Surging at around 3,000 rpm when running heated gear

[Fatallybitten]

Just returned from a fall trip when I used my heated jacket and gloves for the first time since the spring. The bike surged at ~3,000 rpm in any gear when I was cruising with light throttle. No surging during acceleration or cruising at higher revs. I know the heated gear is the culprit as the surging goes away when I shut off the gear. Is it possible the stator is starting to fail? Bike is a 14 ES with 65,000 kms. Any ideas?

 

[Don in Lodi]

Some folks have found loose battery connections to cause issues.

 

[Fatallybitten]

Checked the battery connections. All tight. Any other ideas?

 

[HeliMark]

Did it surge when cruising at a lower RPM or idle?

A thought is your heated gear and/or controller is bad. Chance to hook up a different one and check? Or if you are using a controller, bypass it to rule it out.

Mark

 

[Fatallybitten]

Surging happens at light throttle. Not at idle or rolling on or off the throttle. I will borrow a controller from a buddy and see if that is the culprit.

 

[EricV]

How many watts are you running at the time? Aux lights? What type of controller for the heated gear? Gloves and jacket wired together or on separate controls?

Light throttle, but what rpms?

The stator is pretty stout, but if you are drawing close to max output, you could simply be running the battery down to the point where it impacts other things.

 

[Checkswrecks]

What circuit did you wire the heated gear into for source of power?
If you used a relay, what is the power to the trigger wire coming from?
To what are you grounding the heated gear?

 

[Fatallybitten]

I have the heated gear wired through a switched circuit on an Eastern Beaver aux fuse box. The only other draw on the system at the time the surging was happening, apart from running the bike, was a Power Commander. The surging happens at around 3,000 rpm when the throttle is light and it happens in any gear. The heated gear is Gerbings jacket and gloves (hence the heated grips were off). The controller is the typical Gerbings dual controller that plugs into the pigtail from the fuse box and then into the jacket via two wires. I think the heated gear was also fluctuating in temperature, but that may have been my imagination given how low the temperature was.

 

[EricV]

The only other draw on the system at the time the surging was happening, apart from running the bike, was a Power Commander.

Riiiight. Unplug that garbage and your surging will go away.

And where is the PC getting it's power and ground? Are those shared with the heated gear thru the Fuse box?

Off topic, but what was your perceived benefit to adding the Power Commander?

 

[Dogdaze]

Riiiight. Unplug that garbage and your surging will go away.

And where is the PC getting it's power and ground? Are those shared with the heated gear thru the Fuse box?

Off topic, but what was your perceived benefit to adding the Power Commander?

^^^ ::026:: ::017::

 

[Fatallybitten]

PCV was added when I did the Arrow headers, exhaust and flash. Has been working fine for 60,000 kms and is still doing its job. It gets power through the Easter Beaver fuse box.

 

[EricV]

PCV was added when I did the Arrow headers, exhaust and flash. Has been working fine for 60,000 kms and is still doing its job. It gets power through the Easter Beaver fuse box.

Ok, I'm missing something here. You said you did a flash for the exhaust and Arrow headers. Why do you have a PCV then. The Power Commander is a poor man's joke of an add on fuel controller. If you had it flashed, it's redundant. That's the point of having the ECU flashed to work with your unique set up.

Your issue may be as simple as the pulses in the ground from the Heated gear making the PCV attempt to correct and causing the surging.

The Gerbings controller works by pulsing the ground side of the system to use less overall power while keeping you at the temp you set. Turn it up enough, and it's no longer pulsing, it's just full on. The led indicator should show that as a full on led.

 

[patrickg450]

The stator is pretty stout, but if you are drawing close to max output, you could simply be running the battery down to the point where it impacts other things.

you can kill it by overloading it, meaning the voltages drops low and causes the ECM to act up. Got to have solid clean power..........