Testing Pamco with PMA and Capacitor

[MFJustin]

Blahhhh I was so close to having this build finished after getting the bike running the other night and working out a few other small issues.

Bike is an 81 with Pamco, Hughs PMA and a Sparx cap. Bike would fire up first or second kick the past few days, would idle without dying and I could tell it was charging because the brake light would brighten upon revving.

I'm still in the process of carb tuning so today after swapping some jets around I took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood, bike ran somewhat rough but I'm still getting everything dialed in. Got it home, shut it down and a few minutes later went to turn it back on and nothing, kick kick kick nothing. It was literally running 5 minutes before that so my only guess is my little rip up the street fried the Pamco or something. I followed Pete's test on how to test the Pamco by taking the pin out and putting the rotor back on and spinning it and got not spark. My question though is whether that test is only applicable if you're running a battery? Since I'm running a cap and not a battery is there another way to test for spark? I'm highly frustrated right now, thought I was on the home stretch and now this. I'm hoping that my own stupidity didn't cause this as I overlooked the advice to wire the Pamco to a battery for the first start up and just went ahead and put everything together. I assumed because it ran and I got a few small rides up the street and back before this that everything was good to go.

 

[pamcopete]

MFJustin,

Temporarily wire the PAMCO red wire and the coil hot wire to a battery that is separate from the PMA and bike wiring. Then try kick starting. This test is to separate the PMA from the PAMCO so you can see which one is working.

The test you tried spinning the rotor will only work with a battery as the PAMCO is not atomic powered and does need some voltage to work...

 

[MFJustin]

MFJustin,

Temporarily wire the PAMCO red wire and the coil hot wire to a battery that is separate from the PMA and bike wiring. Then try kick starting. This test is to separate the PMA from the PAMCO so you can see which one is working.

The test you tried spinning the rotor will only work with a battery as the PAMCO is not atomic powered and does need some voltage to work...

Thanks Pete, temporary brain fart moment I figured that the test wouldn't work without some source of power. I'll go give it a shot and report back.

 

[MFJustin]

Interesting......I have a blade type fuse panel and I swapped the yellow ignition wire to another post and moved the fuse over there as well. Bike fired up on the third kick so it looks like the Pamco is functioning after all. Guess I need to recheck all my connections just for the sake of doing so, I'm wondering how well this plastic blade fuse panel is going to hold up to vibrations now also.

Pete if you wouldn't mind at the risk of beating a dead horse, would you explain how I should check to make sure the PMA is functioning and putting out a safe output? I have a voltmeter unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how to use it.

 

[pamcopete]

Set you meter to the DC 20 volts scale and connect the positive lead to the positive terminal of the capacitor and the negative lead from the meter to the negative terminal on the capacitor before you start the engine. Start the engine and immediately observe the Voltage on the meter. Should be 14.5 Volts with the engine at 3,000 RPM. You should also have your headlight on for the test as it provides a load for the PMA which helps to stabilize the regulator. If the voltage starts to creep past 15 Volts, shut it down before it gets to 16 Volts because that would indicate that you have a problem with your regulator.

 

[MFJustin]

Gave it a shot but unfortunately I don't have enough hands to hold the prongs to the terminals while kick starting the bike. I'll give it a shot when I've got a helper around, thanks for the info Pete.

 

[pamcopete]

Gave it a shot but unfortunately I don't have enough hands to hold the prongs to the terminals while kick starting the bike. I'll give it a shot when I've got a helper around, thanks for the info Pete.

Go to Radio Shack and get a couple of Alligator clips to replace those totally useless probes that come with the meter.