Pointy electrics problems

[Dave20046]

So 4th time out on the bike and it's already dieing!
It's a K3 pointy with a datatool system 3 alarm and oxford hotgrips fitted.

I noticed since I got the bike that if I press the hotgrips button then it turns off the clocks and tacho (and then the alarm arms itself after 20 seconds) wasn't a massive problem as when you press the hotgrips button a second time it'd go back to normal. Well anyway pulled into a petrol station this morning and my hands were cold so thought there'd be no harm in pressing the hotgrips button well I pressed it and the clocks went off so I thought oops and pressed it again...nothing pressed it about 20 times and nothing so I started it up (no clocks or tacho but some/all? idiot lights worked and the ignition button worked so was ok) Started up and left pressed the hot grips button and the alarm went off (but no clocks) great. turned off the alarm via the remote & kept pressing the hotgrips button every so often - nothing- (but the alarm kept re-arming which was fookin annoyin as I had to keep disarming it) anyway after about 5 minutes the alarm had just armed itself so I pressed a button on the remote and tried the hot grips button again and the clocks came on! Road for a few minutes stopped at a junction to turn right and the clocks turned off again at random so I gave up and rode home with the alarm on.
Got home and still couldn't get it to work turned the ignition off and on **** loads but no change and checked the 3 connections I can get to that appear to be attached to the hotgrips. So at the moment things I've noted that don't work are the digital display, the tachometer (rev counter) and neutral light.


any ideas where to start fixing the problem? (other than sticking with a curvy :rolleyes:)

[Dave20046]

ok Ripped off the hotgrips control box and ragged on the wiring, going for a ride now but anyone have any advice on rewiring the hotgrips?

[Alpinestarhero]

Are the hotgrips wired directly to the batery? check the terminals are ok. The battery itself may be duff... when my battery was on its way out on my curvy, this showed up as the heated grips not staying on. Check the terminals on the battery first, and the electrical connections (take them apart, clean them with contact cleaner, put them back together with a bit of vaseline on the connector to stop water getting in) before having to replace the battery itself

[Dave20046]

No they are wired into the ignition (via a separate feed we believe). This explains the hotgrips affecting the clocks etc somewhat.

[Alpinestarhero]

ahhh gotcha. have you notieced any problems since removing them?

[Dave20046]

I left them plugged in, came to start the bike about an hour ago and the clocks were on it all seemed fine then as soon as I pressed the ignition switch the clocks went off (but the bike started). Went for a ride regardless because I was ****ed off - horn definitely doesn't work , found this out as an old bloke must have thought my alarm was a siren and slammed on his anchors on a bend in a NSL (double white lined), fantastic.

anyway Going to go mess with the hotgrips now and see if it fixes/causes havoc. If the latter I might have to resort to just ripping the stupid alarm out.

[Dave20046]

After unplugging everything associated with the hotgrips I could see from the bike I got no change.

[dizzyblonde]

I think If I'm right in saying, Richie was away a lot, so the bike was perhaps stood for long periods. Start with something simple and chame the battery.
Goosed batteries can play havoc in the simplest of ways, and can pretend to be something more serious electrically. Matt had probs with F1 lights and other things that pointed towards fuelling when he first bought the Raptor. It ended up being the battery, the dealer hadn't given him a new one even though it had been stood.

Perhaps a daft thought, but perhaps its a good one.

[Dave20046]

I think If I'm right in saying, Richie was away a lot, so the bike was perhaps stood for long periods. Start with something simple and chame the battery.
Goosed batteries can play havoc in the simplest of ways, and can pretend to be something more serious electrically. Matt had probs with F1 lights and other things that pointed towards fuelling when he first bought the Raptor. It ended up being the battery, the dealer hadn't given him a new one even though it had been stood.

Perhaps a daft thought, but perhaps its a good one.
Hmm maybe but the bike rides and works fine apart from the intermittant (but now seemingly permanent) loss of digi display, rev counter, neutral light and horn.
might give it a charge see if it behaves more.

[dizzyblonde]

If it is the battery, it might charge, but won't hold for long, if indeed its a problem. Drop Richie a line and ask him how long its been on the bike.

[yorkie_chris]

Find out where the grips were wired into, check around there. Sounds like an earthing problem due to the wiredness.

When you rewire the hotgrips, do it through a relay.

[Dave20046]

Right cheers chris I'll give that a crack tonight, I considered bad earth too when it appeared to be working fine but when I pressed the ignition button it cocked up again.
I hadn't stripped it down yet but there was a two pin lean coming from under the front of the fram(/tank) that they were plugged into so it shouldn't be too hard to follow.

[Bluewolf]

.

[Dave20046]

Right this confuses me, went to try the bike today worked ok but I pressed the hotgrips button and it turned off the clocks and associated electrics again, pressed the button again and it went back to normal. Stopped the engine rearmed the alarm and tried again with the other key and fob, still the same.
unplugged the hotgrips control unit from the bike but assoon as I press the ignition button the clocks go off for a second and restart (although don't go away completely as they were doing) for the next few seconds/10 seconds on the tick over they flicker as if being interfered with by the vibrations. :scratch:

So says to me lose connection or bad earth - does anyone know which/where these would be?
The fact a flick of the button (of the switch that was wired into the associated electrics) was turning off the clocks (ie creating the same symptoms) to me, doesn't seem like a coincidence. I'm guessing (I know very little about bike electrics) pressing the hot grips switch in that circuit was earthing out the bike and losing my clocks but when I unpressed the switch the system went back to normal. Something is also having the same affect on the bike and it seems to be vibration/movement related. :scratch:

[Bibio]

remember GMII, and the name badger springs to mind.... go and check the connector it might be breaking down/burning out.

[Dave20046]

I'll tell you why it's bloody vibration affected it's the tiltswitch in the alarm! whenever the tiltswitch is activated it cuts out the clocks. I'm just wondering if maybe the ignition fuse has gone and it's using the fuse inline with the alarm? is that possible? Other than that I'm out of ideas short of ripping out the alarm but I don't wanna do that as it brings my insurance down (every penny counts at my age!) and it's also reasonably useful for when parking in dodgy areas (I won't mention any names...:-dd)

[Dave20046]

remember GMII, and the name badger springs to mind.... go and check the connector it might be breaking down/burning out.
Good call - about to rip the seat off and tank up will have a peak ..just a pain in the **** with no tools (all with GP's cbr)

[Dave20046]

Swapped the ignition fuse, cleaned the battery terminals, reseated and cleaned every fuse and every connection I could find and sprayed with wurth equivelent wd40.
Problem appears to have gone after a two minute test.
Before the clocks would go off for a slightly longer period after clicking the ignition button (or foir good) and would flick on / off when shaken. The clock had set to '1:00' and had 'chec' next to it, the word 'chec' has now cleared too.
fingers crossed...

Does anyone know if putting the bike on trickle charge would affect a datatool alarm?

cheers

[Holdup]

Does anyone know if putting the bike on trickle charge would affect a datatool alarm?

cheers


I use an optimate on my K3 with a Datatool Sys 3 and have no problems, infact its recommened that you use trickle chargers if you have an alarm.

[Dave20046]

I use an optimate on my K3 with a Datatool Sys 3 and have no problems, infact its recommened that you use trickle chargers if you have an alarm.
that's good to hear cause I plonked my optimate onto it last night :razz: