What Happens If?

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Could fry some wires, and possibly the ignition if it's electronic.

NEVER jump a bike with a car or truck that is RUNNING.

DON'T concern yourself with POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE grounding; jumper & battery cables are ALWAYS "Red to Positive, Black to Negative".
 
grandpaul said:
Could fry some wires, and possibly the ignition if it's electronic.

NEVER jump a bike with a car or truck that is RUNNING.

DON'T concern yourself with POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE grounding; jumper & battery cables are ALWAYS "Red to Positive, Black to Negative".
Click to expand...


How does one tell if the ignition is fried?
 
With the stock zener diode regulator, that would be stressed and possibly destroyed. With aftermarket regulators it would depend on the design if damage would be done.

DON'T concern yourself with POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE grounding; jumper & battery cables are ALWAYS "Red to Positive, Black to Negative".
Click to expand...

Umm.. the red wires on my bike are negative.
 
Maybe he means red wires are ground? They're still positive on my bike though.

Dave
69S
 
Red should always be positive.

When I re-wire bikes to negative ground, I always use black wire for the grounding wires.

I once got an old Triumph Bonneville with ALL red wires. I mean EVERY WIRE on the bike from headlight to tail light. It all worked, but I replaced the harness. Gives me the creeps to think of a fried mess of wires that are all red.
 
grandpaul said:
maylar said:
Umm.. the red wires on my bike are negative.
Click to expand...

Home wiring job?
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Negative ground conversion. There are far too many red wires in the harness to go changing them for the sake of color. Though as an EE it bothered me at first.
 
The electrons don't care, but don't make a racial thing out of it.

Dave
69S
 
Duh, if jumpers batteries hooked up red-red, black-black as any proper jump off connection, it does not matter how big and powerful the helper is as its still in same polarity and voltage as our bike are used too. I've gotten going a number of time off farmer trucks. If no jumpers but one length of wire/cable/chain to stretch from bike battery to car, then can touch metal bodies together for the + return path. Especially safe when bike battery low or dead flat or removed. Usually is easier to just grab hold of car or truck and get towed to 25-30 for roll start.
 
A running car can toast stuff on a bike with amperage produced by the car's alternator when the electron flow gets that jolt going to the dead battery on the bike.

Turn the car off.
 
steveyacht said:
What happens if someone hooks a set of jumper cables backwards on your Commando?
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I went to look at a Commando about 6 weeks ago at a bike shop. I was told this bike was "mint", certainly the price they were asking it should of been.
So I ended up staring at this "wreck". The bloke behind the counter said "don't know nothin' about em' mate". He pushed it outside for me to look at, then got his "mechanic" (yeah right!) to come & start it for me. Couldn't start it & kept muttering "bloody stupid kickstart" & "stupid gearstick on the wrong side" & similar mutterings. Decided to get a super duper booster charger & put it on the battery. He was so up himself & connected the positive to positive & the negative to earth, 'cause he knew it all. What a lot of smoke from the loom. Some good burnt wires.
Didn't buy that one.
 
I am not sure i understand this Flo. You say he put the positive clamp to the positive post of the battery, which goes to ground, and then clamped the negative clamp to ground ,somewhere on the frame, rather than the negative post on the battery? I think I see now. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.
 
pvisseriii said:
I am not sure i understand this Flo. You say he put the positive clamp to the positive post of the battery, which goes to ground, and then clamped the negative clamp to ground ,somewhere on the frame, rather than the negative post on the battery? I think I see now. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Click to expand...

Well, I think that is what he did. Whatever it was caused a lot of smoke from the wires. Looked well melted.
 
OK, there was NO SMOKE that escaped from the wiring. DId did fing the wire with online fuse pinched and not connected very well. Took that off and put in anohter in line fuse holder and fuse. Connected to Battery Tender yesterday afternoon. As of last night, the red light on the charger was still on, indicating that the battery is not fully charged. (Haven't checked it this morning yet)

If battery is shorted out, it won't take a charge, hopefully that took dht brunt of the damage. If it will not take a charge I will put a new battery in it and see if I can get it started in order to run a diagnostic on the charging system .

Any other suggestions at this time, from the much learned Gentlemen and Ladies of the Forum?

S
 
I have had 2 AGM bateries fail by losing some kind of connection on the inside. nothing to do with the Commando other than a little vibration. On my third AGM due to the fact that the shop replaced it for free. Either one was about 3 to 6 months old.
These things just go bad. Get a new one and see what happens.
What type do you have and how old is it?
 
Don't think it is the battery. What is the simplest and esiest way to check to see if the Charging system is operating properly?
 
What kind of charging system are you using? Still got the zener and Lucas rectifrier and Lucas stator and rotor? Or something new?

Dave
69S
 
The simplest test is to put a voltmeter across the battery. Start the engine. At idle you'll see 12 - 12.5 volts and as you raise the rpm that will increase to 13.5 - 14 and stay there. Turn on the headlight and repeat. It'll take higher rpm before the voltage stabilizes, but even with the stock alternator it should be before 3000.
 
Do as your level of knowledge provides, but realize if a short or bad component or backwards hook up exists even a small bike battery is enough to smoke/melt the weakest link in the system. A car or truck battery even w/o running has more than enough amps of chemical force to weld and melt a whole loom. That only way I know to prevent this is diagnosis of the fault accurately why it needs a jump, dead battery or bad component and/or a very fast test connection > if it arc's much best not do it again till ya know why. A hi rev'd good bike alternator gives like 14 v, same as a usually better regulated modern cage, both should be withing the volt x amp = wattage tolerance of a cycles wires and components. A proper size fuse inline with battery should protect the cycle in either case, but its the worse way as must be big enough to carry the max current with everything switched on, and a short along a single wire path can melt-smoke-flame before the fuse blows. My SV650 with thumb commenser and always on head light has been jumpered a number of times by a cage and nothing happened but started to run and charge dead battery or run and get a new battery.
 
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