ARGH! Blown Headlight fuse and...

[TDunc]

I had a blown headlight fuse.

The first time I ever had this it was simply the wire that goes to the passing lights that got pinched. Soooo, I pulled the fairing to trace it down and did not find anything.

 

(I did other stuff while I was in there checking for shorts. I am a normal low voltage electronics guy so I am a little familiar with tracing for shorts to ground.... or so I thought. Back to the story)

 

Anyway, put it all back together and had the headlight back. ????:confused24:

 

 

I shut it off, went inside, cleaned up, ate some lunch and came back out to go for a ride. Guess what, no head light. :mad:

 

I take everything back apart and start my tracing. Beginning at the fuse box. Short to ground on both sides of the fuse blades with fuse removed..... what... how can that be...Anyway, focus on the red/yel leaving the fuse box and disconnect all locations that can be disconnected and I finally end up at the back tail light connections... pull everything apart checking to ground with every step. and i get to the tail light. With bulb removed I noticed that I also had a ground on the Yellow that goes to the relay, pull the relay and relay good. Back to :confused24:.

 

Someone that still has some sense about them lead me in a direction. I am open to suggestions including rolling it back in the garage and trying again tomorrow..

 

In the meantime I am going to sit here and root for SOUTH CAROLINA in this afternoon's game.

 

NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY FOR TODAY:

Went back out and looked some more. Never found what was causing it. Put it all back together checking the light with every move. Got it all back together, shook bike, kicked bike, banged handlebars back and forth, worked every switch I could think of, ran the bike on the stand for 5 mins. Went back through the routine. Light stayed on. Dropped it off the stand and did the same routine. Got helmet, went down driveway and reflection of headlight in reflection of car across the street.

Somewhere on my three mile ride around the big block the fuse blew again.

Rolled it in the garage, closed the door, picked up laptop, stopped by garage fridge for a few cold drinks and came inside. Looks like no riding again.

 

Anybody with any clues on what to check next?

Edited June 8, 2013 by TDunc
since - sense --- dang brain

[Seaking]

Might be a long shot but I had perhaps a similar issue when I first got my used RSV.. turned out to be the wire bundle at the neck was dipping down into the steering stops which acted like a guilliotine, cutting the wires enough to expose the bare wires through the insolation covering and shorting out the headlight circuit every time it made contact with the steering stops on the left side. Once found, all I needed to do was fix the wiring and relocate the bundle out of the way, and problem solved.

[TDunc]

Yep that was the original problem the first time it happened. I since have put a small bungee that pulls that back up and also have it in a plastic wire wrap sleeve.

 

That was about a year ago.

 

Thanks for the try though, that was the first thing I looked at when it happened again.

[TDunc]

Here is what I did this morning.

 

Opened up the seat, unpluged the plug to the tail light.

This caused the short to only show up on the R/Y at the fuse blades. When I plugged back in the plug, it showed up on the hot side of the blade too.

I removed the tail light bulb, short was on the yellow leaving the bulb plug. If this is so Why would it blow the fuse, it seems like it would melt something first seeing as how it is before the fuse!!

 

For some reason, this is really kicking my electronics minded rear end. I am either over thinking this or just down right stupid. Somebody please turn on the light in the refrigerator for me!

 

Even the schematic is easy (or so I thought) I am now really scratching my head. I keep thinking I will go out into the garage and it will hit me like a 2X4 and really make me feel stupid...ok I already do. So on with stupidity and turn on the light!

[frankd]

At last year's international rally, I helped somebody with a 2nd gen with the same problem. I imagine you're referring to the fuse in the left side fuse box....We found that the entire lighting system is on this one fuse. That means that if the short is in the front of the bike you will also measure it on the lights in the rear. Also, the resistance of the cold (unlit) lamp filaments is very low, so if you're using an ohmeter, it will measure a very low resistance normally.

 

If you do have some electrical knowledge, there are a couple of things you can do to find this quicker. First, I'd replace the fuse with a headlight. You could use the one from your bike, or one from a car...it doesn't matter. Connect one side of the headlight to the hot side of the fuse holder, and one side to the protected side. The headlight will limit the current available, and also give you an indication that current is flowing by lighting up. If you have access to a DC clamp on ammeter, you can just follow the current (3-4amps) to the short. If not, all is not lost. You can just start disconnecting lights until the headlight gets dimmer. This will be your short.

