Possible to damage Stator by giving a jump start?

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MrUnlucky

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I saw some sad folks in the parking lot last week and tried to charge their battery for them. After about 20 minutes or so, it clearly wasn't taking a charge and I told them they'd probably need a new battery.
Last night I started up and made a grocery store run with no apparent issue (that I noticed).
This morning, she barely started and I assumed it was because of the freeze last night. Once she started, though, the voltage gauge never got above 11v all the way to work, though the bike ran fine. When I stopped at a gas station, I had to push start because the starter motor didn't even try to move.
At the end of the day, though, I got a co-worker to help me experiment. We hooked the jumper cables up and let him charge my battery for about five minutes and then unhooked the cables and started it to see whether the battery was holding a charge or the stator was failing to charge the battery. The voltage gauge showed the proper 12v while he was charging it, but dropped to 10.5v once she started. This makes me think it's the stator and I'm wondering if trying to jump start a car was an extremely stupid idea.
 
Tough one. These stators do not hold up well to jumping a car battery, there just isn't enough amperage. Would the stator short? Hmmmm...I don't really know. What type of battery? If it is a lead acid battery, you could have shorted the cells. Easy to check with a battery tester.

I have an AGM battery that ran down from parasitic load (iPod was left on for a week). The battery dropped to 10V. I put my charger on and brought it up to 12.2 and started the bike. But the stator could not charge the battery at that low of a voltage and carry the normal load of the bike.

I had to charge the battery for a good 8 hours to get the resting voltage up to 12.8 volts. Started the bike and the voltage went up to the normal 14.8 volts with no problem. It is important to remember, the stator does not replace a fully charged battery and cannot charge a dead battery.
 
I've had it on slow charge (2A) for about 2 hours now with the battery kill switch off (disconnects the ground strap) in case of voltage drain and the gauge on the battery charger is still at 0%.
The voltage gauge on the handlebars showed 12.5v, though, and she started right up.
Don't have a battery tester, but I checked the voltage on the battery with a multimeter after I got to work and it showed 12.3 but wouldn't even budge the starter motor (and the gauge on the handlebars fell all the way left when I hit the starter button).

Also when I was trying to charge those people's battery, the voltage gauge on the handlebars showed showed 10v when I first connected the jumper cables and I didn't tell them to try and start it until the voltage had climbed up to 12v. Also that was Tuesday and I had no problem going to and from work Wednesday or last night, though I didn't go anywhere thursday through saturday so idk. Also after the electrical problems I had last year, I kinda have a habit of checking the voltage gauge regularly, so I'd like to think I'd have noticed if it was low on Wednesday or Saturday.

I'm still hoping it's the battery, but I'm going to re-read the instructions for that Poor Boy mod just in case...
 
Yes - a dilemma at best. Agree with Gerry, take the battery out and use an industrial charger at the recommended charging amps. Take the battery to a battery shop and have it load tested, generally do it for free - hope to sell you a new battery. This will answer the question regarding the battery. The load test is the important part. Charging the battery and trying to start the bike will only indicate that the battery does not have sufficient charge to turn the starter - may or may not be an indicator of battery condition. When you load test a battery you can see the condition of the battery and watch how it reacts to a high resistance load, and how it recovers after the load is removed.

Good luck.
 
More than likely it is the battery not the stator. When the small capacity bike battery delivered its all while cranking the car it more than likely collapsed a cell. As Gerry said properly charge your battery and get it load tested. :good:
 
Checked the stator wire voltages when I got to work yesterday morning and had 4.3, 4.8, and 0.2.
...so it's the stator.
Charged the bike last night and by the time I got to the gas station I had to push start it.
But
I charged it while I was at work today, and as I rode home I started to wonder if there was maybe a dead short causing that 0.2v (the wire was also noticably hot). So when I got home, I left it idling and unhooked the wire (no connector, they've been wire-nutted with jumpers for over a year now) and tested again.
4.3, 4.8, 6.3
6.3?! So I reconnected the wire.
I checked the voltage at the battery and had 12.5 even though the handlebar gauge read just under 11 (and the accessory screws that power the voltage gauge read 11.7 on the multimeter, I don't know who to trust anymore...). At this point, I'd been riding and idling for about the same amount of time that it took me to get to the gas station this morning, and had only reconnected the 0.2/6.3 wire for about five minutes, but when I shut her off she started right back up like normal.

