Electricakl conundrum

[Liamo]

Sorry folks, this is a long one ... ifg you're good with electrics, pleaase take the time to read this.

I bought a 2004 ZZR 1200 last September, and one of the things the previous owner told me about it was that for some reason, if you DIDNT turn the alarm on when you parked the bike, it would drain the battery completely flat in 3 days. He had recently put a new battery into the bike and had kept it on an optimate when not being used since then.

Not long after getting the bike, while camping at the Ring, I noticed the lights wernt working one day. I had left the alarm off the previous night FWIW, but didn’t think much of it at the time. A brisk spin later that day and the lights were grand again.

When I got back from holidays, I noticed that the lights usually wouldn’t work when I turned the ignition on, but whenever I came back from a spin of 20 miles or more, they seemed to be fine. Then I left the alarm off for about 4 days on the trot, and again drained the battery. After that, no amount of charging the battery by optimate or by riding the bike would get the lights on.

I spent 2 days with a mechanic friend trying to figure out why the lights weren’t coming on. We discovered a few things. There’s a relay on the lighting circuit that seems to only trip when there is plenty of juice in the battery. We guessed this was to stop the lights sapping power when you are starting the bike. We also ruled out any fault with the circuit, the relay, the switch, the bulbs, the loom, fuse etc. When we connected the Relay straight to the battery, the lights came on no problem, but when the power was being sent through the loom, there was just enough of a drop in power to stop the relay completing the lighting, or so we figured. We deduced this late at night, and left the battery charging off one of those big booster pack thingy’s over night. The next day, we turned the ignition on and presto, we had lights. Surly its not possible that all the bike needed was a good charge?

Anywho, I am an idiot who AGAIN left the alarm off, this time for 4 or 5 days, although a decent charge later and the was plenty of life in the battery to start it, we were back to having no lights. At this point, I decided that the alarm was probably the source of all my problems, and that it had to go. I invested in a new battery, and put it into the bike to see what happened. As expected, there was no lights, no action. So, it was time to chop that bastard of an alarm out. Alarm chopped out, battery reconnected, lights working. It had been that cheap poxy alarm all along, I knew it. Job jobbed, Fuckin’ A.

For about 2 days.

Yesterday, I noticed that again, my lights are on strike.

So, my question is; WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON????

Very confused and frustrated of Dublin

[Liamo]

When you have no lights is the starter slower than normal when turning the engine over?

No it never seemed to be slower, or struggling or anything.

[lorenzo]

Agree with Mille, the relay would certainly be my first port of call, and I'm about 99% certain that'd be it. It could be something completely unrelated like a dicky lighting switch, but the chances are pretty slim to say the least. Apart from the relay, a bulb, the switch, some wires with an earthing tag somewhere and the battery, there's not a huge amount that could go wrong. Of those bits, you've swapped the battery, you know the bulb works, I assume the wiring's not chaffed up or anything, so it doesn't leave too many options.

[Liamo]

Mmkay, we did test the relay last time and deemed it to be fine, but thats isnt to say its still fine now.

Is there any good reason why cant just rip out the relay and avoid having this problem again?

[lorenzo]

Relays are pains in the ass. They are essentially little tiddly switches that have one circuit to switch on and off another circuit. These contacts often get a bit burnt, which in turn means that they don't close properly, which causes a bit of arcing inside, which causes more burning etc. The relay's there to A: make things like this happen and confuse you, B: keep the high and low current bits apart. What I mean is, you'll have a low current going through your handlebar switch, when you switch that on, you make the relay trip which switches your lights on, which draw a much higher current through a seperate circuit to the switch. If you were to do away with the relay and do a bit of a rewire then you'd have high current going through the switch, meaning either an uprated chunkier switch or your normal one melts. Not good. The relay bit also means you could perhaps have a higher wattage bulb in your lights that you would do on a bike that was wired up through the switch, which is probably the reason on a ZZR, they've probably got pretty hefty lights, yes?

If you were really clever, what you'd do is get the code for your relay, get one that fits in its place but is of a higher rating, meaning you could go to whatever limit is placed on your lighting circuit by your wiring, or just have one knowing that it'd never ever burn out.

[Liamo]

The relay bit also means you could perhaps have a higher wattage bulb in your lights that you would do on a bike that was wired up through the switch, which is probably the reason on a ZZR, they've probably got pretty hefty lights, yes?

Yup

If you were really clever, what you'd do is get the code for your relay, get one that fits in its place but is of a higher rating, meaning you could go to whatever limit is placed on your lighting circuit by your wiring, or just have one knowing that it'd never ever burn out.

Good thinking L! I'll do just that. A spot of Wikipedia earlier uncovered some relay info, thats when i found out that they can be used to seperate hi and low voltage circuits.

Thanks a mil boys!

[gregtrx]

first thing would be to tear the cunting alarm out and jump up and down on it. If it drains the battery when it's off then it's wired wrong and will leave you stranded in a zombie infested bog.

[Liamo]

first thing would be to tear the cunting alarm out and jump up and down on it. If it drains the battery when it's off then it's wired wrong

I went out to the garage and took this photo just for you ... sorry its shit, you get the idea though.

and will leave you stranded in a zombie infested bog.

I'm not up around Fermanagh that often

[Liamo]

Hang on!

It's not a relay that's switched by the switchgear - the lights are on permenantly

Not on my one dude, conventional 3 position switch on handlebars ....

[lorenzo]

Just stick another relay of the same type in and see what happens with the fault.

Probably best from a fault finding stance, certainly.

If you've a bike with loads of relays on it, then have a look to see if any of them are in other bits too; often 1 type of relay will be used in a couple of applications, so if you suspect one's iffy, you might be able to swap it with another for fault finding purposes. I've not had a bike with a lot of relays on it for some time, but this is certainly the case on many cars.

[gregtrx]

I went out to the garage and took this photo just for you ... sorry its shit, you get the idea though.

I'm not up around Fermanagh that often

[Liamo]

Thanks for the advice dudes, I've ordered 2 new headlight relays (one Hi, one Low, even though they're both identical*) from the good people at Cradley Kawasaki. On a related note, I rang the Kawasaki importers for Ireland (Bikeworld) where I have got one or two consumables from in the past, and when I mentioned the part I wanted he basically refused to lift a finger without the chassis number, and went on a rant about having to get the part in from Kawasaki, it taking 10 days, and them needing a deposit. Em, no thanks.

A quick call to the Cradley boys, I told them the year, model and part I wanted, and in less than a minute they had all the details on screen. Plus, they had my details on record already so it was simples as can be. And I'd be pretty confident that I'll have them alot sooner than 10 days.

*I know I could probably just swap the 2 relays that are in there to see if anything changes, but I want to have 2 brand new ones in my hand before I go ripping the bastard apart.

[Liamo]

New relays, same problem.

[Liamo]

I ordered 2 just so I could swap both, just for peace of mind.

I just found a bust wire hidden under a little cable clamp and that fixed the problem. Can you fucking believe it? 100+ euro on parts etc to try and sort the problem, and it turns out to be a dodgely rejoined wire that had frayed and broken. It was a wire that had been repaired before, i'm not sure why, or even what the wire does, I just hapened across it when I was testing the 3rd headlight relay (control relay) thats hdden under the tank.

Ah well, at least I've two spare relays. And a spare batery.

[Liamo]

Oh and thanks for all of your help lads, especially mille and lorenzo. Cheers dudes