drain on battery

i have a 71 commando. starts and runs fine when i have charged the battery. pretty much drains flat in a night on two. i am not an electrical guy. any basis areas i should check for where this short or open circuit is. places or contacts to clean, etc.

also can i go to a batteryless system. doe they work and which is best?
thanks in advance...

kevin said:

i have a 71 commando. starts and runs fine when i have charged the battery. pretty much drains flat in a night on two. i am not an electrical guy. any basis areas i should check for where this short or open circuit is. places or contacts to clean, etc.

also can i go to a batteryless system. doe they work and which is best?
thanks in advance...

Click to expand...

Do you know that the battery is good?

battery does check out ok.

If you can use an ammeter, you can troubleshoot yourself. Put it in the proper range and put the ammeter in series with the battery, if you can read any current flow when the bike is not running with all the switches off, there is something wrong. Start disconnecting things until the current draw falls to zero and you will have found the faulty circuit, further disconnecting may be necessary to find the faulty component, but I'm sure you get the picture. If this makes no sense at all to you, ask a friend who knows a bit (or more) about electrical circuits, he should be able to help.

Jean

A 12v bulb, such as a tailight bulb, in place of the fuse will work instead of a meter. Disconnect until the light goes out. Now you've found the offending item.

A 12 volt bulb needs too much current to light up and give a visual indication, but that is a good idea, just substitute an LED which needs only milli amps to give a visual indication. Of course, it will only light up if the current flows in the right direction so using a two color LED which lights up when current flows in either direction would be a good substitute for a bulb.

Jean