Today I noticed an odd "fast flash" in the turnsignals on my '01 SV650S.
It happened under engine braking while slowing on a freeway exit. At the
end of the ramp, the lights returned to normal cadence. A few minutes
later I checked again at a gas station, when the revs went over about 5K
the signals roughly doubled in flash rate and returned to normal when
engine speed dropped below that. Left and right seemed the same, but I
didn't check very systematically. No dead bulbs, and they appeared to be
about the right brightness.

Alas, I didn't have a voltmeter with me.

A few minutes later (at home) I put a voltmeter on the bike and got a little over 14 V, which seemed good, at idle. Turned on the flashers, worked as
usual. Voltage dropped a little, also as usual. Revved the engine, voltage dropped very slightly, also normal. No fast flash.

Anybody ever seen this? Google (actually, duckduckgo) turned up a flood
of hits, but practically all implicate dead bulbs or bad wiring, neither
of which is evident.

Thanks for reading, and any ideas!

bob prohaska

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bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

Today I noticed an odd "fast flash" in the turnsignals on my '01 SV650S.
It happened under engine braking while slowing on a freeway exit. At the
end of the ramp, the lights returned to normal cadence. A few minutes
later I checked again at a gas station, when the revs went over about 5K
the signals roughly doubled in flash rate and returned to normal when
engine speed dropped below that. Left and right seemed the same, but I
didn't check very systematically. No dead bulbs, and they appeared to be about the right brightness.

Alas, I didn't have a voltmeter with me.

A few minutes later (at home) I put a voltmeter on the bike and got a little over 14 V, which seemed good, at idle. Turned on the flashers, worked as usual. Voltage dropped a little, also as usual. Revved the engine, voltage dropped very slightly, also normal. No fast flash.

Anybody ever seen this? Google (actually, duckduckgo) turned up a flood
of hits, but practically all implicate dead bulbs or bad wiring, neither
of which is evident.

Thanks for reading, and any ideas!

bob prohaska

I assume everything is stock.

So you were able to reproduce the problem while you were stopped at
the gas station, but not once you got home and put the meter on it?

Typical shyness effect...

I guess I would be looking to see if the problem can be reproduced
again. If you can reliably produce the symptoms only under certain
conditions, then try to measure the battery voltage (or voltage at
the flasher relay) under those conditions.

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Mark Olson <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:

bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

Today I noticed an odd "fast flash" in the turnsignals on my '01 SV650S.
It happened under engine braking while slowing on a freeway exit. At the
end of the ramp, the lights returned to normal cadence. A few minutes
later I checked again at a gas station, when the revs went over about 5K
the signals roughly doubled in flash rate and returned to normal when
engine speed dropped below that. Left and right seemed the same, but I
didn't check very systematically. No dead bulbs, and they appeared to be
about the right brightness.

Alas, I didn't have a voltmeter with me.

A few minutes later (at home) I put a voltmeter on the bike and got a little >> over 14 V, which seemed good, at idle. Turned on the flashers, worked as
usual. Voltage dropped a little, also as usual. Revved the engine, voltage >> dropped very slightly, also normal. No fast flash.

Anybody ever seen this? Google (actually, duckduckgo) turned up a flood
of hits, but practically all implicate dead bulbs or bad wiring, neither
of which is evident.

Thanks for reading, and any ideas!

bob prohaska

I assume everything is stock.

Turn signals, yes, all stock. Battery is Shorai LiPo4, about a year old.
RR is stock, but with an added cooling fan.

So you were able to reproduce the problem while you were stopped at
the gas station, but not once you got home and put the meter on it?

Yes.

Typical shyness effect...

I'd suspect heat before modesty....8-)

I guess I would be looking to see if the problem can be reproduced
again. If you can reliably produce the symptoms only under certain conditions, then try to measure the battery voltage (or voltage at
the flasher relay) under those conditions.

The essence of my question is whether charging voltage can cause "fast flash" problems. Could be either high or low, but prime suspect is high. At the
times I've measured it, the charging voltage seems to begin around 13.5
right after starting and gradually climbs to about 14.2 or .3 . At first
glance those seem like good numbers.

Under those conditions the resting voltage of the battery right before a
ride was about 13.3 volts. Lately, the resting voltage has been a little
bit higher, maybe 13.4 volts, and right now it's 13.6 after 24 hours.

