About a month and a half ago I replaced the battery on my 2003 F4i. It had died on me and the shop tested the battery and told me it wasn't any good. Now a month and a half later the bike again didnt want to start. I threw a charger on it and the battery was down to about 8 volts. After a brief charge the bike fired right up. I'm not to farmiliar with the electronics on the bike so i was wondering where/ what to test?

Thanks

 

Test the charging system. It should be 13.5v to 14.5v at 5k rpm or its not charging the battery.

 

I've heard that they're several components to the charging system (Stator, voltage regulator ect). Are there individual components of the system that could be bad or is it basically one whole piece that would have to be replaced?

 

Test it first. If its failing, then you can search to one of thousands of testing threads or we can get into that next.

 

So I tested the battery today in varying scenarios.
Test 1- ignition off 12.5 volts (seems to be holding it's charge)
Test 2- ignition on 12.5 volts
Test 3- started bike, now sitting below 12 volts.

Usually a blip of the throttle will increase the brightness of the main headlight but when I rev the engine i'm not seeing any change.

So next I think I need to check the voltage regulator...
Any tips on it's location and how to go about testing it?

Thanks

 

After your test 3, test 4 should have been to test the charging system.

Test 4- rev the engine to 5k rpms and hold it constant. The voltage on the battery should now read between 13.5-14.5v. If below these values, test 5 would be to look into your stator. If above these values, test 5 should be to looking into your voltage regulator.

Keep us posted..

 

Test the continuity on the yellow stator wires. There should be continuity to each other but not to ground. If it tests good, replace the r/r. If it's bad, replace the r/r and stator.

The r/r is mounted to the rear frame, under the tail fairing.
The stator is under the left engine side cover.

 

Alright so now I'm thoroughly confused...
I decided to take the bike on a ride today so that I could keep it at high RPM's (above 5k) and see if it would charge the battery. I went ~ 35 miles and in that time I stopped twice on the way home and had to restart the bike. After all that my battery read 12 volts when the bike was back home and turned off. I also noticed that the headlight was growing slightly brighter when I would rev the bike at a stop (but only some times). The bike seems to have plenty of battery life so my next thought it is that I may have a loose connection? To make certain that my multimeter was accurate I decided to throw the charger on the bike and it immediately jumped to 4 volts...obviously needed a charge. So im wondering now what could be loose and causing the bike to act like this? My next step is to take 74Demon's advice and test the continuity to the yellow stator wires.

 

Did you take a voltage reading at 5k rpms? They don't charge at idle.

 

Evening mate. I wonder if your origonal battery fail has echos of your latest issue. I`m having a similar pain to you. It would not suprise me if what was a small issue with your charging system was soon highlighted when you applied a decent voltage to the system when you put a new fully charged battery on your bike. Take demons advice. Split the plug between the stator and the r/r. (3 yellows) Test both sides of the plug. Look for the male end to NOT match the female end. This will tell you which side is kaput. Before all this, as has been said earlier in this post, test the battery with the engine running. Should be well above 12v. Best of luck mate.