Sports: Re: [DucatiST] Yet another Voltage/Regulator Question

Test the stator three ways (plug disconnected always):

- First, with an ohmmeter on its lowest range, check each yellow lead separately to ground. If either shows resistance to ground, you need a new stator.
- Next, check for low resistance between the two yellow leads from the stator. Should look like a near-short. If open, the stator is open (dead).
- With bike running, meter in AC volts mode, look for 50-80VAC across the two yellow leads, engine at 3,500 or slightly higher. Unlikely to be more; should not be less.

Always best to see that the stator is supplying AC voltage to the R/R before suspecting it's bad.

Jack in NY

On 6/5/2011 5:53 PM, Brad DeVries wrote:

I don't want to jinx things, but an hour this morning with emery cloth, electronics cleaner & dielectric grease freshening up every connection I could get at seems to have put the gremlin back in its cage - for a while, at least. A good 40 minute ride into the nearby twisties and all seemed copacetic.

BTW, James, how do I measure the alternator output upstream of the regulator? I tried a number of different configurations of the multi-meter on the disconnected two-wire plug coming out of the alt, and couldn't get anything resembling a reading, so obviously i was doing it wrong.

BRAD

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The road goes on forever, and the party never ends. - Robert Earl Keen, Jr.

From: HOPPER ELDRIDGE <hoppereldridge@sbcglobal.net>
To: st2_owners@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 5, 2011 5:19 AM
Subject: Re: [DucatiST] Yet another Voltage/Regulator Question

You might check to make sure the grounding mechanisms are all good and clean too. Just a thought after a cup of coffee..need two more for a full charge to the brain.

--- On Sat, 6/4/11, james duncan <awpptdt@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: james duncan <awpptdt@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [DucatiST] Yet another Voltage/Regulator Question
To: st2_owners@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, June 4, 2011, 9:56 PM

Did you check the alternator output too?

From: Brad DeVries <triangleforge@yahoo.com>
To: ST2 Owners <st2_owners@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, June 4, 2011 7:54:14 PM
Subject: [DucatiST] Yet another Voltage/Regulator Question

I started seeing some very odd behavior yesterday from the onboard volt meter I installed along with the Honda R/R that I put in my 1998 ST2 about eight or nine months ago. While I'm more than happy to blame the regulator, it's got some quirks that make me wonder what's actually going on. Here's the scenario:

After about five or ten minutes of riding -- with the voltmeter on the dash showing a happy 13.8 to 14.2 volts over 2,500 RPM -- the voltage will suddenly drop to 12.4 or lower at any RPM with one very weird exception: I can often get the Reg to "reset" (for want of a better term) by dropping the RPMs to idle at around 1,000 and re-accelerating, and it will run happily once again for a while, sometimes quite a while. Although it's a Honda part, I have it spliced into the Ducati wiring, including the infamous connectors (I had planned to cut them out, but it was working fine and other things were more pressing) so I opened all those up, cleaned everything and re-connected without solving the issue. When the problem finally occurred when I was near home, I tested the on-board voltmeter against the reading from my multimeter and it looks to be fairly on target.

Before I suck it up and buy yet another regulator, is there anything else I should check? And why on earth should I be getting that "reset" effect?

Thanks,

BRAD

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The road goes on forever, and the party never ends. - Robert Earl Keen, Jr.