again several presses and it starts normally), turn over a couple of times and backfire like a gunshot before starting.

For the last week or so I've been using the kill switch first and so far only once briefly it turned over slowly, but other than that I've had no problem with starting..... even the issue with starting while the engine is hot problem has gone from trying to start for about a minute to trying to start for 5 seconds.

So why has using the kill switch changed that?

[Sister Sledge]

Lack of use?
It happens - any machine I have here (drills, grinders etc) are all switched on now and then to make sure they've not gummed up and will work when needed.
Could there be crud build up in that switch on your bike? Is it possible to get inside and make sure the contacts are clean and good??
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CCM 404 DS

[talkToTheHat]

Cycling a switch a few times can remove corrosion causing poor contact. It's not as good as cleaning the contacts, at whigh point if you find yourself needing to do so then properly cleaning the contacts i sprobably on the cards. The switch is pretty much identical to your dip/main switch so habitually stopping the bike with the kill switch will not unduly wear out the switch which appears to be a common argument against using it.
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Bandit. does. everything.

[Teflon-Mike]

Conventionally, the 'ignition-switch'.... most commonly a key-switch, turns on and off the supply 'to' the ignition. A 'Kill' switch, is just that and conventionally 'kills' the engine by earthing the ignition on the low-tension side of the coil.. ie it still gets electric, but it gets short-circuited by the kill-switch so it don't make sparks.

(As aside, in days of yore, with magneto ignitions making sparks only when engine was spinning, and sold like a push-bike, you'd leave unlocked outside the post-office; separate car style ignition switches {they had them to save the coil burning out and battery going flat, taking live from constant battery feed} A 'Key' ignition switch wasn't a common 'standard' feature until the 1960's, when it was more likely an optional extra if offered at all, and many mopeds, particularly European pedal & pop's didn't have one at all.. you locked it up like a push bike... you had to pedal it to get it started.. so who'd even try?! SO, many motorbikes never had an 'ignition switch, just a kill-switch, WHICH I-Seem-To-Recall, was first mandated by the ACU for grass-track and speed-way bikes, back in the 1920's, and was operated by a leather lanyard around the riders wrist.. switch was two sprung contacts normally 'touching' to earth sparks, and rider pushed the end of the leather strap around his wrist between the contacts before he started it; so, when he fell off... leather pulled out from twixt the contacts, ignition earthed out, engine was killed, and 'hopefully' bike didn't carry on without him, into other riders or the crowd... But all a little academic and historical, and probably no help what-so-ever to you... interesting though)

Without looking at wiring diagrams, cant say what you got.. but, as far as the starting anomolies and the back-fire pop.... that shouldn't be down to the switch.

Whether ignition feed switch or LT earth kill, sparks is sparks, you get'em or you dont..... the 'pop' will be that when the sparks dont fire the charge in the hole, that charge gets pumped out the pot into the exhaust; where it can be ignited by hot metal or hot gasses to go bang in the pipe....

IF there's any noteable difference between hoe the engine behaves when you use either switch, its most likely due to the switch itself.... whether there's any condensation or crud twixt the contacts, whether they are worn etc, rather than whether they break circuit before coil, or short-circuit to earth before it....

A-N-D.... most likely switch to have a 'niggle' is the key switch..... it's most used, and has most functions and contacts, and intricacy with the yale mechanism for the lock tumbler.

Your 'emergency' kill switch is probably not showing anomaly on start up, cos unlike key-switch, its rare used and in better nick.
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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?'

[MCN]

Andym.... FFS man. You invoked the Tef on that one. 🤣

TLDR

The reason one doesn't use the kill switch is a reliability/maintenance issue.

Stop button functions, especially on some 'modern' ecu controlled equipment are counted. The more number of hits the stop button gets the more likely/probable the switch will malfunction and present starting or running errors/faults DNS.

So it is advised to use the key to switch off and not the button.

I trust this answers your query.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[RhynoCZ]

Not this again.

To give you an answer. Just using things on motorcycles/cars will keep them functional. Every car owner who never uses the parking brake, the door locks (key to open) and so on, knows what I'm talking about. Electrical switches are the same.

