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I found my Stelvio has a fully displayed voltmeter which is how I know the voltage issues. Not sure why ya'll are adding voltmeters except for the fact that it goes away sometimes when the cluster is affected by low voltage and it is easier to see other functions employing a separate voltmeter.
Can't you just monitor the charging volt display on the dash?
Yes you can monitor any voltage meter already on the bike or an auxiliary meter from a radar detector or a stand alone gauge attached to the bike. The problem is constantly paying attention to the readout. A red light that comes on gets your attention immediately and then allows you to direct your attention to the voltmeter to see how much life is left in your battery. Also, having this warning allows you to toggle your readouts to other information that you may desire without having to constantly monitor your voltage read out.
My first thought when I re-read the thread ....My dash will display the system voltage all the time on my '09 (I assume from somewhere near the battery but I don't know where it picks it up).It's simple for me - if it's not displaying 13.8 volts when I'm going down the road, something is wrong ....? What does a separate voltmeter do for me that this doesn't already do? If I'm not really needing some other information like mileage, I just leave the display on "voltmeter" ....Lannis Mine is displaying 13.4 is that telling me something is wrong?
Mine is displaying 13.4 is that telling me something is wrong?
Turn off accessories and aux lights and rev it or run it highway speeds and see what voltage is showing.
Without knowing more details, I think you are probably just fine as long as the bike does keep the voltage up to those levels when you are running some of the auxiliaries. If the voltage tends to drop significantly below those levels then you may have a problem with the battery pulling too much of a load to charge but I wouldn't jump to that conclusion yet. Just ride it and watch the voltmeter for a while and see what happens. If you have a problem it'll show upNote PYoungs comments about the stock batteries and the problems that have occurred with them. I changed mine out to a MotoBatt AGM about 2 years ago.
The alternator on the NTX cranks out loads of electrons....as long as that alternator is getting excited. If you lose the exciter you lose all charge and suddenly are running off the battery alone. This can happen in an instant. You are happily rolling along hour after hour and really putting on the miles. All indications are rosy and that little voltage readout has been steady for so long that you really don't pay much attention to it, and why would you after all these happy hours? Then you notice that the instruments are not reading correctly, the bike starts to stumble and maybe the headlights go out. In a finstant you are stuck on the side of the road with a dead bike. Leafman60 can tell this tale better than I can since it happened to him. All it takes is to blow that 30A fuze.As for the voltage, anything below 14V and much above 13V is OK, in my humble opinion. On the NTX there is so much reserve power output that I can't see how you can run enough electrical stuff to make a difference as long as the alternator is excited and the engine is running. The voltage regulator will sense the load and take care of the problem. What we are talking about is not excessive load on the system but, rather, a lack of generated electricity.