charging system help?

[CANAMracerdad]

Hello all,
My son and i have been running the ds for over a year. we seem to have a recurring problem. our battery keeps dieing. we have replaced the rectifier 2 times. when the engine is running at idle, it is a negative drain on the battery static voltage and negative 1-3 amps at idle. @ 3000 rpms the voltage goes to 14 and the amps goto positive 2-5 amps into the battery.
this is "ok" according to the service manual this is within specs.
we charged the battery to 100% prior to the moto....after lap 5 of the moto the bike died, after towing it to the pit , the battery had less than 12 volts (10.8) anybody else having this problem or similar ?{it never fell below 3000 rpms }@ 15 min
it is the third battery in 3 months, the battery load tests over 200 amps!
this is obviously is a charging problem, the stator tests ok but obviously does not charge under race conditions.
Any ideas and or suggestions from you all.
one small note , we noticed that if the batt has 15 volts in it at the line, nothing can catch it.
I e-mailed ricky stator and asked if they could make a 15 volt regulator and was told that it cannot be done .......Ahuuh, huh B/S!
any ideas?

[TNT]

Mines doing the same thing and I have not had time to figure out why yet....start at 100% one moto down to 45%. I'll read the manual do some testing I hope if I got time this weekend, you find the prob let me know and I'll do the same. I thought stator but I would think it can't run on batt power alone altho I think I remember a car I had did. Rec converts AC to DC....Something is draining the batt and I don't know what. Just got the BCS harness I may ask them before I get into all this testing.

Why did you replace the rec 2 times? Did it solve anything?

[Drilling2643]

Stator or rectifier is my guess, had a bike that wud run a good twenty min till it drained the batterey turned out to be the stator even though it tested out ok....who frickn knows anymore lol

[CANAMracerdad]

glad to hear i am not alone ....
did you notice that it has more hp w/ higher voltage?
if we go to the line weak ..... a kawasaki can beat us
15 volts and we dust the hondas and the suzuki's

[CANAMracerdad]

sorry missed the second question

both times B.U.D.S. said the rectifier was bad ... followed instructions
T

[TNT]

Did the rec fix the prob and it came back twice? But the mag checked out fine?

I guess if your loosing noticable power it can run on batt power alone and less and less is getting to the coils/step up transformers.

I'll read the book tommorrow and look at the wire diagram too tired tonight.

[TNT]

Ok I read the manual and the battery provides supplemental power and helps maintain steady power to all the electronic and electrical components on the quad, if it is not charged the quad will not run. First thing to check if the battery is not charging is the 20 amp charging fuse(under seat), if it is blown the quad runs on battery power only(interesting how that is possible to get high voltage spark out of the coils those transformers must step it up good!). The rec could be the cause of a blown fuse, if it continues to blow then check for defective wires between the fuse and rec connector. If the fuse does not blow, replace the rec and see if the batt charges. Other causes can be loose or oxidized batt post, bad solenoid connects, bad battery won’t keep charge, loose or bad engine and chassis grounds, faulty wiring or stator.

[Henriksen2001]

check the fuses near the air box. i had a charging problem and it ended up being a blown fuse.

[CANAMracerdad]

as i stated before it charges at idle and off idle. it just does not seem to charge for the 15 min of bouncing off the rev limiter during the moto.
it is charging over 14 volts above 3000 rpm

[J.Austin]

I was trail riding and about 70 miles from camp when mine quit charging. We made it back to camp by stopping to charge my battery from another atv using jumper cables. Then we could ride about 15 minutes before my battery was drained, the engine would die, and we had to stop for to recharge.

Doing this several times made it very obvious how much the amount of available electrical power affects the engine's ability to make hp. It may have something to do with the EFI, but I would guess it mostly affects the amount of spark that's able to made. I'm not sure what voltage the ignition system puts to the plugs but I know it's a lot (like any ignition is). Which means it takes a lot of current at only 14 volts to be able to make that high voltage. Keep in mind this battery is tiny and we have 2 spark plugs to ignite, so it won't run on the battery alone for very long.

Have you done any mods to your ECU? Like, has the rev limiter been changed at all? The only thing I can guess is that the stator isn't very efficient at 10k rpm and you're also making a whole lot of sparks (5,000 per minute). Maybe it just can't keep up? This could be a question for BRP themselves. Not a dealer. Have you tried calling them?

Maybe try some practice laps, but try to keep your revs down just a bit. I realize this wouldn't be a good solution for a race, but it might give you an idea if the stator is having a problem with the super high revs.

I want to also mention that if you're seeing increased performance with 15 volts on your battery, you might be able to simulate that with a dif spark plug are just a dif gap maybe. Once you have the charging issue resolved. Just an idea.

I'm not a mechanic and certainly no authority on these issues. I do know a little about electricity, but again these are just my opinions/guesses. Good luck.

-JA