"park" key position?

[yackee]

This weekend I accidentally took the key out of my T3 at what I assume is the "park" position (all the way to the left). When I went to start the bike 40 hours later the battery was totally drained. Anyway, no big deal, charged her back up and all seems to be well. But what I can't figure out is what used up all of the battery's volts. When the key is in that ("park"?) position nothing seems "on", the tail light isn't lit up, the headlight's not lit up, nothing seems to be lit up. I figure the coils weren't charged either (which makes sense if it really is a "park" setting), as I surely would have melted the wax out of one letting it sit charged that long. (I have done that before, in fact twice...).

Anyway, any ideas what the function of that key position is, and more interestingly, why it still drained my battery even though no lights were on?

 

[Cdn850T5NT]

On my T5NT there is a Park position on the ignition switch  but to get the headlamp low wattage "standing" light + tail-lamp to come on you hav to move the light switch to park. I wonder if the instrument backlighting comes on automatically when ignitio  sw. is set to Park position? Dunno...

[Lannis]

I've never understood battery drain on motorcycles.

I have a big 14" diameter clock on the wall of my shop that takes one AA battery.   That tiny little battery will turn the foot-long hands on that clock for years.

And yet, I had a BMW with a tiny little clock, and if it wasn't started every few weeks, that little clock would run down the huge brick sized 600 CCA battery on that bike down in a month.

Something's going on.   I suspect collusion between battery makers and clock makers ....

Lannis

[Wayne Orwig]

Anyway, any ideas what the function of that key position is, and more interestingly, why it still drained my battery even though no lights were on?

Did the bulb go bad?

The taillight should be on, and I believe the headlight 'parking' light.

[Wayne Orwig]

I have a big 14" diameter clock on the wall of my shop that takes one AA battery.   That tiny little battery will turn the foot-long hands on that clock for years.

And yet, I had a BMW with a tiny little clock, and if it wasn't started every few weeks, that little clock would run down the huge brick sized 600 CCA battery on that bike down in a month.

Something's going on.   I suspect collusion between battery makers and clock makers ....

Not sure exactly what style you had, but....
Many wall clocks like that have very low power electronics. About once a second they energize a very low power coil that steps the hands. No more energy is used than what is needed to do the job.
Long ago, the motorcycle clocks that I worked on, were basically old wind up clocks. They put a simple but hefty motor in them that occasionally would wind up the clock spring. No low powered electronics, just a set of points to turn on the large motor until it stalls, and hope it winds the spring. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a low battery would stall the motor faster, running the battery dead very fast.

[yackee]

Bulbs didn't burn out, taillight still works. There isn't really a "pilot light" like on some vintage Vespas, so nothing on the headlight side to burn out.  I do have aftermarket left-hand switch gear, and played around with moving the various switches around while the key was in "park", but nothing ever lit up. So weird.

[nc43bsa]

Is it possible the ignition is connected to the taillight terminal on the switch, and the taillight to the ignition terminal?

I ran into that on a Commando once.