Nice one, and I agree about the megger - I use them at work sometimes to test insulation at 500V (typically). I work offshore where high voltages and salt water are a bad combination But we''re getting off track a bit, Thanks for the advice about my 8meg with the 'normal' meter probably not stopping the starter working, Im going to rebuild and try it again and get back to you. Or its off to the starter motor shop! Thanks guys
True, the higher test voltages of a Megger will show up any insulation weakness but there is only around 12V going into it from the battery.
Electrex World sell new starters for about £100 + VAT. How much of your time are you willing to spend buggering about with this defective starter, to save £100? https://www.electrexworld.co.uk/acatalog/SM9162.html#SID=705
You're quite right Pete, it's simply that I'm doing a lot of work on the bike and it suddenly stopped working so I was interested to try to understand why, for future reference if nothing else. About the Electrex starters, do they make those themselves and do you know how they rate versus other manufacturers? The price is good though, you can pay nearly that for a used one on ebay! Cheers
About us Electrex World has been manufacturing motorcycle electrical components in the UK for over 25 years. 99% of our products are manufactured by Electrex World in the UK using state of the art equipment. Our products use high quality components and have proven to be very reliable. We are proud to be Original Equipment Manufacturers for several companies and we sell to many distributors throughout the UK as well as exporting to Europe, Canada and America.
I have a 907ie on which the starter had always been sluggish. I fitted a new set of brushes but they made no difference. Later that year the starter stopped working. I pulled if off and stripped it to find that the one of the brushes had stuck. I freed it, made sure they were both sliding freely, cleaned the commutator and put it back together. It worked for a few more months then it happened again. This time the brush on the earth side was practically welded into the brush holder. Once again I cleaned the commutator and put it back together using the original brushes, which I could see nothing wrong with. Resistance readings across the commutator segments and to the armature body checked out ok. It worked for about a week before failing with a stuck brush again. I was getting pissed off taking the starter off and on every time so bought an Electrex motor for around £100. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it turned the engine over far faster than the original one had ever done and has continued to work faultlessly for the last couple of years. I don't know what was wrong with the original starter but suspect the insulation breaking down internally causing it to short between windings and draw too much current which was why the brushes were sticking.
Think we were getting our wires crossed no pun intended. Maybe we were thinking of different things, I meant 0.00 Ohms on the meter as being a 'dead short', rather than 'OL' which many meters show when it's an open circuit.
Could you give some details on make and price ? My old and trusted Fluke got robbed a while back , so I'm painfully aware of how much a new one would cost me .... Ha ! Also , it won't be getting dragged around the world like the old Fluke did .
It's a chinese thing off ebay. Cost just under £50. I've had digital meters by Fluke, Avo and others and they have all given up sooner or later. I'll see how long this one lasts. It's handy have the scope function so that I can see what's coming from things like crank sensor or measure the width of an injector pulse.
