I'm having a problem and trying to diagnose it and having trouble. I took my F3 for a ride the other day on the Expressway. A little over an hour into the ride I exited and was coasting up to a stoplight when my bike started powering down then stalled. I tried to restart it (checked all switches, etc.) and it wouldn't even try... no click, nothing. I'm tooshort to push start so I didn't attempt it. The lights were all still working but the battery would not attempt to turn the bike over. I trailer it back to my house, charge the battery, and voila! It starts right up! I don't want to take it for another ride because I'm afraid I'll getstranded. I looked on this site and found multiple posts similar to mine, read "F2 dying while riding/battery wont charge...anyonehad the same problem?" and gotlots of good advice.Followed a link to the CBRWorld.net forum which had a post under tutorials on "how to diagnose the charging system" and followed a link on that tutorial onto a "fault finding flow chart for motorcycle charging systems" which is at http://www.offwidth.co.uk/bike/gener...lt_finding.pdf . I followed the flow chart, didn't get very far, and it says that my charging system is perfectly OK. So, if my charging system is okay then it has to be my battery right??? How can I truly test to make sure it's my battery? I tried NAPA Auto Parts and they said the battery is fine. I tried Auto Value and they said it's not fine. If the battery is fine then it has to be the charging system, but the flowchart says that's fine. What the heck is going on????? Can anyone help???

 

Without going to far into it, I suspect that your reg is faulty, its a real common problem, the reason that your getting the ok from your dianostic is that the reg overheats, craps itself & then you start draining your battery. When your testing it, it would not have reached the overheat point, giving you the false read. The regulator in most cases, does not just die, but gradually breaks down. I've done it & everyone else with the same problem, assumes it has to be the battery, which, when you consider the cost of a new battery & reg, starts to get to be an expensive fix. So don't assume its the battery, mine was 8 years old, so I came to the same conclussion you have. Recharge it, take the bike for a decent ride (not to far mind) and then do the diagnostic, or take it to the shop, either way the reg should have reached that critical point. the shop can test your battery at the same time. I replaced mine with a heavy duty unit, which costs the same as the Original Honda, it requires a slight mod to mount it (no biggie), but it has the required BIG heat sinks that the buggers need. good luck

 

Oh , when I say shop, I mean bike shop, car place dianostic equipment is just that, car equipment. Often giving bad & false data for bikes, plus the 2nd place you went to probably wanted you to buy a new battery.

 

Thanks pacemaker! You rock! That was exactly the type of answer I was looking for! Maybe I'll take the battery to the shopon my way to class tomorrow too JUST to make sure cuz I'm not entirely sure I'm reading the multimeter correctly either... I'mcatching onto the electrical stuff but it's still prettynew to me. Thanks again!

 

I've had a similar experience with my car. Took it to autozone for a test, they said it was good...but after dicking around with it for a while i got it replaced and everything's been fine since.

Sometimes batteries go bad and it doesn't always show up on the tester. If one shop says it's good and the other says it's bad....chances are it's bad. 90% of the time the fault is with a battery that won't hold a charge instead of the charging system. They're usually pretty solid, in general.

Hope you get it worked out.