I agree, catching the culprit in the act would be ideal. In the meantime,
it would be helpful to know which trees are worth barking up.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

The essence of my question is whether charging voltage can cause "fast flash" problems. Could be either high or low, but prime suspect is high. At the times I've measured it, the charging voltage seems to begin around 13.5
right after starting and gradually climbs to about 14.2 or .3 . At first glance those seem like good numbers.

Those numbers are within the normal range for a Lithium-Iron battery,
AFAIK.

While Googling, I did encounter some people saying that a defective
flasher relay caused fast flashing. I suppose it could be heat related,
and not caused by high system voltage.

It's a common enough relay, a Denso P/N FE249JR, if I am not mistaken.
Suzuki P/N 38610-03F00. Aftermarket copies are under $20 on ebay.

So, I'm probably not being a lot of help here, but if it was my bike,
I would primarily be interested in knowing if my voltage regulator
was overcharging the battery. Replacing the flasher relay might stop
the fast flashing symptom, but would obviously not affect charging
voltage, which is a more concerning possible problem.

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Mark Olson <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:

So, I'm probably not being a lot of help here, but if it was my bike,
I would primarily be interested in knowing if my voltage regulator
was overcharging the battery. Replacing the flasher relay might stop
the fast flashing symptom, but would obviously not affect charging
voltage, which is a more concerning possible problem.

Indeed, overcharge is far more destructive than faulty signals. Thus my interest in whether it might be the source of the fast flashing. A couple
of years ago I suspected undercharging, but on inspection couldn't find
anthing wrong with the RR and ended up just cleaning the connections and
adding a cooling fan.

At one time I had a handy little charging voltage monitor from Radio Shack.
It used a series of LEDs to indicate voltage at steps of 12.5, 13.5, 14.5
and over 15 volts, but it seems to have gone missing from the toolkit. Most likely it was hooked up and forgotten, then fell off during a ride. The only replacement found so far is a similar Dorman unit, but it tops out at 14
volts, too low to distinguish "good" from "overcharge".

I may have to tape a DVM to the gas tank for a while.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

I may have to tape a DVM to the gas tank for a while.

That reminds me...

I designed an Arduino based time-averaging voltmeter to monitor battery
voltage on the KLR650 when using my electrically heated gear. The
problem is that the KLR has a barely adequate charging system at the
best of times, and the period of the PWM heat controller is about 1
Hz. When the controller turns the output on, the battery voltage is
lower than what is needed to charge the battery, because the alternator
can't supply enough current to power the bike and the heated gear 100%
of the time. Hooking up a normal "fast" DVM gives you a reading that
is changing too fast to make a useful estimate of the average.

But the average current draw is OK for the bike's wimpy alternator if
you have the jacket liner and gloves powered at some fraction of their
total draw, which is accomplished by keeping the duty cycle under some
max safe value (75-80%?). My solution was to take continuous samples
and stuff the reading into a circular buffer, then take the average
of all the readings and display that. This works well to give a true
average (or at least a good enough proxy) for the battery voltage
over time.

I did my design using the Arduino LCD screen, but never got around to
packaging the whole thing. Like a lot of projects, once I demonstrated
the concept I lost interest in bringing it all the way to a real implementation. In other words it's more fun to ride than play with
the soldering iron.

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Mark Olson <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:

bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

I may have to tape a DVM to the gas tank for a while.

That reminds me...

[snip]

Hooking up a normal "fast" DVM gives you a reading that
is changing too fast to make a useful estimate of the average.

That's a good point, which is part of why I favor analog LED bargraph voltmeters for charging monitors. They're no match for the datalogger
you describe below, but are simple and cheap. Here's a schmatic of one
I've used for years on my VFR800: http://hogmountain.asuscomm.com/schematics/VOLTALRT.PDF
Overlap of the LED's on-stage gives five discrete levels, and eyes are
not bad at doing, well, "eyeball averages" 8-)

I bought one years ago and it's still on my VFR, and still useful.

But the average current draw is OK for the bike's wimpy alternator if
you have the jacket liner and gloves powered at some fraction of their
total draw, which is accomplished by keeping the duty cycle under some
max safe value (75-80%?). My solution was to take continuous samples
and stuff the reading into a circular buffer, then take the average
of all the readings and display that. This works well to give a true
average (or at least a good enough proxy) for the battery voltage
over time.

I did my design using the Arduino LCD screen, but never got around to packaging the whole thing. Like a lot of projects, once I demonstrated
the concept I lost interest in bringing it all the way to a real implementation. In other words it's more fun to ride than play with
the soldering iron.