 

On the bike I helped, the problem was the driving light wiring in the light itself. The hot wire going into the light itself was chaffed and intermittently shorting to ground. If nothing else, unplug (or shut off it there is a switch) your driving lights. I know that if I had a 2nd gen, I'd add a 2nd fuse just for the driving lights. I'd make it just barely big enough. I think that the driving lights use a 35 watt lamp. 35W + 35W=70W,

70W/13V=5.4A (Power=E x I or I=P/E). I'd use a 10A fuse maximum. If you can find something between 5 and 10 amps, I'd use that, but that may not be big enough and blow when the current rushes into the cold lamp filaments. That way, when the wiring in the driving lights grounds, you will only lose the driving lights, not the headlight and tail light. BTW, if the driving lights use 55W lamps, you can do the math for these.

[Power Trippin]

If you have checked all wiring and it all looks good, I'd be looking at the fuse block itself. I know they seem solid, but being an automotive tech, I have seen many fuse blocks that look good on the outside, but test bad. Sometimes they don't even test bad, but either there is a bulletin that said to replace them and/or tech assist recommends to replace them, problem gone after that.

[Flyinfool]

If you are measuring a short to ground on both sides of the fuse and there is no smoke coming out of anything or the main fuse blown. Then their may be something wrong with your meter or how you are using it.

[TDunc]

FrankD. Yep that would do it. Like I said I had that issue before and have made the necessary mods to that to insure the chaffed wire would not be an issue again and that was the first thing I checked.

 

Flyinfool.... PM sent.

Edited June 10, 2013 by TDunc

[frankd]

Seeing that it's not your driving lights, you could connect a headlight across the fuse (I lead to each side of the fuse terminals, and then if you used a different headlight for the fuse, disconnect your bike's headlight. Disconnect (or pull the fuse for them) the driiving lights. Then turn the key on and start moving things around. Without your headlight and driving lights drawing power, the headlight should not be very bright, unless the line is shorted somewhere. When you get to the location of the fault, the headlight will get bright when the fault is present, and when you move the wiring and temporarily cure the fault, the headlight will get dim again. If the headlight is dim, you should be able to see your tailights and parking lights glow.

[TDunc]

It never ceases to amaze me how when you walk away from a problem you have been working on for a while things (like stupidity and lack of brain cells) come back to bite you in the rear and jump right out at you like a freight train on steroids.

 

I opened back up the fairing today after setting up my meter again. This time I had both my triplett and my fluke with me to make sure I was getting what I was supposed to get.

Now, having done low voltage troubleshooting for a living, I am from the old school (Triplett D'arsonval style - needle ) I do have a brand new fluke digital that I have been using for a while. Now having said that, on my triplett, I know what that smallest of swings can mean....The fluke, as fast as it is, I just figured those quickly but ever so small changing numbers can just mean that I did not have the ground on as good BUT! When you are looking for the difference between about 3 ohms and a true short, D'arsonval can not be beat.

This time I remembered that the true value of what I was looking for was a small difference, with all that I have on that circuit, I should read about 3 ohms, give me about 4 amps on the circuit. So I set up the Triplett and went to work. About 10 mins later had BOTH places that was giving me a problem found, corrected and tested.

One was one of the soft plugs used for the passing lights had apparently been nibbled on by a small critter on the back where I had it tie wrapped to the post (metal) and that was the first one. The other was on the wire buss that goes down to the light bar. The plastic wire wrap that I used to protect the wires actually rubbed a raw place in one of the signal wires and the ground.. letting them touch when I turned. I did shave off the sharp edge and made it a little shorter so as not to bind with everything buttoned up.

After alot of head scratching with the digital meter I am still a big advocate of the Needle..

Now, I hope that is the only thing cause I want to ride today.

 

Moral of the story. OLD THINGS RULE!

Stop, Think Think again and slow down if you are using a tool you that is new to you.

Trust your instincts the FIRST time and act on them.

Last but not least..... 3 Ohms is alot!

[dacheedah]

sweet, keeping it simple and walk away when frustration sets in. Glad you figured it out, I had pinched wires for my turn signals inside a loom and I ended up unhooking and relocating the entire bundle and repairing.

[frankd]

That's why I use my Simpson 260 for quite a bit of what I do. I've got several digitals also, and for a lot of things they are great, but for some things you just need a regular old VOM!

 

Glad you found your problems.

 

Frank

[XV1100SE]

...The plastic wire wrap that I used to protect the wires actually rubbed a raw place in one of the signal wires and the ground..

 

Glad you finally found your problem.

 

On the wire/tie wrap... I work in networking and we got away from using tie wraps. They do "cut" into the cables. We only use velcro ties in our network closets now. If you open my fairing you'll see velcro ties. I also used velcro to fasten my passing light relay to the inside fairing piece.

[Flyinfool]

Most people over tighten plastic ties.

Over tightening will cut wires.

[TDunc]

Wire wrap not wire ties. The split plastic tubing for wire protection. The length I used was too long and when everything was buttoned up it put the wires in a bind where they exited the tube.

 

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