Hey guys,

First time posting but have been reading the forums for a while now. Bike won't charge the battery when running. Here is what I've tried so far:

(1) Battery tests "good" when hooked up to a battery computer machine.

(2) I have checked the continuity of the yellow wires going to the stator (all good), and am reading 0.3 ohms resistance in those same wires. For those reasons, I am ruling out the stator.

(3) PDM/Controller was next, so i bought a new one (most expensive polaris regulator/controller on the market, lucky me). plugged it in last night and still reading 12.5-ish V at the battery when running and when revving the engine.

At this point I am going to go over all of the battery connections again with a wire brush to make sure it's not one of those "duh" issues. Other than that, I'm at a loss. Going to take it into the shop in a week when there is an opening, but would like to try and fix it myself if possible (especially after beating my head against the wall for the past week or two).

Any ideas on where to look next? Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

I'd sure check the battery to engine ground and also the engine to frame ground cable on the top motor mount.Possible you got a freak bad module,but not likely. The manual does have some checks on the pdm module,but don't know if it's enough that you could track it down.If you don't have one.2007 Polaris Sportsman X2 500 EFI Service Manual PDF Download

 

Thanks for the reply OPT. Double checked the starter/engine ground, the engine/frame ground, and the battery/frame ground. All solid. I did notice that when I connected the negative terminal to the frame, there was a little spark. Everything is off on the bike, so I would assume that nothing should be drawing current and no sparks in that situation. Does that negative lead to the ground sparking mean that there is a short somewhere, and the system is drawing current when it shouldn't be?

Maybe I will not rule out that stator after all...either that or I might have a bad wire somewhere.

To check for current draw when it's just sitting I'll take the multimeter and connect it between the positive terminal on the battery and the red wire coming from the solenoid. Should read zero when nothing is on, right?

 

Here's a good article on checking for parasitic drains.https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/arti...itic-load.html

 

wanted to close this thread in case anyone reads this. Even though all of the resistance values checked out in spec from the stator, that was the culprit. After changing the stator it was back to normal. luckily on this atv the stator was pretty easy to access and swap out.

 

Resistance tests are usually fairly accurate and the first step the manuals show,but the ac voltage tests on the second step are the most accurate way to check out a stators charging coils.Glad that the stator solved the problem.If you ever have a problem with that high dollar ecm control module,there is a place that rebuilds them for about 1/3 of the price of a new one.https://modulemaster.com/rebuilds/sh...bution-module/