It's quite like the saying ''A rolling stone gathers no moss''.
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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

[AshWebster]

Similar story on my power steering (car) a few years ago.. thought it was a broken motor etc.. Was told to turn the ignition on and off 30+ times. Apparantly the brushes on the motor get stuck/gunky (as described) and turning it on and off repeatedly freed them up to a normal state.

Didnt beleive it till i tried it. Worked a treat.
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Honda cg125 J reg peice of shit ---> CB650F ---> 2016 CBR600RR
Ford KA ---> 93' MR2 ---> 94'MR2 ---> 98' Subaru WRX STI Ver 3 (track car)

[Danhere]

[stinkwheel]

Watch the world burn. Kill the engine in gear with the sidestand switch.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[andym]

[pinkyfloyd]

[MCN]

[Danhere]

[thx1138]

My bike doesn't have a key, just a start button and a stop button.

and one day when the throttle got stuck open I couldn't turn the engine off I had to stall it on purpose

[Johnnythefox]

even my Harley Davidson has keyless ignition

[virus]

[Teflon-Mike]

[pinkyfloyd]

[bikenut]

A kill switch on the r/h/side handle bar is far easier and safer to use rather than fumbling for the key with your brake or clutch hand off the handle bars..........try it when you need to do a practice emergency stop ans see what happens.
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nuts about bikes

[ThatDippyTwat]

[Teflon-Mike]

Rather depends where the key-switch is located, and where your familiar with it being located.

The 'traditional' placement for a key-switch used to be on the right-hand-side panel, cos that was where the electrics gathered.

It migrated to the top-yoke probably in the 1960's, not so much because that was a more conventient place to put it, but, with lights becoming 'standard equipment' that's where most of the wiring was put.

A lot of cruisers, still hark-back to the practice of putting equipment, like the speedo, and switches on the petrol tank, others, to having the key-switch on the side-panel, to keep the head-lamp region 'clutter free' for that all important styling.

As mentioned, my Cota, as supplied in 1981, came without electric equipment 'as standard', mostly because as a competition trials-bike, owner would as like rip it all off anyway, but, if you check the sales brochures for 1950's and 1960's bikes, a LOT of what we would consider basic 'standard' equipment, was in days of yore actually 'optional extras', right through to the 1980's.

It was actually a 'sales feature' of the Japanese bikes, when they started to come into the UK in larger numbers, after the 1973 collaper of the BSA conglomerate, that they had such equipment as lights and indicators, and even a pillion seat 'As standard', because contrary to the common conception that they were 'Cheap' actually they weren't all that much! They tended just to offer a 'lot' for the money, like basic equipment, and performance.

In the UK though, things like headlamps didn't become 'compulsary' equipment, until the mid 1980's!!!! Hence my Cota being sold, road-registered, with basically NO street equipment, not even a kill-switch, exploiting legacy-legeslation...

Curiousely however, I know it's a genuine UK model, because under the fibre-glass tank, there's an aluminium one... Only genuine UK models got these, the rest of the world got full GRP tanks, (Curiousely with a 'sight glass' fuel guage' running up the side!) but for the UK, C&U regs demanded the petrol tank had to be metal, so they cut the GRP in half so it went over the top of an aluminium tank!

Which is a little example of the craziness of beurocracy, demanding motorcycles have metal petrol tanks, probably a decade before they demanded they have things like lights! Also a regulation that has only recently been recinded, and was a reason many models, particularly of Italian motorcycle, that had blow molded PVC petrol tanks.. (you know like the petrol cans they sell in petrol stations!) Weren't imported into the UK through the 1990's!!!!

Trying to think, whether I have ever owned a bike with a side-panel key switch; I seem to recall that the Honda CB500 had one, but I never owned one. Only bike I think that did, was a BSA C15, which FRIGHTENINGLY, I acquired when I was 14, as a trials-chop base, and was a pre-suffix registration, I think circa 1961.. which would, and this is where the scare be, then, in 1985, at less than 25 years old, have been eligible for 'classic' Pre-65 trials, and 'newer' than ANYTHING I currently own! Probably, no, Definitely! including some of my socks!
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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?'