Originally Posted by
fabiodriven
The charging system is different from the lighting system on the DR. I've had nothing but problems with mine. That's one point on the side of the SX vs the DR. On the SX, you have one charging system that charges the battery and then all the lights and accessories run off of that. With the DR the setup is inferior IMO. There is a lighting coil on the engine that runs the lights while the engine is running. I don't know how much power it puts out, but the factory lights suck. There is also another charging system (I think) that is dedicated to charging the battery. Either that, or the power is divided somehow. As you can tell electrical isn't my strong point sometimes.
In my case, I wasn't getting any power to my lights. At this point I had just gotten the machine and didn't know about the weird charging system yet. I had 12+ volts at the battery so I had no idea why my lights weren't working after chasing wires and checking connections and switches. It didn't make sense to me. What I ended up doing was running a wire with a toggle switch directly to the battery for the headlight. It worked, problem solved. Or so I thought. After running it for a bit the battery started to get lazy on startups. The bike had just been gone through and the battery was brand new. After a couple days (we were at Trikefest) I was back to pull starting. I didn't feel like messing with it while we were gone but I looked at it when we got home. I found a broken wire under the seat near an inline fuse or something. Looked like a common place for them to break to me. I fixed it and it started charging again like it was, but it still wasn't charging enough. The light would draw more than the system was putting back into the battery. That's when I finally figured out about the lighting coil and (I think) another charging system. As you can tell, I didn't investigate it too far. I was planning on it but then I passed it off to my brother who owns a bike shop. It's in his hands now.
My solution for the bogus lights on the DR are going to be LED's. They draw nothing and are crazy bright.
It could be set up like the street legal Honda 70's from the 1970s. The headlight runs off AC voltage and only comes on with the engine running. The rest of the lights are DC and come and when you turn the key on, and run off the battery. No idea why they are like this but they are. One charging system but the power to the the headlight does not go through the rectifier and is on its own dedicated circuit, everything else is rectified to DC and shares the same wiring as the battery.
08 Outlaw 525s
07 CRF70
04 Harley FLHRCI
04 TRX90
03 XR650R
03 400EX- XR650R engine
02 XR100R
01 Banshee
00 XR50R
00 XR70R
99 PW50
99 JR50
96,95 Sportsman 400
95 Xplorer 400
94 Indy XLT
87 Trail Boss
86,86,86,86,86 Scrambler
86 TRX70 x2
85 ATC350X
85,84 ATC250R
85 Red Tecate
85 LT50 x2
84 XR500R
84,84,84,84,83,82,80,79 ATC70
82,79 XL500R
83 ALT50
79,78,77,77,76 XT/TT500
76,75,74 XL70
72,71,71,71 SL70
72 Harley FX
72,71,70,70,70,70,70 CT70H
72 SL100
70,69 Z50
Reply With Quote
