Charging voltage varies at steady rpm and load

On my 73 850 I have an Alton with Podtronics and Tri-Spark and a small mounted digital voltmeter. Charging is good. I am at 14.2 volts 2500 rpm with no lights on. Sometime 14.2 at 2000 rpm.
But with an unchanging load over about 2000 rpm, I get an intermittent drop of about .4 to .6 volts, just for a second, then it goes back up.
I have gone over all connections in charging circuit and cleaned and tightened the female press on connectors.
Could the Podtronics be defective?

Thanks
Dennis
Vancouver

DennisMo said:

On my 73 850 I have an Alton with Podtronics and Tri-Spark and a small mounted digital voltmeter. Charging is good. I am at 14.2 volts 2500 rpm with no lights on. Sometime 14.2 at 2000 rpm.
But with an unchanging load over about 2000 rpm, I get an intermittent drop of about .4 to .6 volts, just for a second, then it goes back up.
I have gone over all connections in charging circuit and cleaned and tightened the female press on connectors.
Could the Podtronics be defective?

Thanks
Dennis
Vancouver

Click to expand...

The best a digital meter can do is to average the voltage over time as you do not have pure DC from the charging system and a motorcycle charging system is electrically noisy. Therefore, it is never telling you the precise voltage because there is no precise voltage. Also, the regulator is trying to average it all out as well and Podtronics is not very sophisticated in how it does that. That said, I see nothing out of the ordinary.

BTW, charging simply means providing current at a voltage higher than the battery voltage. If you disconnect your fully charged battery and check the voltage with the same meter, then you'll know that actual battery voltage according to the meter. You need to be at least that or a little higher at riding speeds on your meter (keeping in mind that is not accurate while the engine is running).

Are you aware of the alert on Trispark web site regarding electrical noise/spikes with some podtronic Reg/Recs? They recommend putting a capacitor in power line to their EI unit to prevent misfire events when using a podtronic.

DennisMo said:

On my 73 850 I have an Alton with Podtronics and Tri-Spark and a small mounted digital voltmeter. Charging is good. I am at 14.2 volts 2500 rpm with no lights on. Sometime 14.2 at 2000 rpm.
But with an unchanging load over about 2000 rpm, I get an intermittent drop of about .4 to .6 volts, just for a second, then it goes back up.
I have gone over all connections in charging circuit and cleaned and tightened the female press on connectors.
Could the Podtronics be defective?

Thanks
Dennis
Vancouver

Click to expand...

Forget about it.

Normal fluctuations.

Tornado said:

Are you aware of the alert on Trispark web site regarding electrical noise/spikes with some podtronic Reg/Recs? They recommend putting a capacitor in power line to their EI unit to prevent misfire events when using a podtronic.

Click to expand...

It's actually an inductor and it works with older POD-1P-HP but not the latest ones. Last I knew, it was not needed with other Podtronics models, but I no longer use Podtronics regulators so I don't know. I use the Tri-Spark MOSFET regulator which has no trouble and some advantages but is more expensive.

See: https://www.trispark.com.au/filter-for-electrical-noise-reduction

I wish this was more complete but interesting none-the-less:

Thanks!
Dennis

What's happening to the current when the volt drop occurs?

Another vote here for there is not a problem.

Maybe clean your battery terminals and check your regulator/key switch/whatever component's connectors, to make sure you aren't getting resistance from a poor connection. Really bad connections can cause pulsing which can give strong fluctuations in current.

Go back to your stator connections out of the primary . Clean up the males and females . Push back into place with a smear of dielectric grease on each . Try again the readings . Also clean up battery connections and fuse using D.E. grease as a final .