Kiwi_Roy

The last one i bought was from MG Cycle. Currently out of stock unfortunately http://www.mgcycle.com/product_info.php?products_id=2923

Plus 1 for Speedhut I replaced both mine that way, but they are a US company may be a little harder to arrange from the UK

That is good information Hubert posted and most of it applies to your bike. Bear in mind if you have the OEM Ducati Energia regulator running a new light feed direct from the battery will rob it of about half a volt. If you tap off after the bikes existing relay you only require one extra relay in the headlight bucket. Don't tap off the Alternator in our case, the car one put's out DC

The arcing you got seems normal to me, you were attaching the missing link I'm pretty sure this will apply to your after market regulator also Look for a PM Roy

Perhaps disconnect the regulator, try another fuse (any small size) with the regulator out of circuit i.e. just the red wire alive, if it still blows fuses then it can't be the regulator probably the loom. Please mention the Ricks regulator model, I took a look at their website but it doesn't list a Guzzi For some reason I'm starting to think loose main ground may have caused this.

If you don't have the regulator grounded the full alternator Voltage will appear between the regulator case and chassis, depending on the revs this could be 60 Volts or more and it's DC which will draw a nice arc. The same amps flowing out thru the red wire and 30 Amp fuse has to get back somehow. The ground connection has more effect on charging than the positive connection. Note the waveform at the top RH side, the full output of the alternator I suspect over 30 Amps, flows each half cycle until the black wire sees ~13.8 Volts in relation to the case.

I agree with the Monkey, the Electrosport ESR-510 works well. I finally gave up on the Ducati Energia although I think it's a good design but let's face it 15 years old. The main problem as I see it is the way it senses the battery Voltage, downstream of the headlight relay. I believe it's wired that way so with the key off it draws zero current from the battery, however it's effected by Voltage drop through the headlight circuit, adding headlight relays (bypassing the headlight circuit) or extra lights also messes with the Voltage. I suspect it's this sensing point that causes most of the charging problems that occur Charging also relies on a good connection between the regulator case and the chassis, The current that flows through the red wire to the battery has to get back to the alternator. Adding a short jumper from the case to engine improves it's chances. A direct connected regulator on the other hand senses the battery Voltage through the same wires that it uses to charge the battery, it doesn't have or need a connection to the chassis. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17802&hl=electrosport The Ducati regulator when connected draws about 15 milliamps The Electrosport draws less than 0.3 milliamps

I still wait for the day when finally one of you hobby sparkies let the smoke out of the whole bike, hopefully out of his own then Hubert Hubert, If that snide remark was addressed at me let me assure you I am more than qualified to comment on things electrical.

Andy, the tach and charging rely on a feed from the headlight relay, if the headlights not on the tach wont be working. Do you have any other headlight mods, relays, extra lights and so forth?

This comment you made puzzles me "I have noticed the relays are extremely hot when this occures. and when the bike does finally fire up, I get a click from the starter relay as if it has cooled down enough to start working. Could it be the relays are getting to hot?" I have never noticed hot relays, they normally consume just over a Watt, not enough to make them over warm. Is the bike running ok before you shut down? Failure to crank, commonly known on a different forum as "Startus Interuptus" is usually caused by a bad connection or dirty ignition switch, this prevents the starter solenoid from pulling enough current to pull in. Determine if the start relay is through the switch. Pull the start relay (the front most one on mine), connect your meter between the top contact (30) and the chassis. Does point (30) turn On and Off with the switch? Note: I revised this post and sent the owner a PM

Here I zoom in to explain what's working if the pump primes as it should All that stuff to the left of the start button, the ECU the pumps primed and it's ready to start If the pump is priming it proves the ECU is powered up, now if the bike is cranked over the sensor at the front LH side should cause the ECU to power up the coils and re-start the pump. If the normal start circuit won't cause it t crank you by-pass the relay with a jumper (highlighted in blue) or give it a bump start. Your starter relay feed might be a little different from my V11 Sport, lots of guzzis power up the start relay via the ignition switch, see my next post.

Sorry, the edit function doesn't seem to be working, i can't add a second picture

You need to give us a few more your clues does it prime again if you turn the key off and back and back on again.

You have a good point Phil I have mine set at a point where it gives me good engine braking rather than have to use the brakes all the time just to slow. I have never bothered to verify what the actual speed is at.

