Headlight causing electrical problems?

Just talked to Jeff at Z1, he had some good thoughts.

1. He said handlebar switches are very often problematic and should be looked into. He said they ground through the handlebars, and those grounds aren't often good due to the stem bearings.

2. Before that, even, he suggested disconnecting everything, horn, blinkers, tail light, etc. and see what that does to the 12v 8v drop. If it has gone away, simply reconnect things 1 at a time till it the problem reappears. Then you know where it is.

Regarding my question about "jumping past" the handlebar switches .... if you took them off the handlebars, that would unground them. Would that serve as a "jump around", or would that kill the headlight, too?

2. Before

Another thing that occurred to me. My Dyna S ignition uses more juice than the old points did. Do the Dyna Green coils pull more juice, too? How do I determine how much power they're demanding, and how much should they demand?

seanof30306 wrote:

Another thing that occurred to me. My Dyna S ignition uses more juice than the old points did. Do the Dyna Green coils pull more juice, too? How do I determine how much power they're demanding, and how much should they demand?

I use the same Dyna S Electronic Ignition and Green Dyna Coils. I run them on a separate 5 Amp Fuse for easy troubleshooting. Perhaps hundreds of members use this combo with no charging capacity issues. IMHO, this is not the problem... don't get sidetracked with this... move on with your plan.

Best of success,
Bill

Bill,

I wasn't thinking a properly functioning Dyna S or Dyna Green coils might be causing the problem, I was wanting to check to see that they're drawing what they should so as to eliminate faulty equipment or wiring to, or from them as causal in this.

seanof30306 wrote:

Bill,

I wasn't thinking a properly functioning Dyna S or Dyna Green coils might be causing the problem, I was wanting to check to see that they're drawing what they should so as to eliminate faulty equipment or wiring to, or from them as causal in this.

Oops, it's less than 5 Amps but I never measured it. Others may pipe in with their readings.

Best of success,
Bill

OK, here's where we are.

Tim says he did a voltage loss test on the handlebar switches and found nothing wrong.

Next he put the headlight from a 2-stroke 750 Kawasaki he has on my bike. He says it pulls half the current the bulb I have does.

Even with the headlight disconnected, however, the amp gauge still shows a slight discharge at idle.

Next, he used a booster battery to externally power the coils. Now, no discharge at idle, and with just a blip of the throttle it charges at 10 amps.

Next he checked the draw, and the Dyna Green coils alone are pulling 5 amps at idle. Tim feels this is excessive and thinks it may be the problem. He says he's puzzled because he's never seen an ignition with a problem run good, as this bike does. He said his only experience with with Dyna coils and ignition is one he installed on an LTD 1000, and it worked fine, but he says he still thinks that 5 amps is an excessive amount of current for an ignition to draw.

I went back and checked my original receipt from z1enterprises.com. I definitely got two Dyna DC-1 3.0 ohm Green Coils and a Dyna-S DS-2 electronic ignition, which are the correct parts for my bike.

The first question needing to be answered is, how much power should those coils be drawing? Bill, you said yours were on a 5 amp fuse, so it's less than 5 amps, but the question is, how much less? It seems to me that if you were pulling right at 5 amps, that would occasionally blow the fuse, wouldn't it?

Question #2: Tim measured a 5 amp draw at the coils, alone. Does the Dyna-S ignition draw aditional power, or is it powered solely through the coils?

Question #3: Tim measured the 5 amp draw of the coils at idle. Does that draw go up with rpm? I think not, but I want to be sure.

If not already done, would remove the battery, charge it overnight, and then have it load tested at a local shop or auto parts store. AutoZone provides this service for free.

Also double-check integrity of the connection where ground cable attaches to rear of engine.

Good Fortune!

Also i wouldn't worry about discharge at idle. All you care is at higher RPM while driving. I did an amp test many years ago on my KZ650 and yes there was more power being consumed by the electrics than what charge the battery was getting at idle, but raise up to a couple thousand RPM the charging was fine. That's why the normal checks are always specified to be done at higher RPMs.

aseanof30306 wrote:

OK, here's where we are.

Question #1: The first question needing to be answered is, how much power should those coils be drawing? Bill, you said yours were on a 5 amp fuse, so it's less than 5 amps, but the question is, how much less? It seems to me that if you were pulling right at 5 amps, that would occasionally blow the fuse, wouldn't it?

