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2005 Royal Star Tour Deluxe Charging System


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Good Afternoon,

I am due to leave on a trip to the Bikes Blues & BBQ Rally in Arkansas, and just found out that the charge on my battery is not being kept up. I found a link to trouble shooting steps on the Venturers website that I plan to go through. My question to all of you who may have had this happen is : Is there any most common thing that would be the cause of this? I just am very pressed for time and was just wandering if there is any one common cause that ya'll would recommend checking first. If it involves any particular part that needs to be replaced such as a regulator/rectifier. Is there any way to obtain one quickly. I am due to leave Thursday at 6:00am. Any input would be appreciated.

 

Regards,

Tony

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Just went through this on my '99 Venture. Put a voltage meter across the battery. Should read 12.6 if full charged.

 

Start the bike and put the meter on again.....should read 13.0+ volts and increase if you rev the bike up.

 

First thing.....pull the battery (how old is it?) and take it down and have it tested....this is usually free. It could be the battery is done for.

 

From there you can go on to testing the voltage at the stator connector. If all is good there, then the regulator/rectifier is suspect. Most dealers can get parts in a couple of days but you'll pay more for it.

 

Good luck!

 

Dave

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Yup! First suspect would be the battery itself! Remove it and take it to your local auto parts store and get it load tested.

 

Yes, follow the procedure for testing the charging system. With voltmeter you should see a little less than 13 volts across the battery with the bike idling, and when it rev's up you should see it increase to around 13.5 volts plus or minus...

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Battery is new and tests good 12.7v. When I check the voltage with the engine running, I get 14 volts at idle, and it goes down with an increase in rpms. At high rpms it went as low as 13.75. Is this normal? I would have expected the voltages to be the other way around with lower voltage at lower rpm and higher voltage at higher rpm.

 

What started this whole process is that I went to start my bike last Sunday and the lights came on but when I hit the starter button lights went out, engine didn't start. Went through this a couple times. So i hooked my battery tender up, and sure enough it was not up to charge, which I have never had happen during riding season. In the past, I had plugged the tender in during riding season periodically just to see if the battery was up, and every time I did. the green light came on right away indicating that it was up to charge. So i never bother to plug it in during riding season anymore. I have not had any problems since installing the new battery, but with going on this trip, I wanted to be sure that my charging system wasn't malfunctioning. So after riding the bike a few days with the new battery, I decided to plug the tender in to see if the green light came on right away, and it didn't. I made sure that the battery was at full charge by putting the tender on over night. Rode the bike to work, lunch, and back home. When I got home I plugged the tender in to see if the light turned green right away and it didn't, it took about a half an hour. So that is what got me concerned. If I check the voltage on the battery directly after unplugging the green lighted tender, I get 13.5 volts and it slowly trickles down. 12.7 is the lowest it has been. Still curious about those high and low readings with the engine running.

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Tony-

 

Full charge for a battery is 12.6 volts (2.1 volts for each of the 6 cells). Anything over 12.6 is a temp charge overage that will bleed off.

 

The internal trigger on your trickle charge will potential be based on the amperage passing through the charger rather than the voltage in the battery. Your new battery could be allowing the electricity to flow creating an temp overcharge battery condition and shouldn't cause any alarm because the green light doesn't light up right away. If your old battery was having trouble charging, it may have been causing the green light to light prematurely.

 

Sounds like the new battery has resolved your issue and the trip should be great.

 

My new stator puts out 13.5 volts at idle and moves up to 13.8 at higher rpm. Not sure why yours is at 14.0 volts, but could be a momentary spike to top off the battery after the startup.

 

Just to be safe, I've put an Anti-Gravity (Micro-Start XP-1) battery in my saddle bag. When my stator went out, it jumped the bike and allowed me to get back home (only a mile). Well worth the investment.

 

Have a great trip!!

 

Dave

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A battery ttender and a battery charger are two different things. A tender is only to maintain the charge of an already fully charged battery. There are some tenders that also have a charger built in and can do both functions.

I would not rely on an single light on any charger or tender or anything else to tell me if there are issues with the charging system. Your best is to install a digital voltmeter to monitor the system. As long as it stays over 13.5 while riding (it may drop lower while stopped at idle) all is good with the charging system. If it drops to less than 13.5 while riding, you either have to much stuff turned on to where the charging system can not keep up with demand, or there is a problem with the charging system. Either way you know that you are not charging and can take proper action before you are left stranded.

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