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Not sure about the brake light warning freaking out, but it's not really going to get you a big savings in current, and the LED tail light bulbs are just simply not as bright in daylight.

I'm going to throw this out there because you can't imagine how many times this happened....

Brand new batteries, not properly charged before being installed in the bike have sent more guys on wild goose chases with charging system woes than you can shake a stick at. I lived through that BS with our parts guys at the dealership...

They would take a new battery out of the box, fill it with acid, put it on our Christie charger for 15 minutes, come back, grab it and hand it to a customer....... A day or two later he would be back back with complaints of the bike not cranking over....... The would direct him to service department.....

A loaded check of the charging system would show the battery not charging like it should. Installing another new, properly charged battery fixed many of those situations. NOT ALL because sometimes the actually did have a charging system problem BUT in addition to either a new stator or reg/rec or both, they also needed another battery that was properly charged.......Parts Department had to eat that cost

Also worth mentioning occasionally an AGM will be bad out of the box-don't ask how I know this!

fordtruck wrote: ... I disconnected the negative battery cable and hooked up my meter to measure current draw. Key on, engine off and lights off it draws 5.5 amps. Turn on the lights and it goes to a little over 9 amps. With the engine running and lights on is shows it's discharging unless the rpms are over 5k. Even then it's showing less than 1 amp.

I unplugged the positive wires to the coils and my current draw drops to 0.4 amps. So, the coils draw about 5 amps even with the motor off. Does this sound normal?

With a Dyna S this is normal. It's one of the downsides of the Dyna S. It may draw more when running. At rest one coil will be drawing full current, and the other may or may not be drawing full current depending on where the crank stopped.

So you only have about .4 amps draw when the ignition and lights are out of the circuit. That's not enough to be a problem.

The problem is it's difficult to say whether it's the magnets in the rotor, or the stator.

If you want to rule out the battery, you will have to do draw tests on the battery and the rest of the bike while running. Or you can run it without a battery. But it will require a big capacitor and a little re-configuring of the wiring.

I lean really heavily toward the reg/rec being the problem if the stator output meets FSM spec for A/C voltage.

Have a look at this thread, and the connector for the stator to the R/R.
www.kzrider.com/forum/4-electrical/595062-hot-connections

Motor Head wrote: Have a look at this thread, and the connector for the stator to the R/R.
www.kzrider.com/forum/4-electrical/595062-hot-connections

Wow! That is nasty! My positive battery cable is brand new and therefore this connection is new. Honey-doos prevented me from even touching the bike this past weekend. Hopefully soon I'll get back on it.

I read on an old post about hooking the voltage output and ground wire from the regulator to a second battery. The bike would pull from the battery in it, but charge to the other battery. You could then see if the system was capable of charging since there would be no draw from the second battery. What do you think? Is this worthwhile? I have another battery I could use to do this.

I don't think that's a good idea. Since the second battery will need very little current to get to 14.5v, if the charging system is working, the regulator will be shunting almost continuously after awhile. This can burn out the reg/rec if it was good. However, if you add a couple 60 watt halogen bulbs to the circuit, then you would protect the reg/rec from the excessive shunting. You will also get an idea of how much power you are getting. Make sure you get a voltmeter on it.

I finally got back to the bike today. The first thing I did was check current draw with the engine off, key on and lights on. It was about 9.4 amps which is what it was a couple of weeks ago. I then installed the new headlight bulb. I replaced my 55W bulb with a 35W bulb. Checked current draw again and it was just under 8 amps. This is what I expected, but wanted to verify with a meter.

I started the bike and it was immediately clear that it was charging. It was reading 14.5 volts with the lights on at just a little over idle! Now keep in mind that this is with the original rectifier and regulator installed. I then reinstalled the combo regulator/rectifier. With it installed it only reads a shade over 13 volts with the lights on and the engine at 4k rpms. According the Z1Enterprises, that is normal with this r/r. They say the PMC r/r unit rarely puts more than 13 volts. As long as the voltage is higher with the bike running than with it off, they say it's normal.

I guess that my charging system was just at it's limit and by replacing the headlight with a lower wattage one it got me over the hump. Maybe someday I should repace my stator with a higher output unit. For now I'm just going to keep an eye on it.

13 volts is lower than normal for the stock charging system. It should be producing 14-15v. So why not simply leave the original regulator and rectifier on it? They were made for it, and it sounds like they are working perfectly - certainly better than the replacement. I would not even consider using any regulator that charged below 14 volts. Ed

I replaced the originals because I thought they were overcharging at times. It was pretty common to burn out a headlight or taillight bulb right after a high speed run. I haven't lost any more bulbs since installing the combo r/r.

13 volts is barely over the break-even voltage and is definitely not high enough to recharge the battery in normal use unless you never use the electric start and only ride steady highway miles for hours on end. Even then the battery may never top off.

Often a fully charged battery will retain 12.9v for a while after a recent charge. So charging at just over 13v would amount to a very slow trickle charge.

As much as I like Z1 Enterprises, I don't think that info is correct. You really want to be 14.1 to about 14.5 v.

14.0 may be a little low in winter, and 14.6 may be a little high in summer.

That said, there is no harm in trying the new reg/rec. If you can start the bike, it probably won't leave you stranded at least.