melting wiring! please help!

[slowsport]

ok i was riding around today and after a break i restarted my bike started to put my lid on and noticed the bike was smoking!

i taken off my panel and found it was the wiring from my generator that is melting, i do have a gsxr generator conversion but that was done almost 4 months ago with no problems until now.

please help with what could be the fix or cause? i am not an electrician so please treat me as a numphty with wiring and dont assume i have checked anything. the only thing i done to the bike had been with my front forks and didnt touch anything within the bike.

thanks in advance for any suggestions that could help

[slowsport]

hi i have done some checks and i think it is my soldered joints shorting out (done to extend wiring) as it is only that part of the wiring that is melting so will be taking a trip to maplins for new plug and redoing the wiring.

anyone know why it would have a fault now and had 4 months trouble free?

[amorti]

hi i have done some checks and i think it is my soldered joints shorting out (done to extend wiring) as it is only that part of the wiring that is melting so will be taking a trip to maplins for new plug and redoing the wiring.

anyone know why it would have a fault now and had 4 months trouble free?

If it is melting at your solder joints it could be one of two things: a) your joints were sharp and have rubbed through the insulation; or b) your joints are in some way poor, and are creating a bottleneck where current is turning into heat.

If you are not great at electricals, I would get someone who is good at soldering to have a go for you. Remember, pinch the two wires together, twist, solder, then cover well in heatshrink. Solder is nowhere near as conductive as copper wire, so you want to make sure there is as much cooper>copper contact as possible. As it is three wires, you should "stage" the joints if you can so they can't short against each other.

[Neosophist]

Could be a sign your battery is on its way out, do you keep it charged up or use it sporadically?

Test / check the battery.

Charge it up with an optimate / intelligent motorcycle charger and make sure it says a good full charge has been achieved

Leave it off the bike and check the voltage every few days, a dead battery will often discharge itself quickly over a few days.

When dead batterys cant or try to take too much charge this usually puts extra load on the wiring, the reg/rec burns the excess charge off as heat, also an increase in current through a duff joint will make it get hot.

Another more likely scenario (always test battery / charging system fully though when these problems occur as catching a fault quickly is often a lot cheaper)

is that your soldered joins have gone oxidised / crap and are making a bad connection, this requires a higher current to get through the bad joint which is why they get hot. were they cleaned / soldered properly and fully insulated?

[slowsport]

i think it was to do with the insulation and what you said as i re-soldered new wires but i heatshrinked the connections as this was not done last time and it runs like a champ again.

one question is it is running at 13.7v13.8v now, but is that normal? i can't remember but i think i was running alot closer to 14v if not more before but can't remember tbh...

thanks for the suggestions Neosophist i will bare those in mind for the future...

slowsport.

[Neosophist]

14.4v is 'ideal' but it will depend on regulator / battery and other factors.

Measure the voltage at idle and at 5000rpm.

13.8v is perfectly good for charging a battery so sounds good

[amaechizzle]

You only really want to worry about voltage's (at the battery) while it's running when they are either under 12.7 approx. or anything over 15.5.

[slowsport]

cheers for the replies guys