Electrical - Battery Draining when Switch On

[OakBehringer]

Left my ignition on overnight, battery was dead the next day. Pretty sure I've made this mistake before and it was fine (luckily the coil/pamco was fine!). So, considering the lights were off, I tried to figure out what drained the battery. Looks like it was the stator. Charged the battery and did the following:

Disconnect 6-wire stator connection. Battery full charged. Put a voltmeter on battery. Turn the ignition switch on (do not start bike). Voltage remains constant. Connect stator. Immediately lose a half volt from battery, another 1/10 (or maybe that was 1/100, can't read my writing) of a volt per second.

I realize the battery is used to excite the spark, but should the battery be draining when it's connected to the stator, key is ON, bike is not running?

Stator Resistances:

5.6 ohms between slip ring
0.7 ohms between each of the white wires
Infinite resistance from stator housing to each white wire
No resistance from wire connector to brushes

My "tare" is .3 ohms, i.e. what my meter reads when I touch the leads together. So I guess that should be subtracted from my numbers.

This normal? I'm going to go through Gary's " Expanded charging system guide" tonight, but I have these numbers with me at work, so I figured I'd post and ask.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[gggGary]

Yes the charging system will kill the battery key on. It is kinda stupid and doesn't know the engine isn't running so it energizes the rotor to create the magnetic field that will cause a charging current in the stator. Technically it's the ROTOR that is the draw, the STATOR is isolated from the battery by the diodes in the regulator. I think over time the stator will draw down the battery even with the rotor disconnected, diodes are not perfect switches and have a small reverse current flow.
Now get back to work damn it!

 

[OakBehringer]

Rotor Shmotor!

That's what I figured, thanks!