Sorry, I missed that. I;m sure the pulses from the ECU microprocessor to the tach are just a fraction of the pulses from the toothed wheel but I have no idea what the scale factor is. How about MyECU display, that would be dead accurate I'm sure I have MyECU also with a fuel mixture meter. I have tried changing the injector timing on the fly by fudging the TPS signal. Send me a PM if interested. Roy

Another possibility is to measure the the alternator frequency and divide by 7 (14 poles, 7 pairs = 7 cycles per revolution) Another possibility is to remove the alternator cover and view the rotor under a flourescent light you should see it stand still at 3000 revs and it will alternate at 1500 revs. (3600 & 1800 where the line frequency is 60 Hz)

Just take one of the original lamps and wire it in parallel to the LED, tuck it in behind somewhere. A lamp is much better than a resistor because it starts out cold at a low value, this gives the fuel level sensor full 12 Volts so it heats up quickly but the current drops back to about 100 mA. The LED draw is insignificant compared to the incandescent. I have mine wired this way, it works great. What you really have to be careful of with the fuel sensor is not to mix it up with the electric petcock, on earlier bikes the plugs were interchangeable, later bikes have them keyed. It's ok to put 12 Volts on the sensor if it's covered with fuel but it will burn out in seconds if uncovered. How does the sensor work. It's a thermistor with a negative temperature coefficient When covered (kept cool) it just draws a few mA, not enough to light the lamp (incandescent) Once uncovered the small current causes it to warm a little, this causes the resistance to drop so the current goes up which causes it to heat up a little more and so on getting faster and faster until the resistance drops to quite a low value. the only limiting factor is the bulb. If you don't have the bulb in series (wrong plug) it will soon reach red heat before it melts. It can't cause the fuel to ignite because it's in a metal can with just a tiny slot that acts like a flame arrestor. Here you can see the old lamp covered in white heat shrink The lamp should last forever because it gets a very easy life, no sudden turn on and never to full voltage.

This is very important, when you switched batteries you may have just pulled on the wire to give it a fresh ground connection. Slow cranking is one symptom of a bad ground, soon followed by magic smoke. The best way of testing a battery is measure the Voltage while cranking, you can also measure the voltage from Negative to the chassis while cranking to check the ground connection but it's just as easy to unscrew the seat lock and look. http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18366

If you remove the back cover you should be able to grab the brass inserts with a pair of needle nose pliers (pinch them to the plastic) while you undo the Allen screws after you get them out the screws will loosen up or you gan secure the inserts from the rear. BTW, check the Oil and generator lights the same way Short the terminal of the oil pressure switch to chassis to check the oil light. Sort the White wire of the Black / White pair at the regulator to chassis to check the charge light. Both done with the key on of course

Are you sure it's the lamp, the switches are known to fail on a regular basis, short the switch terminal to ground to test the lamp. Here are some pictures, the first 4 show the assembly. There are brass inserts in the plastic which is split on mine but I am still able to take the screws out. Remove the back off the dash and pop out the lamp assembly so you can take off the clear plastic cover and filter to access the lamps. From memory I grabbed the brass insert with needle nose pliers from the rear (picture 4) while unscrewing the allen screws, they come out easy now. To remove the lamps once you get the cover off slip a little tubing over them, this allows you to grip the glass with needle nose pliers. You can also wiggle the rubber lamp holder out the back. http://s1304.photobucket.com/user/Kiwi_Roy/slideshow/Dash I highly recommend upgrading the lamps from incandescent to LEDs, they are much brighter. The lamp holder in picture 1 (from the V11 Sport) has been upgraded, at first I thought it would just be a simple replacement with type 74 lamps but the base on these short out the lamp-holder so the wires were soldered to the lamp as I show on the text page The later photos (5 - 10) I took while upgrading my V11 EV with type 194 LEDs, it's a nice winter project I JB Welded the LEDs into the plastic housing, and because there was no room for lamp-holders simply soldered the leads directly to the lamps (picture 8). The only one that's a bit special is the low fuel indicator, it needs to pass more current than the LED supplies so I just wired one of the original lamps in parallel and tucked it into the back of housing. Why not just use a resistor you may ask - incandescent lamps are a very special resistor because cold their resistance is very low so they provide near to full voltage to the thermistor type fuel sensor. I also get the oil light on dimly sometimes if it's raining, I could easily fix that by adding a bit of extra load but as it rarely rains in Vancouver I haven't bothered. The 194 lamps I used were 12V AC which was nice since I didn't have to worry about polarity. DC lamps will work also but you need some means of rectifying the signal for flashers. SuperbrightLEDs dot com is a good source of lamps if you are in Nth. America. http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/wedge-bulbs/194-led-bulb-1-led-wedge-base/197/ I used the 90 degree option. Make sure the LED colour matches the filter they are behind, unlike incandescent LEDs have a very narrow spectrum, if you use the wrong colour it won't show through the filter, in theory anyway Superbright also sell lamp-holders for the 194 but I found them too big for the space and they loose contact with the lamp if ther;s any tension on the wires.

