When i turn the switch normally my headlights , neutrual light and so on turns on. for å while now they havent. i have a 1991 3tb with kick start.

when i drive i have lights, but not strong, when i idle it the lights dimms.

today i had a two hour ride, and normally i should have some power on the battery then, right? but there was no lights when i turned the switch.

im going to try to measure the charging tomorrow if i get the time.

but whats your bet, the battery or the regulator/charging system? i wouldnt have driving lights if it was the regulator/charging right?

earlirer this spring i mounted heated hand grips and noticed emidiatly that the lights went according to the trottle. i might have a small battery due to the kick stand.

whitch battery is the right for this bike?

maby a messy post, but it would be nice with some pointers.

cheers

my xt600e from 2003 have around a 8-9Ah battery.

If you can, charge the batterym and put a loadtester to it. You can make a DIY with a big bulb (like a 100w or anything close to that), and hold it on the battery, and see if the voltage just drops way down below 12v.

If the battery is fine, meassure the voltage on the battery with the bike of, with the bike idling (should be a minimum of 12v) and around 2-3000rpm you should get around 14ish, both with lights on.

If its the reg/rec, its usual bad/corroded wires. The reg/rec itself holds up good, depending on which year the bike is. Mine have a reg/rec with cooling fins, almost unbreakable.

Im srruggling much to turn my thoughts into functuanally english sentences, but hope it makes sence.

Battery - definately. Regulator - maybe that too.

Your regulator is supplying the current to run the lights with the engine running. If it is not working properly it may be putting too many volts out and that may have killed your battery.

You can use Jen's suggestion but I think turning the lights on and pressing a brake lever will get you (55W + 5W + 25W) 85W anyway. The voltage on the battery should not go much below 12V.

If the regulator is OK you should get 13V - 14.4V above about 1500 rpm. Mine (43F so different electrics) put out 13.8V.

Rev it up to about 4000 rpm and it shouldn't increase any more than 1V and shouldn't go above 14.4V in any case. If the regulator is shot you will get:
1. No more volts on the battery with the engine running than without (I don't think you will find this). This will be a corroded or broken terminal as Jens says - this happened on my mates XT660E, the output (DC) terminal broke off from corrosion.
2. Lots more volts (like 18V - 24V). The regulator is recifying but not regulating. This is a quick way to boil and kill a battery.

I don't know about XTs but Hondas generally go the second way and are horrendously expensive without the replacement cost for the dead battery to include as well.

a bad fuse connection can be the fault!
I had to replace my fuse cable as it was not making enough contact as it was only hanging there by a few cores of wire...


good luck!

Vando

i have now measured the battery and charging. i mesured on the poles of the battery.

the battery is a yuasa- super mf- YTX4L-B3

whit the engine off : 3 volts

whith low rews: 10 volts

whith higher revs: 5-6 volts

so it dropps when i turn the gas roll...

from the engine off to turning the key, before starting engine it altso dropped from 3 volts to under 2 volts...

You need a new battery. Obviously...

I have seen wierd voltages like that before though. I had 3 dead cells in my battery (43F so different electrics) so it was only putting out around 6V. The regulator wouldn't provide a decent voltage with this battery, I assume because there wasn't enough resistance. So even with the engine running, it was only getting slightly more than battery current.

I would just do the battery first and see what you get. It fixed mine a treat the regulator is working properly now it is feeding the correct load.

If you have a booster pack, you could test it first. Remove the battery and connect the booster to the terminals. Like this:
http://www.bandit127.com/images/Chas...ctrics%20S.jpg

You could get the shop to double check the battery for you before you spend the money on a new one. But since you measured the battery on the poles, I am still sure that they will find it is no good.