Electrical testing 2

There is some overlap between part 1 and 2 but that is OK.

A multi-meter allows you to test different stuff, so it will have a lot of ‘settings’ and will have the slimmest of manuals. It will have ohms, AC and DC settings. You don’t care about AC cause all cars, motorbikes, and scooters use DC. You will have several DC settings. Since your scoot uses a 12 volt battery you will set the m/m at 12 or 20 or something like that, just as long as you set it at 12 or the next larger setting the m/m will read accurately.

On the DC setting your m/m is going to tell you whether electrons are going out of your battery, down the wiring to the taillight bulb, then back to the other side (ground) of the battery. Electrons love to run around in circles or loops, it makes them happy.

So you can take your turn signal light apart, remove the bulb, and put the m/m on the two wires there and tell whether the electrons are running around ready to light your bulb. You already know how to test the bulb with a battery and some wires.

What confuses most people is when they take apart a turn light and they can only find one wire !@^@#%@# Holy Crap. Trust me here, in that case I guarantee that the negative (-) side of your battery will have a big, black wire on it that is firmly attached to the scooter frame. You go look at your battery and I’ll wait right here.

I told ya. So attach the red lead from the m/m to the turn signal wire and the black lead onto the frame. Find a bare spot on the frame because electrons don’t like to run thru paint. Yes, there is always electrons running around in your frame and your motor every time you ride. Works just as good as wires.

Helpful Hint. Practice this stuff on working components. You won’t learn it til you do it. Reading and watching videos ain’t learning skill, it’s learning potential facts.

Electrical Testing 1

Battery chargers are nice to have. If you can find one at a garage sale buy it. The stuff inside them that does the charging almost never breaks.

A good one will have two ‘speeds’, 6 amp to really charge an empty battery, and a 2 amp “trickle”. A 2 amp trickle charge will take a long, long time to fill up an empty battery. The charging circuit on your scooter is similar to a the trickle chargers people use.

Always hook the charger to your battery BEFORE you plug the charger in, as most chargers do not have an on/off button. You should also disconnect your battery before charging it.

With some spare wires a battery makes a great testing device, especially if you’re testing things where you can see good results like your light bulbs. The cheapy ice pick style tester is a great tester cause it has a 12 volt light in it, which is about the only way to ‘see’ electrons. I can’t tell you how small an electron is, but if it was your pecker, you’d think you didn’t have one.

The cool thing about a multi-meter is that it shows you voltage readings in places where you can’t see the electrons.

Idle compare of 2 CDI’s

You do not have to use the stock CDI in order to make your scoot run well, you can use others. The video posted here I made over a year ago so that you can listen to the scoot with each in operation. You should be able to hear the difference.

The non-stock CDI has a slightly different firing point and advance curve from the stock unit, so the scoot feels and reacts a bit differently. Overall, the stock unit is “better” in my opinion. I run the stock unit. The other is a spare, and should the stock unit fail, I will be running again very quickly.

By “better” I mean more pleasing to my scooting experience. Of course, the stock unit is also better because the engine (specifically the valve train) were designed and engineered for the stock ignition timing.

So that is two different styles of better.

Be careful, as better is one of those words that each person defines in their own unique way. Many people apply a moral meaning to these slippery words, as in right & wrong. You can find that you have offended their godly and righteous view of the universe at which point they might kick your ass.

We’re Rollin’

Ok, I’ve sorta made a start at getting this thing rolling.

Up top are what are called ‘pages’. I’ll put some info up there, very general stuff.

Over on the right, as I add new posts/videos you will see a list of ‘catagories’. This is where the action will be. These catagories will keep everything organized into intelligent topics like: tuning, brakes, tires, mechanical, tools, electrical, carbs, fuel … you get the idea.

I’m setup for the first two videos, but it’s dark, and rainy, and yucky out today so …..

I thought I’d just throw this in. I do have some older clips which I will toss up here, this I kept just cause I thought it was funny.