Here's a partial diagram taken from the owners manual, I modified it a little just for clarity and to show how it really is. The first version shows the Normal path for the current returning from the starter to battery via the main ground Below that I show how the current diverts to the small regulator ground if the main ground works loose. If you look closely at the regulator on the bike you will see a small black wire going from one of the holding bolts, it goes all the way through the main loom to the battery Negative post, this is the small ground wire shown on the schematic (it bolts straight to the battery post not exactly as the schematic shows) The regulator is also grounded through being bolted to the horn bracket which in turn is bolted to the chassis. Picture 1 The wire that drops straight down from the battery on the drawing is the main ground, this on my bike ran direct from the battery post to the seat release bracket where it's sandwiched neatly between bracket and the gearbox held in place by a small Allen screw as shown. (I believe this is stock for North America) If the seat release bracket works loose over time it's possible for the main ground to break contact, now the ground path diverts to the small black wire from the regulator case to the battery. The normal starter current is about 150 Amps no problem for the main ground but too much for the small innocent looking black wire resulting in Voltage drop less current and weak cranking. Unfortunately a side effect of Voltage drop is heat, enough to cause this small wire to release it's magic smoke and a melt down in the loom if not a fire under the tank. There may be other alternate grounds which will suffer the same fate, I know of one bike where the tiny ECU ground had a similar melt down. It will only happen with a wire that's also grounded away from the battery post, accessories like heated gear are ok because they are isolated. Picture 2 If you leave the main ground where it is just make sure it's kept tight, I moved mine to an adjacent gearbox bolt where it's more secure and I can keep an eye on it. Picture 3 Here you can see the results of letting out the magic smoke as I described, this owner was fortunate the bike didn't completely self destruct. You can see the black wire insulation has completely gone and a spot on the small white wire where it burnt through BTW The ground connection from regulator to battery seems to be common to all Guzzis from 1998 to 2002. I suspect this wire was added to cure weak charging as the case to chassis joint corrodes. it doesn't do that well either, too much resistance.

I know of several bikes that have badly damaged the loom while cranking because of a bad main ground (battery negative) connection, I think this particular V11 with the ground under the seat lock is a likely candidate. If the main ground gets disconnected in some way the heavy starting current tries to find an alternate path back to battery negative. The obvious alternate path is the small black wire from the Voltage regulator case all the way through the main loom to the battery, a few seconds at starter current is all it takes to heat this enough to melt through the insulation of any wires it touches grounding them out. Other paths might be additional grounds added to headlight or accessories. The ECU also has a ground to the battery but I think it's isolated, see check below. How to avoid letting out the magic smoke Cut the black wire at the regulator and disconnect it at the battery. Connect the regulator chassis to an engine bolt with a short jumper, this will provide a better path back through the engine to the main ground, you might even notice an improvement in charging. Check for other ground paths by disconnecting the main ground wire. With the key on the bike should now appear dead, if it looks normal don't try cranking whatever you do, try to trace the wires and get back. I suggest wait a few days to see if there are points I missed before diving in

Battery or connections To eliminate the starter as a possible cause jumper from the solenoid small spade terminal to the battery Positive or the large hot terminal This should cause the solenoid to pull in as normal and start cranking. The solenoid pulls a fair bit of current so use a good size wire e.g. #16 Make contact with the spade connector first then touch the other end on Positive, that way less chance of an accidental short.

I think you run the risk of plugging the injectors, the filter is an aluminium can also under the tank.

Sorry, it won't fix itself, you need to do some testing. I suspect your bike must be wired with the solenoid through the ignition switch as per Note 1 in the sketch I posted further back. Next time it won't crank, flick the ignition switch a few times. If that doesn't fix it do the jumper trick from the large hot terminal to the spade connector, that should get it running or at the least will tell you where to look. Does the pump always prime for 2 seconds? Report back. I sent you a PM "Startus Interuptus" is a very common topic on a different Guzzi forum covering other models, my V11 Sport is wired without the solenoid going through the ignition switch so I haven't had that particular problem, sometimes the side-stand switch fails to make contact but then the pump doesn't prime either. (I know how to fix that but I quite like having the stand switch even though my other 3 Guzzis are without)