Heated Gear: Be careful with battery charge!

[RichK]

Tonight I was commuting home on 580 towards Livermore, I'd been lane sharing since Hayward due to some nasty traffic. I was riding my '06 ZX-10R and had my heated vest on "Medium".

Suddenly my dash lights went out, and I couldn't tell at the time, but my headlight was out as well. I was in the fast lane with a concrete barrier to my left, and concrete barriers right up against the slow lane: nowhere to go and it was dark. About 20 seconds after my dash went dark, the bike just died. I pulled in the clutch, and started waving with my right hand as I started moving to the right. I knew I didn't want to be stranded directly in the fast lane in the dark, although the very right lane was also walled with concrete barriers.

As I worked my way to the right while waving like a maniac, I ran out of momentum and was now duck-walking the bike in the #3 lane. Luckily a guy in a pickup saw what was happening, turned on his hazard lights and blocked traffic for me until I could get to the very right. I saw the concrete barriers end about 200 yards ahead, so I kept duck-walking the bike while the pickup blocked for me.

Eventually I made it to the shoulder, and the pickup continued along after I waved thanks. Whew!

I tried starting the bike, but just got a clicking sound as if the battery were dead. I realized that I had been lane sharing at a pretty low RPM, and with the heated vest running, I think my alternator couldn't keep up the charging load.

After I called my wife - she brought some jumper cables and my bike started right up. I rode a few miles and the bike died again - so we kept the cables attached for longer with her truck running, and that charged the battery enough to get me home.

So....that sucked. Anyone else have this problem before? I'm not sure if riding at low RPMs with the vest heating caused this, or if the battery was just old, or something else was wrong with the charging system.

Crazy night!

{EDIT: After much help in this thread, I found that the culprit was a faulty stator and/or regulator-rectifier. After replacing these, the charging system easily handles the heated vest. Read on, though, this is a great thread!}

 

[TheRiddler]

Wow.

I had my entire electrical system die on me while in the fast lane, but that was caused by a faulty regulator/rectifier.

I'll let someone else comment on what the problem may be, but I've heard that some charging systems don't produce enough power until you're over 4000 RPMs. Do you know how much current your vest draws?

 

[louemc]

Wow, That guy in the pick-up truck may of saved your life. Hard to say what your battery condition is. The one in My 05 still cranks as strong as ever, and my bike sits without a battery tender for like five months of the year.

I doubt if there is anything wrong with your charging system.

I have no doubt at all that the drain was too high for the lower RPM's.

I'd suggest you go on the ZX-10R.net site (they have sections for other Kawi Bikes) and see if any of those Geeks know what you can do. Like Maybe ZX-14 Connie parts will take care of it.

Since You never want to have this surprize again, it wouldn't hurt to wire in a cigarette lighter socket and get an electrical system monitor guage from Kragon or any parts store that would have it, that plugs into a cigarette lighter socket. The guage gives a digital readout of your battery condition and rate of charge, Way cool.

 

[Flying Pig]

Wow.

I had my entire electrical system die on me while in the fast lane, but that was caused by a faulty regulator/rectifier.

Hey.. me too :|


Anyways, Rich, I'd suggest doing a basic test of your charging system, maybe its not the heated gear but a component went bad.

#1 - Make sure the battery terminals are snug.

#2 - Put the battery on a trickle charger overnight.

#3 - Get or borrow an electronic multimeter. A healthy fully charged battery should read at least 12.6v. If voltage readings are below 12.6 then the battery is headed to the trash heap.

#4 - When the bike is running at low-mid rpms you should see voltage readings close to 14.4v. If readings are below 13.7v the battery is being undercharged. If readings are over 14.7v the battery is being overcharged. Either over or undercharging the battery damages the battery. This issue is often related to a failed voltage regulator/rectifier component.

Lots of battery issue threads like this are already posted here in the garage. Try the search function.

Basic multimeters can be had at Radio Shack for $20.

