Hi guys,

You may have read my post about the dead batteries on the two stars and stripes Cannibals. Knowsalot thought that the dealer had forgotten to put the electrolyte in the batteries. Good idea, but that wasn't it. Brand new battery lasted 3 miles, and was junk. Ok, now I'm thinking this thing has a dead short somewhere. I take it to my dealer (over 1.5 hours away), they put a new battery in it, rode the **** out of it, AND CAN'T FIND ANYTHING WRONG!!! They said with a voltmeter on it, it was charging plenty. BTW they tried to charge the old battery with three miles on it, and it wouldn't pull any load, so it was definetely ruined. Anyway, I brought it home, nothing fixed but a new battery, and then it dawned on us. When we rode at night, we had no problem, but the lights were on. They always quit in the daytime. We never ran the headlights on in the daytime, because I had heard stories on here about the batteries being weak enough the way it is. I think the charging system is overcharging the batteries until they boil dry or whatever. Our vin #'s are 70 & 78, so I'm sure they have the same charging system. With the lights on, they must draw enough juice to keep the Batteries from overcharging. I rode it several hours today with the lights on without a problem. I guess I'll run with the lights on all the time now[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]They ran 14.5 volts with the lights on, over 16 with them off. Hope maybe this can help someone else too!

 

The Charging system should not charge over upper 14volt range with headlights on or off when you
raise the Engine RPM.If the voltages are correct that you gave, then your Voltage Regulator is
bad.

 

......and so the saga continues...............lol..........JIM

 

no kiddin'

 

The dealership said that if the voltage regulator was bad, it would blow the headlights. I don't know. What I do know is that the quad is still running, with no battery problems so far. I run the headlights all the time now. Hey, if it will work, that to me is better than having it sit at the dealer waiting to get fixed. How many batteries would they replace before they acknowledge that there is a problem???
Maybe they would just wait for the warranty to expire!

 

That voltage regulater is bad. I don't care what your dealer said or what machine it is on. A car, truck , plane, or bike. Optimum charging voltage is 13.5, at times it's a bit higher but 13.5 is optimum.

You will loose your charging system soon. When the lights draw down the voltage this means you are maxximizing your stators abillity. The head lights will blow soon don't worry. Tell your dealer to stick to turning wrenches and call some one for chit he doesn't know.

The regulator is alrite because it's not blowing the head lights out.........jeeeeezus, the poeple that are working on these state of the art machines realy blow my mind.

Take it from me, 6 years of electrical engineering college, I may not know how to spell but after 21 years in the oil field as a electrical engineer I think I know a tad bit more than a $10 hour idiot trying to go to lunch and get you out of his face.

 

I'm not trying to dispute your knowledge Gaff, sounds like you have plenty of it. However, there is a note in one of technical bulletins released by Cannondale that states it should be charging at 13.5-14.5 volts @ 3000rpm. It also states that at idle, you are actually discharging your battery. The stator obviously needs a few revs to do it's job.

 

However, 16volts is bad.. at any throttle

The lights wont blow when they are off, now that they are on he is measuring the proper voltage.. so I dont think they will blow... you can wait for that but I wont. I also wouldnt run with the lights on just becuase he doesnt feel like fixing the problem. I would have them replace another battery and just say you had the lights on the entire time.

 

Nrath,

If cannondale says the voltage should be at 13.5 to 14.5 you have just found a kink in thier armor. What this tells me is the stator is under rated and by upping the voltage you reduce the current, amprage if you will. The stator is rated by the amprage.

on all machines using a charging system the idle speed is the lowest the voltage is. A voltage regulator is there so when you do start adding rpm's to the machine it insures the voltage does not climb above the rating of the battery or the electronics it powers. The problem with electronics is it self destructs under low voltage conditions, wich a battery will act as a cushin from this happening. The problem with stators and regulators is at the lower rpm they are actually getting the juice sucked out of them giving them a high failure rate , But once again the battery is there to have the reserve juice.. Sense a battery is inline and the weakest link to this hole set up, it is actually failing quickly.

Now that I just typed out what is sorting threw my mind, I would suggest cannondale to get this corrected quickly. The easiest way in my mind is to get the battery voltage to never raise above 14v and add a larger or second battery to surpress this action.

Hmmmm.....sorry about this rambling. I do not have a answer for you all, just hope laying what I was thinking out for yall may spur a inquiring mind to either come up with a salution or maybe getting cannondale to take quick note before the public turns on them.

Well either way guys, I am very envious of you all to have such nice machines. Keep up this infomation sharing, it's your best allie.

 

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