Re: A Quick Question

On 11 Jun, 17:02, Mark Olson <ols...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
TomO wrote:
I finally had to replace the battery in my '84 Venture Royale and wound
up with a small problem. This bike has a sensor that was plugged directly
into the battery by removing one of the caps and replacing it with this
sensor. The lead also has a 680 ohm resistor in series with the wire
before heading off to the instrument panel.

The new battery that I found is a 'sealed' battery and doesn't have any
removable caps. I tried for a little bit to open one of the holes, but
was unsuccessful. I guess I was worried about making too much of a mess
out of my new battery.

Without this sensor installed, I have a battery warning lamp lit on the
cluster, but charge voltage appears normal ( as viewed on the instrument
cluster volt meter ).

The question is whether or not this sensor has anything to do with the
regulator, or is it only there for the idiot lamp on the panel? Should I
try to drill a hole in my new battery to insert the sensor?

I did try grounding and also connecting the sensor tip to +12v, but the
idiot lamp glared on in both of those cases.

My 1982 GPz550 had the exact same sensor. The only purpose of the sensor
is to indicate a low electrolyte level via the warning light. It has
nothing to do with the function of the regulator. There's really no way
to make it do anything useful if you have a sealed battery. The sensor
is looking for a voltage somewhere between battery + voltage and ground,
you could experiement with a potentiometer to see what voltage the warning
light likes, or you could just put a piece of black tape over the light...

Yes. What he said. I've had several air-cooled Kawasakis that used
this system. Don't try drilling a hole in your battery - if you want
the sensor to work as it should, buy a non-sealed battery and plug it
in.
.

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