Question #2: Tim measured a 5 amp draw at the coils, alone. Does the Dyna-S ignition draw additional power, or is it powered solely through the coils?

Question #3: Tim measured the 5 amp draw of the coils at idle. Does that draw go up with rpm? I think not, but I want to be sure.

Answer #1: On my bike both Dyna Coils and the Dyna Electronic Ignition are powered from the same 5 Amp fuse ( See Link ). You are correct and I have never had this fuse blow. Sorry, I have never measured the actual current draw on this new and additional Ignition only circuit.

Answer #2: As stated in Answer #1, in my Ignition only circuit the coils and the Electronic Ignition circuit are powered from the same 5 Amp fuse. How is your bike wired? How was the Dyna Electronic Ignition wired in?

Caution: If the Electronic Ignition circuit was spliced in using the Splice Connector provided by Dyna, then stop immediately, remove this Splice Connector, destroy this connector with a very big hammer, redo the splice with a good soldered "Y" and protect with Heat-shrink tubing. Don't ask how I and countless members learned this. :blush:

Answer # 3: Don't know for sure. I believe I have read loudhvx's explanation stating that it has a 50% ON/OFF Duty Cycle (50 % Dwell or 180 degree Dwell) and that the current drawn actually goes down a bit once running at over 1k rpm or so.

Caution: Never leave the key in the ON position when the engine is not running. The Dyna Electronic Ignition specifically will leave one or the other of the two coils ON continuously, the ON coil will heat up, it will eventually fail (short circuit) at which time it will draw even more current, will eventually burn and catch fire... right under your Fuel Tank. :ohmy:

Note: I understand that the OEM Kawasaki Electronic Ignition unit is superior in this respect in that leaves both coils OFF when the key is in the ON position. Also, I further understand that the Dwell (On time) on these OEM units is inversely proportional to the engine rpm so that the coils run cooler at idle speeds.

Best of success,
Bill

I rechecked the Amp draw on mine. It's a 1977B1 but has the 1978 stator and reg/rect and Dyna-S ignition.
I found this;
Key on, engine off, headight on (Stock headlight)- 7A
Key on, engine off, headlight off- 4A
Engine running at 4K RPM, headlight on- 5A charge to battery.
Engine idling at 1K RPM, headlight on- 1A discharge from battery.
Raise RPMs charging breaks even at about 1500 RPM.

Dyna-S electronic ignition is known to consume more current at idle rpm than does a points ignition or a Kawasaki electronic ignition.

Has to do with dwell time and whatever, and to my knowledge actually understood by only loudhvx and otakar, and maybe OMR.* :lol:

Good Fortune!

* and Raymond

OK, I just got off the phone with Dynatek customer support regarding the 5 amp draw at the coils.

He was a really nice guy, but a lot of the stuff he said was way over my head. I took notes as best as I could.

First, he said for smaller, pre-1980 bikes, they recommend 5 ohm coils for basic street and cruiser applications, the 3 ohm coils are for performance-oriented applications.

He said the coils should be drawing about 1.5 amps, each, and the Dyna S should be drawing 1.8 amps, so while the total draw should be around 5 amps, the coils alone should be drawing only around 3 amps, not 5, as mine are. He went into how dwell and rpm could change that, but it was lost on me.

He suggested I first check the coils by taking a good ohm meter, putting it on the small, 20 ohm scale, and measuring each coil from one terminal to the other (not the spark plug terminal). There should be 3 ohms resistance, +/- 10%

He said the electronic ignition sucking the battery dry by drawing more power than the charging system can generate is actually pretty common on older bikes. He said they even have a kit to correct this on GL1000s and he is sending me a part from that kit (for free) to correct that.

It's a 1 1/4 ohm, 30 watt balanced resistor that he said I should place in the 12v power source to the coils, and it will correct the 5 amp draw, if the coils themselves are good.

He also suggested I get a regulator/rectifier from a 1990-1995 ZX600 (not ZX600R), that it would do a much better job of regulating the power.

Does any of this make any sense? It's entirely possible I've gotten some of it wrong, I was having a very hard time keeping up with him.

It seems a little odd to me that the 5 ohm coils thing is just coming up. With all the guys running that ignition with the Green coils on here, I would've though that would be known.

The guy's name is Raymond. He's a really nice guy. His number is 1-800-928-3962, extension 4172, in case anyone who might actually be understand more of what he is saying thinks it'd be worthwhile to follow up on any of this.