And a lesson I learned the hard way, if you replace the stator, you might as well replace the R/R too, least that's what I should have done :2cents

 

[Motorcycle RN]

I've ridden to SF from Modesto & back during rush hour lane splitting all the way with vest & gloves blazing on my Gixxer and on my RZ350 with no problem. Maybe it's a fault in your charging system.

 

[RichK]

Hey guys, thanks for the very helpful advice. Yep - that pickup driver saved my ass!

I just checked the Service Manual & ZX-10R.net - it appears that stator problems are common with this bike, so it could be the charging system. The Service Manual has good instructions for diagnosing the problem.

The vest (TourMaster Synergy) draws 4.5A and is 52 Watts.

I've got the battery on a charger tonight, and I'll check the charge tomorrow to see if it's >12.8V. (It was about 12.2V when I rolled into the garage tonight).

I'll post my findings in this thread.

Thanks again. Looks like I'm caging it the rest of the week...at least I'll still be warm! :laughing

 

[DaveT319]

CHECK YOUR STATOR!

I say this because I just got done with fixing my bike. I was having some electrical issues - most notably my headlight wouldn't come on when I started the bike, and then at the end the bike was running off battery power and was not being recharged - and I was told the stator had gone bad. Replaced it and now everything works fine. If your battery is not being recharged when running, that could be the culprit.

Dave

 

[ST Guy]

That vest draws an insignificant amount of current. Your bike should easily handle it. You have a charging problem. And frankly, it just boggles my mind as to why bike manufacturers have such a problem with it. It ain't rocket science. Most aftermarket stator and VRR suppliers, with no where near the technical resources of a major bike maker, almost always make a superior product. WTF?

If you end up having to replace some components, go with aftermarket. Cheaper and better.

 

[snowface]

great story - great thread - glad you're ok.

 

[Carlo]

That vest draws an insignificant amount of current. Your bike should easily handle it. You have a charging problem. And frankly, it just boggles my mind as to why bike manufacturers have such a problem with it. It ain't rocket science. Most aftermarket stator and VRR suppliers, with no where near the technical resources of a major bike maker, almost always make a superior product. WTF?

If you end up having to replace some components, go with aftermarket. Cheaper and better.

I thought all that dead stator nonsense only happened to bikes with Lucas electrics.

 

[mototireguy]

The vest (TourMaster Synergy) draws 4.5A and is 52 Watts.

I've got the battery on a charger tonight, and I'll check the charge tomorrow to see if it's >12.8V. (It was about 12.2V when I rolled into the garage tonight).

Let the battery sit for 30-60 minutes after disconnecting the charger before running the standing voltage test.

And don't forget to run those other voltage tests when the bike is running at low-mid rpms. This test will tell us something about your bike charging system.

 

[TTTom]

It's possible that in order to save weight and cost, Kawasaki installs an alternator that doesn't produce enough excess power (beyond what the bike normally uses) to power any auxilary stuff... but I'd be surprised.

You should be able to find somewhere in the technical documentation on your bike data for both the amps/watts produced by your alternator and the amount used by the bike in normal operations

For example: on my Multi, Ducati installed a 520 watt alternator and the bike typically uses less than 200 watts of it, leaving me over 300 watts for electric vest (100 watts) electric gloves (35 watts) and PIAA driving lights (2x 50 watts)

Unlike modern cars, on nearly all motorcycles the alternator output is not variable, it's constant from maybe 2-3K rpm on up and the excess wattage is totally wasted energy that basically ends up dumped into a heat sink... so using auxilary gear like your jacket isn't putting one bit of extra load on the alternator... you're just dumping energy into your jacket or lights or whatever instead of into the voltage regulator/heat sink.

It sounds like on your bike the stator is a known weak point, another possibility is a failed voltage regulator but I'm really doubting that a 55 watt electric vest overloaded your system. If it did that's some real weak sauce from Kawasaki.

 

[RichK]

I was just talking to a friend at work about this, and I recalled that over the past few weeks, I've smelled a "burnt plastic" smell once in a while...usually while sitting at a light.

At the time, I thought it was something that got kicked up onto my exhaust, but now I'm wondering if the epoxy potting on the stator was frying.

