was on a ride yesterday when I found my tachometer acting weird and not showing the right rpm..thats were it all started...then shortly the bike started to lose power ..the lights sstartd to flicker and then ended up dead on the street with zero power ...completely dead..got the bike towed home and found out the battery was completely dead replaced the battery and back in business ...for now that is ..checked out the voltage at the battery while running ...was getting like 18 volts at the higher rpm ...and I'm guessing ..though I don't really no but that seems like way to much , and I believe this is what smoked my battery...any info is appreciated...anyone else seen such madness?

 

Sounds like you regulator is not regulating.

 

Took for a ride today with new battery...then checked voltage again at battery...and it was all over the place..high and low...shouldn't it be fairly steady with the rpm?

 

At idle it will be around 12v or so.
just off idle (~2000rpm) it will jump up go to 14.5v or so
From there is it drop to 13.8v or so as you raise the rpms to 5k.

It shouldn't be going over 15v. 18v will fry your battery. There's tons of info on here about reg/rec.

I prefer the new redesign oem ones myself. I've put at least 6 of them in various F2/F3 over the years and they have been bulletproof. The original style reg/recs were not that great. It is also possible to use yamaha/suzuki ones, but they require more work to fit. Avoid aftermarket/noname reg/recs at all costs, unless you enjoy repeatedly solving the mysteries of weird electrical activity.