gaz Posted October 19, 2008 Report Share Posted October 19, 2008 After about 2 hours riding today, I tried to start my bike (2008 250 rev3) & it wouldn't start. I checked for a spark at the plug and there was nothing. I tried a new plug and still nothing. I checked the engine kill switch with a multimeter and this operated ok, "making" and "breaking" fine. I checked all the connections and they seemed secure. Im not sure where to go looking now. How can i test the ignition module? Should I check anything on the ignition coil behind the flywheel? any advice is helpful guys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mad4it Posted October 19, 2008 Report Share Posted October 19, 2008 If you look back into old posts there is plenty about this in there enough to write a book about! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benj Posted October 19, 2008 Report Share Posted October 19, 2008 (edited) to be more helpful i'd check that its clean and dry behind the flywheel cover, and that the electrical connections around the headstock area are secure and dry, i'd definately link out the stop button as i've had contactors at work that wont carry a current even when a multimeter claim it should, also check the spark plug cap is not loose. check the woodruff key hasn't sheared as thats what happened to mine but mine did occasionally spark, failing all its likely to be the stator but i dont know the best way to test it, Edited October 19, 2008 by benj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkletoes Posted October 20, 2008 Report Share Posted October 20, 2008 oh dear. i'd say get a new stator sent and try it if you ve tried all the more obvious stuff already, which it would seem you have. it will almost certainly solve the problem. i had the same problem after the bike had ran for a similar amount of time. there was very little (basically no) moisture in the flywheel case but the stator had died. lampkins were very helpful as you would expect. you will need a flywheel puller ( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaz Posted October 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2008 well i spoke to lampkins. they were really helpful. they also suggested that it was possibly that stator & sent one as a warranty replacement. now after fitting, the bike fired up!!! yeeha!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fkrisztian Posted October 27, 2008 Report Share Posted October 27, 2008 well i spoke to lampkins. they were really helpful. they also suggested that it was possibly that stator & sent one as a warranty replacement. now after fitting, the bike fired up!!!yeeha!!! It's absolutely ridiciolous. When will Beta solve this whole stator problem? I can't believe that even the 2008 bikes have stator problems. Probably around 2015 they will realise that they should do something about this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted October 27, 2008 Report Share Posted October 27, 2008 It's really important to fix the wiring by moving the ground reference from the steering stem to the chassis. I firmly believe that will stop the majority of blown ignitions. The time to do it is before the bike suffers a failure. http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
copemech Posted October 30, 2008 Report Share Posted October 30, 2008 (edited) It's really important to fix the wiring by moving the ground reference from the steering stem to the chassis. I firmly believe that will stop the majority of blown ignitions. The time to do it is before the bike suffers a failure.http://www.newenglandtrials.org/Beta_wiring.pdf Dan has some interisting theory there, which may be true! As I am not quite sure which component it is that fails normally on the Beta later ignitions, I was wondering if you have been able to confirm anything with a tester such as Steve, I believe at UK Motoplat , As he seem to find fixes for all these things, he may be able to provide confirmation on your theory or add additional info? Edited October 30, 2008 by copemech Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaz Posted October 31, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 It's really important to fix the wiring by moving the ground reference from the steering stem to the chassis. I firmly believe that will stop the majority of blown ignitions. I also bought a yam style kill switch and used the ground point behind the cdi, after agreeing with dan that the fork yolk was not suitable. Its hard to believe that something so simple is not picked up by the manufacturers. And even something that is as simple as 2 stroke wiring circuit is dogged with problems. I was suprised that when fitting the new stator coil that the engine case obstructed the plastic gland from the coil, so it struggled running under the plate. therefore putting stress on the joints. Even the engine kill switches are dubious. dont they test everything when designing a new model???? or is it just me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 (edited) Yeah after years of Baldrige awards and "Six Sigma" quality control BS some have finally started to realize that the best quality control is the guy on the assembly line who knows what he's doing putting it together the way he knows it should be done. Unfortunately so little has been done to capture that knowledge because it didn't come from an MBA that the idea of craftsmanship in a mass production environment has all but been abandoned. Hence the nostalgic feeling of finding some 50 year old piece of kit that still works perfectly while your fancy new whatever breaks 10 meters from the store. Edited October 31, 2008 by Dan Williams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
copemech Posted November 1, 2008 Report Share Posted November 1, 2008 Yeah after years of Baldrige awards and "Six Sigma" quality control BS some have finally started to realize that the best quality control is the guy on the assembly line who knows what he's doing putting it together the way he knows it should be done. Unfortunately so little has been done to capture that knowledge because it didn't come from an MBA that the idea of craftsmanship in a mass production environment has all but been abandoned.Hence the nostalgic feeling of finding some 50 year old piece of kit that still works perfectly while your fancy new whatever breaks 10 meters from the store. Oh I agree totally, Dan, you need ammunition! You see, in the case of the Beta, if it were proved that stray voltages were knocking out the triggers or such, it would go a long way to support your theory. If it is just solid state failures of the windings in the coils, well ? Poor coils or insulation! Takes an overall sampling of the failures to evaluate such, difficult to do in this environment, sure you can agree there. Long story made short, these things can be a major frustration! As well as isolating the problems from the (boxes) on