I just got the heated vest a couple weeks ago - so my first assumption was the low RPMs combined with the vest - but I'm guessing this is a coincidence (or possibly the vest accelerated the problem somewhat).

Great advice here! :thumbup

 

[ST Guy]

Or your VRR was frying. They can both get real hot, depending upon what fails. And if the stator on your bike is inside the engine, than it would be easier to smell the VRR.

Yep, coincidence.

Heat is the enemy of both the stator and the VRR. In the case of the stator, it's usually heat that causes the insulation on the windings to break down, resulting in shorts. In the case of the VRR, it gets real hot in an effort to dissapate extra electrical energy and the electronics fry themselves.

If it is, indeed a charging system failure, do yourself a favor and don't just replace the component that died. Replace both the stator and the VRR, both with aftermarket. The last thing you want to happen is to replace one component and then have the other fail and destroy the other. Or simply to have to do it all over again.

Good luck!

 

[SD Hornet]

Same thing happened to a friends bike with a liner. suspect that she had a bad field coil (1 of 3) in the stator. The liner finally caused the second field to fail causing the bike to not charge the battery.

She mentioned a burnt plastic smell too.

Returned the liner for a 55watt vest. Measured the vest on a 14 volt power supply. It drew 105 watts initially, then 84 watts at temperature. I then measured my 55 watt vest and had similar results.

Current was measured 3 different ways. At the meter on the power supply, DVM in-line measuring current, and DVM measuring voltage drop across a 0.05? ohm resistor.

So don't trust printed wattage ratings. Check them your self.

 

[Razel]

It's possible that in order to save weight and cost, Kawasaki installs an alternator that doesn't produce enough excess power (beyond what the bike normally uses) to power any auxilary stuff... but I'd be surprised.

The charging system has to be stout enough to not only run the electrics, but have enough of a reserve to charge the battery as well. The vest draws about the same as the high-beam (assuming the low-beam stays on) ... point being I'd be surprised too, that they'd barely put enough charging "oomph" (techncial term) into the bike from the factory.

You should expect the charging system to be able to handle charging an almost dead battery to full charge.

 

[TTTom]

...the liner for a 55watt vest. Measured the vest on a 14 volt power supply. It drew 105 watts initially, then 84 watts at temperature. I then measured my 55 watt vest and had similar results...

Whoa, 50 watts, almost 100% error is huge. I was thinking I was fine with a calculated 20% margin at full load. Sounds like I'm going to have to do some measurements.

What brand vest was that?

 

[Kornholio]

According to Powerlet, you'll need at least but preferably greater than 40 watts of excess electrical capacity in order to power a heated vest. Unfortunately they don't have any test data for your particular bike so I don't know what your EEC rating is. As a reference point though, the 2006 Z1000 has > 120 watts of EEC but that bike isn't designed like yours so who knows. I would imagine a sportbike wouldn't have much EEC since people that ride them don't tend to want to plug much of anything, if anything, into the bike for external power.

 

[SD Hornet]

The vests I use are Gerbing. Would not use anything else. Their customer service is excellent too.

Like a toaster, the vests draw more power until the heating wires warm up. I made these measurements about a year ago. If I remember correctly, it took the vest about 2 minutes to get up to temp and draw 84 watts instead of the initial heavier draw. Ambient temp in my garage was 60-ish.

 

[speciakl]

I know people are saying that the system SHOULD provide enough capacity to power the liner but I bet your are on the hairy edge. My FZ had the battery quite while I was at a riding class because I had wired a second headlight on (lowbeam) while the bike stock has only one headlight (even though there is a second filament). That little extra bit was enough to slowly drain the battery. Factor in time idling rather than cruising and it drained the battery. I can confirm this because at the level 2 class, another guy on an FZ with dual headlight had his bike quit (I unplugged his second headlight, bump started it and he was good the rest of the time)

You have a couple of options:
1) check the charging system and figure out that burning smell (which you should do anyway)
2) put your battery on a tender every night so the slow drain is not enough to pull it back down to dead every day
3) get a warmer jacket (this is what I did)

I also have heated grips but cannot run both the grips and dual headlights at the same time because the current draw is too much.