One thing that has always amazed me is how much work goes into packaging
an electronic circuit. It's less interesting than actually making the
initial idea work and far more tedious.

As it happens I may have found a usable LED bargraph voltmeter: https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-and-specialty-tools/alternator-and-battery-tester/oem-battery-tester/544731_0_0

It's bulkier than the voltalert, but the packaging is all done! I'll get to find out how well it works tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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On Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 9:25:10 AM UTC-7, Mark Olson wrote:

bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

I heard there's some kind of non-digital technology called "analog" ?
Something involving a moving needle I think.

I designed an Arduino based time-averaging voltmeter to monitor battery voltage on the KLR650 when using my electrically heated gear. The
problem is that the KLR has a barely adequate charging system at the
best of times, and the period of the PWM heat controller is about 1
Hz. When the controller turns the output on, the battery voltage is
lower than what is needed to charge the battery, because the alternator
can't supply enough current to power the bike and the heated gear 100%
of the time. Hooking up a normal "fast" DVM gives you a reading that
is changing too fast to make a useful estimate of the average.

But the average current draw is OK for the bike's wimpy alternator if
you have the jacket liner and gloves powered at some fraction of their
total draw, which is accomplished by keeping the duty cycle under some
max safe value (75-80%?). My solution was to take continuous samples
and stuff the reading into a circular buffer, then take the average
of all the readings and display that. This works well to give a true
average (or at least a good enough proxy) for the battery voltage
over time.

I did my design using the Arduino LCD screen, but never got around to packaging the whole thing. Like a lot of projects, once I demonstrated
the concept I lost interest in bringing it all the way to a real implementation. In other words it's more fun to ride than play with
the soldering iron.

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Rob Kleinschmidt <Rkleinsch1216128@aol.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, May 23, 2018 at 9:25:10 AM UTC-7, Mark Olson wrote:

bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

I heard there's some kind of non-digital technology called "analog" ? Something involving a moving needle I think.

You're preaching to the converted, friend. I had known for a very
long time that analog meters are far superior for indicating trends
and letting our brains pick out all sorts of other info from the
movement of the needle.

Fluke tries to do this with a bargraph display on their meters, but
nothing works as well as a true analog indicator.

I suppose I could have strapped my good old Radio Shack multimeter
on the bike.

https://i.imgur.com/EtqGLoN.jpg

But I had another reason for using the Arduino, I also figured it
would be useful for displaying lots of other info, by adding sensors
and a couple of pushbuttons. Mostly for the play value, really.

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Mark Olson <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote in news:fmnjosFn107U1 @mid.individual.net:

https://i.imgur.com/EtqGLoN.jpg

WOW its been a looong time since I have seen one of those meters. Mine died years ago. the leads were pretty flimsy and fussy about contact. KB

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Mark Olson <olsonm@tiny.invalid> wrote:

I suppose I could have strapped my good old Radio Shack multimeter
on the bike.

https://i.imgur.com/EtqGLoN.jpg

D'Arsonval meters have one drawback: They can't show transients lasting
less than a big chunk of a second, unless one can stare closely to look
for needle quiver. An analog LED bargraph easily displays brief excursions
as isolated flashes, much easier to notice if one is distracted by the necessities of riding.

I've been much surprised at how erratic the regulation tends to be on
my VFR and have become suspicious that RR malfunctions are presaged by increases in transient voltage excursions. That's why I'd much rather
use an LED bargraph to monitor the regulator on the SV.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

As it happens I may have found a usable LED bargraph voltmeter: https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-and-specialty-tools/alternator-and-battery-tester/oem-battery-tester/544731_0_0

The LED voltmeter from AutoZone seems to work decently, espcially for
$13 altogether. Probably not a bad idea to stash one on each vehicle.

The voltage numbers are a little off (14.5 is 14.4, 13.2 is 13.0)
but the scheme (steady light at voltage, sort-of-proportional flicker
between voltages) seems to work decently. Running current is ~10 mA,
so prolonged connection isn't a huge disturbance. It is kinda hard to
see outdoors, but a hand provides enough shade.

The turnsignals again did their "fast flash" routine, again when the
revs were raised, but this time weren't consistent, going from normal
to fast as the revs came up, then missing flashes and slowing down at
times. Voltages looked reasonable at all times, so that's some relief.

About an hour's running was required to cause the rapid flashing. Air
temp was in the low 60's, I'll repeat the experiment when it gets warmer.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

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