Paul another rough check in case it's your ammeter that's not reading. Start the bike on tick over, turn on the headlamp and point it at the wall in a gloomy shed. Now rev it up and watch to see if it gets brighter. Or better still get your auto electrician to check it with his meter. But you won't get a charge showing anyway if you have a knackered battery. Ron
Paul, further to Ron's comments. How do you know that it's not charging ? Have you put a meter across the battery ?
With a fully charged gel battery, it's quite possible that the ammeter will not show charge. They're not all that sensitive and with no lights on, you have absolutely no current draw so the fully charged battery will not be discharging and with a decent regulator, it won't be trying to.
If the dynamo, battery and ammeter are all working as they should, then I would check the earth connection on the regulator. You cannot (hopefully) have bought two new regulators that don't work.
The reason why I mention the earth connection is that I had a piece of equipment (a Vermeer Stump Grinder) where the battery wasn't charging. I purchased a brand new regulator/rectifier fitted it, but still no charging.
I checked the alternator, lots of output. I checked the battery, it was fine.
I purchased another regulator/rectifier (from a main dealer £80.00 as opposed to a £10.00 from China), fitted it still no charge.
After perhaps a day trying to figure out what was wrong with the wiring, I found that my earth strap had somehow fallen off! I bolted a big thick wire onto the body of the regulator/rectifier and attached it to the frame (I angle ground the paint off the frame to make sure). Hey presto the system was charging again. I even put the Chinese unit back on!
In summary, I guess it must be wiring. Sorry to state the obvious too, but you have switched your voltmeter to DC when checking the charge to the battery. I only mention it as it is on my list of things not to do again!
Thanks for the further suggestions guys. The ammeter is definitely working as it shows a discharge when I switch the lights on with or without the engine running and the battery has held its charge all winter so no problem there.
I appreciate it won't show much if any charge if the battery is fully charged but it should kick in and balance the lighting load when I switch them on!
I will have to check all connections again as suggested. I've even thought of creating a temporary charging circuit as a jury rig just to confirm that the fault must be in the wiring on the bike.
Many thanks again.
Paul
I also run a DRV2 regulator for 10 years with no issues at all.
If the ammeter, the dynamo and polarity are all correct,
Did you check the inner wiring of the dynamo?
There are 2 types of connections:"Bosch" and "Lucas".
The difference is basically in the way the field coil is wired,
And it has to be done according to the regulator specs.
Please take a look at the link to see the differences.
In the "Lucas" dynamo, you have of course only one field coil,
But the connection is the same as on the link diagrams.
The only difference between the systems is-
One side of the "Field" is connected to the ground in "Lucas" wiring,
And to the "D" brush on "Bosch" system.
Hi All, Had charging problems on my B31, Turned out to be the fibre gear in the end of the mag (covered in oil and big washer worn out) ok above tickover but not charging on over 1/8 throttle, Worth having a look, Regards, John.
I have two dvr2 on Ariel and Enfield. I think there could be a problem with gel batteries and the way they draw current. When I tested with old acid battery the amps immediately went up to 4amps. It's strange, it's as if the gel battery has different characteristics and tricks the dvr2 to cut out though it's flat. I checked gel battery and charged it up with trickle charger and it was fine. But there is definitely something unusual the way they behave to the old acid battery. Maybe my gel battery is not compatible with normal regulator. Perhaps the old lead batteries have a stronger draw than gel batteries which the dvr2 could easily detect.
Do you have any electrical test equipment at all? Even a cheap China multi meter would be a big help to find the problem. Without one you it's gonna take a lot more work to fix it.
If you have a meter, I can tell you what to check.