most! Cheers, MC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan williams Posted November 1, 2008 Report Share Posted November 1, 2008 (edited) Just wiring the kill switch ground through the steering head bearing violates bike wiring 101. When I started building bikes long ago as a kid (only way I could afford a bike) I read time and time again that you don't do that. Adding the lighting circuit ground to the same lug is just insanity. The diode in the kill switch circuit on later bikes proved that Beta suspected something similar. Unfortunately changing the lighting circuit to ac negates the diode fix. I doubt it's the coil insulation. That's a technology that's been proven for 150 years and a coil simply doesn't fail unless you pump too much current into it or feed it a voltage that breaks down the insulating goo which has to be in the megavolts or you mechanically damage it. The semiconductors is another matter though and all of the modern ones are much more prone to damage then their predecessors. The reason for this is the shinking of feature geometry. This is done for three reasons. Smaller transistors switch faster (hence your 3GHz pentiums), they use less power and they can make many more parts per wafer bringing the manufacturing cost down. This is true even for power semiconductors as used in the ignition system so they are a lot less tolerant of reverse voltage/over voltage conditions then a semiconductor of the '70s & '80s. I can see two probable failure mechanisms. It's not a stretch to theorize damage to the semiconductors in the CDI system from the primary voltage of the ignition system. If you've ever been tickled by the kill switch on a wet day you know there's a lot more then 12V running through that puppy. Likewise it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that an 85 watt rated lighting system with a 12V output is capable of considerable amperage. Possibly enough to burn out the primary coil of the ignition system. The starting current for the fan alone with the radiator face down on the bench was on the order of 6.5 amps. This explains what I believe to be the two most common failure mechanisms one stator coil and one CDI box. Mixing those two systems together on one ground lug is just plain crazy. I've loved every one of my Betas and I love the '08 but the exploration into the stock wiring was an eye opener to be sure. There are Beta faithful that are mad at me for bringing this up but it's such a simple fix for such a drastic problem that I can't understand why every local Beta dealer and rider isn't pulling their buddy's aside and saying, "Pssst... let's take a look at your wiring for a minute. I'm just going to snip this kill switch ground wire, move it down here and reconnect it under the coil." That's been pretty much normal procedure in the US and certainly here in the northeast and I haven't seen an ignition failure yet. Then again we don't need lights here so it may be serendipity that the fix is just part of good grounding procedure. If I had a full schematic of the CDI internals I could tell you with a pretty high degree of certainty what component failed. Then again I'm a product engineer at a semiconductor company so I've spent 25 years probing and debugging ICs. I doubt Beta (or any other manufacturer has anyone on staff who has that kind of experiance. I'm sure they've been back to their supplier umteen times demanding an answer why their product is failing and the ignition manufacturer has hooked it up proper and been unable to find a failure. That reminds me of a story I heard years ago... The A-10 Warthog tank killer aircraft had been in service for a number of years and was suffering a high rate of engine bearing failures. The US Air Force was beating on the engine supplier GE Lynn for an explaination. GE took several of the A-10 engines and beat the hell out of them running at 120% power for days on end and doing all kinds of abusive things and the engines just would not die. Finally producing a 6" report on the testing and results which needless to say didn't satisfy the Air Force one bit. As one of the GE engineers was leaving the A-10 base he looked up to see an A-10 doing a slow roll. Ding! The light went on! The A-10 uses a modified commercial engine that was never intended for inverted flight. The bearings were lubricated with a half bearing cup type of deal. When the aircraft was inverted for more then a few seconds the oil drained out of the bearing and damaged the bearing. The fix was a retrofit to an enclosed bearing and the engine failures stopped. I used to live in Lynn and could hear the GE plant when they were testing. Call me a motor head but I loved the sound. Then again I lived a few miles away. Edited November 1, 2008 by Dan Williams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ham2 Posted November 1, 2008 Report Share Posted November 1, 2008 The A-10 Warthog tank killer aircraft had been in service for a number of years and was suffering a high rate of engine bearing failures. The US Air Force was beating on the engine supplier GE Lynn for an explaination. GE took several of the A-10 engines and beat the hell out of them running at 120% power for days on end and doing all kinds of abusive things and the engines just would not die. Finally producing a 6" report on the testing and results which needless to say didn't satisfy the Air Force one bit. As one of the GE engineers was leaving the A-10 base he looked up to see an A-10 doing a slow roll. Ding! The light went on! The A-10 uses a modified commercial engine that was never intended for inverted flight. The bearings were lubricated with a half bearing cup type of deal. When the aircraft was inverted for more then a few seconds the oil drained out of the bearing and damaged the bearing. The fix was a retrofit to an enclosed bearing and the engine failures stopped.I used to live in Lynn and could hear the GE plant when they were testing. Call me a motor head but I loved the sound. Then again I lived a few miles away. Aww,c'mon Dan, you don't seriously think that General Electric didn't understand the exact,original criteria for the tf34 in the 'Hog'? If you like the A10 I can recommend Warthog By William L. Smallwood as a good read. Wayne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
copemech Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Dan has said a lot there, Agree, Agree, Agree, Basically, confirms my theory that modern electronics are crap! Yet they still keep pushing for more! Just in your average car, I can tell you horror stories! On a daily basis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaz Posted November 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 what a topic!!! everydays a school day!!! just askin about my beta electrics and now iv been schooled in the A-10's engine design flaws!!!! brilliant bit of info for the pub!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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