I'm still keeping it on slow-charge overnight and probably should get the battery checked, but I'm still going to go ahead and collect the parts for the Poorboy conversion because I think the 6.3 might still be a bad sign (do failing stators do that?). *maybe* I didn't have a proper connection on the wires when I read the 0.2 and now its fixed, or maybe there's a nick in the wire going from the stator connection to the reg/ret (or wherever it goes once it jumps into the wiring harness) and I wiggled it the right way, idk.
 
Hmmmmm actually I’d disconnect all three stator wires from harness and start bike and check voltage again ....it’s sounding like to me stator is good ....reading might even out more checking like this ...if stator is good ...need to go over all the wires past stator ...there’s one wire junction hidden under the black tape wiring harness...this is where hooch bike was shorting out ...took me awhile to figure that out ...I knew nothing about this junction at the time found it in frustration mode of ripping the bike apart ... :rant:
 
I guess that it doesn't matter, but how old is the battery? These small batteries don't last that long. At least mine don't. I would still have it load tested before I put any money into things.
 
When they tried jumping the car was your motor running? Did the car start while your motor was running? If it did you probably fried diodes in the reg/rec.
 
So apparently it was just the bad connection on one stator wire. Haven't put it on the charger since tuesday and she's behaving properly again now.
Still going to collect parts for the Poorboy just in case. Since it seems that I should be reading 14+ at the battery when she's running and I'm only getting 12.5 and that doesn't seem to go up noticably when revving the engine, and the 6.8v on one stator lead is outside of what seems to be the "normal" range.

Thank you, everyone, for the input.

Current theory:
The factory plug for the stator wires was already gone when I got the bike. It had sta-con connectors which were overheating because the contact area was too small for the amperage, so I trimmed away the burnt wire and made jumpers with #12 THHN solid wire and wire-nuts. I'm thinking that vibration and/or heat caused enough of the strands to burn/break off over time and the attempt to charge the car battery burned out the remaining strands so that one lead was no longer getting contact. I didn't notice that the strands I saw wrapped around the solid wire were just frayed bits of the insulation when I read 0.2v due to lack of copper contact (can't be sure of that, though, time machine is on back-order).

I still want to get the battery tested (just in case) and check the stator voltage on all three wires while disconnected, but the job I'm on is about to wrap up so a lot of last-minute overtime to get the building ready for inspection has eaten up all my time. Will report in one more time this weekend when I've had time to investigate further. For now I'm just happy and relieved that I don't have to pull the motor.
 
[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=198137#p198137:21zx53ym said:
MrUnlucky » Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:10 pm[/url]":21zx53ym]
So apparently it was just the bad connection on one stator wire. Haven't put it on the charger since tuesday and she's behaving properly again now.
Still going to collect parts for the Poorboy just in case. Since it seems that I should be reading 14+ at the battery when she's running and I'm only getting 12.5 and that doesn't seem to go up noticably when revving the engine, and the 6.8v on one stator lead is outside of what seems to be the "normal" range.

Thank you, everyone, for the input.

Current theory:
The factory plug for the stator wires was already gone when I got the bike. It had sta-con connectors which were overheating because the contact area was too small for the amperage, so I trimmed away the burnt wire and made jumpers with #12 THHN solid wire and wire-nuts. I'm thinking that vibration and/or heat caused enough of the strands to burn/break off over time and the attempt to charge the car battery burned out the remaining strands so that one lead was no longer getting contact. I didn't notice that the strands I saw wrapped around the solid wire were just frayed bits of the insulation when I read 0.2v due to lack of copper contact (can't be sure of that, though, time machine is on back-order).

