Z1OwnersClub GB

Hi, my bike which I have owned for 22 years is playing up, I think. It leaked oil from the Ginny case over my boot so I decided it needed a new rubber bung and a loon from z-power.

I had to use my own connectors as the supplied ones are too small for the wire.

Anyway, I suspect it’s not charging as it flattened the battery as I left it idling to heat up and cure the silicon I used on the gennybwires.

So at idle it’s 11.8v across the battery moving to 12.3v at elevated revs.

Checking the Genny I get .8ohm across each pair of the three wires from the genny and infinite resistance when testing each genny wire to earth.

So all appears well except the the system pulls the voltage of the batter down at idle. Being an import it has lights on.

Am I mistaken as I expect 14v at 5000rpm and don’t get that.

you should have between 0.56-0.84 ohm's between each of the generator wires charging voltage should be between 13.5 - 14.8 across the battery

Gonk_123 wrote:Hi, my bike which I have owned for 22 years is playing up, I think. It leaked oil from the Ginny case over my boot so I decided it needed a new rubber bung and a loon from z-power.

I had to use my own connectors as the supplied ones are too small for the wire.

Anyway, I suspect it’s not charging as it flattened the battery as I left it idling to heat up and cure the silicon I used on the gennybwires.

So at idle it’s 11.8v across the battery moving to 12.3v at elevated revs.

Checking the Genny I get .8ohm across each pair of the three wires from the genny and infinite resistance when testing each genny wire to earth.

So all appears well except the the system pulls the voltage of the batter down at idle. Being an import it has lights on.

Am I mistaken as I expect 14v at 5000rpm and don’t get that.

Sounds like your stators OK -Rotors normally never an issue -Guessing as it's a Z1000a you have a solid state combined Regulator/Rectifier ...after first checking all your plug connections etc on your charging system are clean snug & sound ....' including a good clean snugged up earth' , well then " if you a mate around with another Z1000a " maybe try borrowing his reg/rect first & plug it in & put your multimeter across the battery terminals & that will then give you the final direction to head off on. Cheers Johny . B

Thanks. Rotor is a modern replacement as is the reg/rect unit. All was well until I had an oil leak and was forced to strip the stator out of the casing and wire in a new loom.

I have checked what I can and all seems ok. I don’t get above 12.4 volts at 5000rpm. So reg/rect is working otherwise it would be much higher. I have put the battery on charge overnight to top it up.

One strange thing is the horn refused to work, just emitting a tiny beep as if the battery was dead but the engine started on the electric start. Lights were on but it also seemed stuck on high beam at first and but now the high beam flickers when started even though the switch is on low beam. Loom is new btw (when I first rebuilt the bike 4000m ago)

I am usually pretty good with electrics but this is a mystery at the moment.

Temptation is to fit a new stator. Are the ones from wemoto any good or do I wait for electrix to make some more.

Leaving the bike on idle for a length of time especially with the current draw of the headlight will flatten the battery.
The original genny doesn't really kick out any significant amount until approaching 2000 rpm and idle is around 1k.
The 11.8 volt at idle is due to this and the headlight dragging it down.( you should be just over 12v without the headlight ).
As for the other electrical niggles that seem to have surfaced, it is likely that this is a coincidental earth fault or short especially with the high beam flicker when switch on low.
12.4v at 5k rpm is not enough and should be around 13.8 volts above 2k rpm so there is a possibility you have trapped a wire somewhere which may be shorting to earth or a fault on your new alt connections.
You need to check the 3 phases from the alt first before blindly replacing winding and rotors.
The output from each yellow wire should be around 50 volts AC by around 4k rpm.

I replaced my generator with an Electrex model and it spits out about 14v from idle all the way through the rev range......proper charger voltage from tickover.

Thanks, I wasn’t going to change without understanding the problem. I am surprised it cannot idle without pulling the battery down as I haven’t noticed this before. It makes sense looking at what my tests tell me.

I guess I will take it for a ride and see how we go.

If a new stator is appreciably better then I may do this next winter when I do it’s yearly strip, maintain and clean.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated

Electrex do a combined regulator/rectifier that is very good and reliable. Well worth upgrading the two together. Money well spent.
The good thing about the Electrex generator is that the wires are very long and therefore you do not need to terminate the connections in the hideous oil bath as standard. Another failure point eradicated.

I'm with Rob on this one.
Despite you fitting a new generator windings set, I'd still test for the correct AC output between each set of yellow wires.
50 - 75V AC across each pair of wires. It's a simple test that will take minutes to do, at least then you can eliminate that.
Regards Will

Big Fluff wrote:I'm with Rob on this one.
Despite you fitting a new generator windings set, I'd still test for the correct AC output between each set of yellow wires.
50 - 75V AC across each pair of wires. It's a simple test that will take minutes to do, at least then you can eliminate that.
Regards Will

+ 1

Hi

I know this is an old post, but I had the exact same issue with my bike, so thought I would share my experiences.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=48289

Basically my headlight seems to be causing the low voltage readings at the battery. It's a US import and the headlight is on all of the time, removing the headlight fuse resulted in normal voltage readings at the battery.

Cheers

Glen

Gonk_123 wrote:I decided it needed a new rubber bung and a loon from z-power.

Don't let Phil hear you calling him a loon!