Electrical - k3 - headlight and rear light dim when indicators on.

ok guys just nipped out to toolstation to grab a meter; 5quid inc. battery - bargain.

anyway;

igniton off - 12.19
ign on, not engine - 11.65
engine idle - 12.90
engine @ 3000rpm - 13.81

with the engine running it stays pretty stable past 3k upto about 7/8. should the ign off value be higher though? it started the bike again no probs. ive just pulled the battery and put it on charge as i have been tinkering with the bike all week and it hasnt had a run so it may just need a top up.

[flymo]

Disconnect the earth lead from the bike battery. Check the voltage across the terminals of the battery.

Then switch the test meter to show DC amps, connect one test probe to the bike battery negative terminal and the other to the bike wiring loom at disconnected negative connector you removed from the battery. With the ignition off you should be seeing something lower than 50 mA.

ive got the battery on charge at mo, i will try this in the morning -- what is this test for? sorry if thats a stupid question.

[flymo]

it's a current leakage test and can show up problems with your wiring or excessive current draw from alarm systems etc. Starting with freshly charged battery is a good idea.

Your figures earlier sound a little low to me, I would have expected a good 12.5 volts at the very least across the battery terminals. With ignition on, lights on, no engine running you would expect that to drop off to low 12v over 30 secs or so.

At idle I would be expecting around 13.5 - 14.5 volts at the battery terminal, perhaps rising up slightly when revved to 3000rpm.

Hi, I appreciate the help so far, ive got the results from today. I removed battery from charger first thing this morning and let it sit for a couple of hours.

So;

Battery: 12.89v
Ign: 12.30v gradually decreasing
Load test: 11.50v approx (battery whilst cranking)

lights on main beam:
Idle: 13.80v
3k: 14.4v
5K:14v

current leakage: 0.01mA (meter set at 20m on scale - i did this with probes both ways round as was unsure the meter was actually doing anything as the numbers didnt change at all, that means theres no leakage yeah?) --- there is no alarm system or heated grips on bike, it has had a few owners and up at 30k milage though so the wiring may have been played with at times.

Conclusions:

headlight still dims slightly in time with indicators; worse with hazards, but not as bad when revved up past 3k.
rear light is far more noticable so i suspect that the rear light unit is duff and this is probably a seperate problem. with a new rear light i expect it will dim only slightly as per the headlight. so.... is this slight dimming normal/acceptable? obviously there is slightly more power being pulled when the indicators/hazards are on but shouldnt the bike be capable of managing this?

finally, i was going to test the stator and r/r as per the tests ive found on other threads, but given these results i dont think i need to and my r/r has differnt wires than what i was expecting, perhaps its been changed before? There are 2-plugs, one has 3-black wires (so the 3-yellows that normally get mentioned?) and the other plug has 2 black/white and 2 black/red. 7 wires in total.

hope all makes sense.

thanks.

[flymo]

now those figures look a whole lot more healthy than previously. Charging circuit looks fine to me.

Keep an eye on the battery to make sure its retaining charge.

thanks thats what i thought.

any ideas on the lights dimming slightly though or am i just being paranoid and its not a big deal? lol

obviously the rear light would fail mot if they checked/noticed it as the top 3 rows are almost going from off to full in time with the indicators, but the headlight is just a slight ''pulsing'' really.

thanks again.

[flymo]

last time we saw this it turned out to be a faulty rear light unit (see http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=90593)

I'm pretty sure we had somebody open one up and figure out the reason, but I cant find the post.

[flymo]

found it - http://forums.sv650.org/showpost.php...5&postcount=97

thanks, i have read through that already, I think the rear light unit is probably duff as I have already said, but when I disconnect the rear light unit, the headlight still reacts to the indicators.