I still want to get the battery tested (just in case) and check the stator voltage on all three wires while disconnected, but the job I'm on is about to wrap up so a lot of last-minute overtime to get the building ready for inspection has eaten up all my time. Will report in one more time this weekend when I've had time to investigate further. For now I'm just happy and relieved that I don't have to pull the motor.
A fully charged battery will not need more than a trickle charge while the motor is running. Sounds to me like it is working exactly as it should now.
 
[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=198137#p198137:3dp2glgj said:
MrUnlucky » Yesterday, 3:10 pm[/url]":3dp2glgj]
The factory plug for the stator wires was already gone when I got the bike. It had sta-con connectors which were overheating because the contact area was too small for the amperage, so I trimmed away the burnt wire and made jumpers with #12 THHN solid wire and wire-nuts. I'm thinking that vibration and/or heat caused enough of the strands to burn/break off over time and the attempt to charge the car battery burned out the remaining strands so that one lead was no longer getting contact.

You mention that you used #12 THHN solid wire and wire nuts. Would recommend a change to #12 auto/marine grade wire instead. Solid core wire will act like a fuse if it cracks or breaks. Solderless connectors (sta-con; haven't heard this term in a long time) or soldering the wires together would be preferred. Prefer marine grade wire as it is tinned throughout and resists corrosion much better than standard automotive wire. You can also get high temp solderless connectors - these are not easy to solder.
High Temp - Regular Connectors.jpg
The high temp connector is the shiny one.

Keep at it. Now that you have the bike operating, gives you time to think about the issue and refurbish the system a little at a time to get it back to 100% normal.

Cheers
 
I spoke too soon. Had to push-start again today.
Unlike the last two days, I ran a couple of errands so I started her at 3:30, then again at 4:00, then again at 4:30, then she wouldn't start at 4:40.
I'm guessing the battery is charging slowly due to other problem. On the way home I also tried hitting the kill switch and then re-starting with the starter button while I was rolling (expecting it to not start) and it didn't turn over.

Re-checked the stator wires once I got home. Once again, 0.2v while connected, then 6.8 while disconnected, and 0.2 again once reconnected. Possibly a voltage *potential* of 6.8v when disconnected but not a steady supply of 6.8v (bad stator) OR possibly a short in the wiring harness or Reg/Ret. I finally have two days off so I'll try swapping it with one of the other two stator wires tomorrow and see if the 0.2v moves or stays on the same wire in the harness, and also check all three stator wire voltages while disconnected. If the voltage drop follows the harness wire instead of the stator wire, I'll try swapping the Reg/Ret (i LOVE spare parts). If that doesn't work, I can always just run bypass wires straight from the stator wires to the Reg/Ret (the wiring diagram says they go straight there, at least) or start stripping the tape off the wiring harness looking for the short that Hooch had.

The odd thing is that as soon as I disconnected that wire, the voltage at the battery rose from 11.5 to 11.7. After pulling all the fuses except the ignition circuit, it was at 12.3 and climbed to 12.5 off of just two stator wires. It still didn't start when I shut it off, but it tried harder than it did when I had to push start. Probably not a good idea to run off of 2/3 stator wires, I imagine that would be hard on the Reg/Ret.
 
[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=198138#p198138:1axisooz said:
Omega Man » Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:19 am[/url]":1axisooz]
What a story, glad it's fixed. I wonder how many stators have been changed because of a bad connection. :?

~O~
+1 or poor soldering when deleting the 3 Pin plug :doh:
 
Hmmmm....
IMG_20171203_100804.jpg

Something tells me that isn't supposed to look like that.

Replaced the Reg/Ret and now the 0.2v wire is reading 5.3v and the battery is reading 14.2v at idle.
Double-checked the other two stator wires and the 4.8 has now dropped to 3.5 so my spare Reg/Ret might have issues of its own. I'll order two more just to make sure (i LOVE spare parts). Unless someone can explain how one phase shorting to ground could cause another phase to increase from 3.5 to 4.8 I'm going to presume that the stator is just fine (but I'm still going to collect the parts for the Poorboy because MODS).
 
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