Good day everyone!
I have a questions, and I've narrowed it down to three culprits but I'de like a second opinion.

Anyways, at idle, my lights tend to pulse/surge.
As in, they increase and decrease in brightness. Usually in relation to the rpms.
However, on my way up ~3k RPMs, my lights get bright increasing to those rpms, then decrease and stay at consistent level the rest of the rpm range.
Horn does the same thing with pitch as lights do with brightness.
And blinkers tend to get finiky too.

It also tends to die on me while moving when I pull the clutch in to disengage it. I have to keep the RPMs up above idle to keep it from dying usually, but that's also on an engine not completely warmed up.

Lastly, it doesn't seem to hold a charge.
That could just be the battery. It a cheap 10 dollar Bikemaster battery from the Previous Owner.
But it doesn't seem to want to charge at all!
When I first recieved it, a month or two ago, it would charge and hold it for about a day. Now it won't even do that.

Most likely I'm guessing it's the Regulator Rectifier.
Then next in line I'm guessing battery (or a combination of both).
Lastly, and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this one, it could be the stator. Hopefully not though.

Although, it would be something entirely different.
I'll have access to an OHMs meeter this weekend, so I'll be able to test voltage and pinpoint it a little more.

But before I do, anyone else have any suggestions or ideas?
Am I on the right track here?
I'm riding a '98 F3.

-Brian

 

Most likely I'm guessing it's the Regulator Rectifier.
Check the battery first, then the reg/rec. Battteries are cheaper


Then next in line I'm guessing battery (or a combination of both).

Yup !


Lastly, and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this one, it could be the stator. Hopefully not though.

I hope not too, unless you've been riding for some time with a dodgy battery and it has affected your reg/rec it's not likely to be the stator..

The pulse in your lights is due to the reg/rec doing its job - above 3000 revs is when the bike develops most of the voltage you need, so the lights will remain constant above that.................

In summary I think you just have a shagged out battery.

Hope this helps.

 

one way to test this would be to take 2 wires and extend them from your battery terminals to your wind sheild. then strap a digital multimeter somewhere by your handle bars and connect the leads to the wires coming off your battery turn the multimeter to dc voltage and take it for a ride, if it doesnt stay above 13.5 v then its prob the stator or R/R. if it does stay above that then shut your bike off and start it and see what the voltage does, if it immediately drops to below 12 vs then its the battery

 

I second the volt meter idea. But also check connections, bikes vibrate a lot and things can get loose...

 

Thanks for the help everyone!
I also read the sticky about your bike's charging system.
Learned a lot in that post and I can't believe I didn't see that earlier or in any of my searches!
I learned that a bike's charging system is very different then that of a car's.
Though both essentially operate the same way, a car can have it's battery unplugged once started and still run.
A bike, however, at idle draws energy from the battery.
The full charging system doesn't kick in until about 3k-4k RPMs.
That explains why my electronics are finiky at low idle, and it also explains why everything becomes consistent with energy flow around 3k-4k.

I'm taking my batt today to have it load tested.
Also have everything dismantled.
I'm checking connections and tagging everything with contact lube to decrease resistance.

I'll keep the thread updated!
Thanks again,
-Brian