Current Leakage - From Where!?

Firstly - '99 SVx

Battery was flat (only 6 months old) the next day after a longish ride last week.

Hooked up to optimate, charged in 4 hours, optimate indicates battery OK.

Just checked for current leakage and there is 0.5ma, compared to the spec 0.1ma maximum. The problem is finding this!

The leakage drops to 0 if:
Meter fuse is disconnected or
Main fuse is disconnected

Removing lighting fuses makes no difference. Removing wiring to reg/rec makes no difference, neither does removing starter motor cable.

Haynes manual says use the wiring diagram to trace. Unfortunately this is gibberish to me. My electrical knowledge extends to turning the multimeter on, and fiddling with connectors.

Any suggestions, or pointers to a systematic check guidance would be appreciated. Bike in bits. Weather great. Supposed to be away next week on a course - no transport, no fun, blood pressure rising! All help gratefully received.

Finally, at 0.5ma any idea how long to drain the battery? Will I be OK for a week if I fully charge on Sunday?

Thanks in anticipation.

The key was out when you did this? ie a neutral light not on etc. Also you sure your reading the meter correctly in regards to setting?

An 8 amp hour battery will totally discharge in 66 days at 5ma, but im not sure how low it can get before it wont start. I should imagine after 1 week it still will start ok.

See what the others think.

Ignition off, and key out.
Meter set to 20m, reading shows as 0.49.

I think thats actually a 10ma leak

ie 20ma x 0.49 = 9.8ma

Should be a 1ma, no sure how to find out where, let me look at the wiring diagram.



Tried testing it with the clocks etc removed?

Cheers. Manual says 0.1ma max leakage.
Didn't think you needed to do the calc on the reading, just thought the 20ma range will read to a max of 20ma, not read as a proportion of 20ma? At 200ma reading is 00.5.
However, given my level of electrical engineering skills, I could very well be wrong.

I could be wrong, I know only the basics too mate, someone else will chirp in in a second.

My one sv650 manual says under 1ma and my haynes sv manual says 0.1ma. One of them is incorrect, ive found errors in my haynes before now, 0.1ma seems too low.

So its seems you maybe have no problem at all?

Cheers again. If 1ma is correct then no leakage problem, will search the interweb to try and get definitive answer.
This then leaves me worried why the battery went flat. Most of my journeys are 9 miles to work, so possibly never really charging fully? I ride with lights on.

the rectifiers are always breaking matey, common problem. I have just changed mine, ill link you to a good thread.

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.p...highlight=chat

At 0.1ma the battery would take 3333days to lose 100% charge, vs 333 days at 1ma.

And as batteries usually dont have enough charge after leaving them a few months, id go with 1ma and look at you rectifier voltage with the lights on.

In the meanime someone else will be along to help, they are all out on here bikes i seems