The ignitors won't drain your battery and use up all of the power of your alternator (if indeed the alt is charging). If they were drawing that much current the wires would be red-hot and smoking right now. You've still got an alternator problem.
It's much easier to troubleshoot the CB650's alternator if you know how it works. Generally an alternator consists of 4 parts: A field coil, stator, regulator, and rectifier. The CB650's has the regulator and rectifier combined into 1 unit, abbreviated as a R/R. The field coil, usually called a "rotor" rotates inside the stator which is stationary. The magnetic field from the rotor causes the stator to produce a voltage and source current. Your stator is where you get the power to charge your system. After the AC voltage leaves the stator, it goes through a rectifier (changes AC into DC) and then a regulator. On older systems, the rotors were of the permanent magnet type, in other words, basically a magnet spinning around inside the stator. In those systems, the voltage is regulated after it leaves the stator, usually using a "zener diode" which is a device that only allows a set voltage "across" it, while sending all of the excess voltage to ground. Our 650s use a more efficient method, however. Instead of having a permanent magnet, we use an electromagnet. Changing the current going through the electromagnet (the rotor) changes the strengh of the magnetic field, therefore regulating the power coming out of the stator.
When battery voltage is low, the regulator puts the full voltage of the battery across the rotor, which makes a strong magnetic field. This in turn increases the output of the stator, charging the battery. Once the battery gets to its desired voltage, the regulator slowly decreases the voltage across the rotor until the battery voltage is stead at the predetermined voltage, usually from 13.5 to 14.4 volts. To figure out why your battery isn't charging, you have to check all 4 of the components (in our case, 3, since we have 1 R/R).
Here's how I test the charging system on my 650:
1) Remove the alternator housing and test the resistance of the rotor (field coil). It should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 ohms. I've heard of resistance as low as 4 and as high as 10 working. If it reads good, resistance-wise, you know the coil is good.
2) If your rotor measures good, put it all back together and test the resistance of the rotor at the wiring harness. It will be the plug with 5 wires. Three yellow's and 2 "other colors." The two "other" wires are the voltage supply to the field coil. Disconnect those two wires, and with the engine running hook jumpers between these wires and the + and - battery terminals. Basically supply "full battery voltage" across the rotor. With a volt meter, watch your battery voltage. If your alternator is working, your battery voltage should rise as you rev the engine. If it does, than you know your "alternator" (rotor and stator) is working. If the voltage doesn't rise, go on to #3.
3) Since your battery voltage didn't rise with RPM, you need to verify your stator is working. Leave the two other wires connected to the battery and with your voltmeter set to VAC (50 volts or more) check the voltage across two of the three yellow wires. With the engine running above 3k rpm you should get anywhere from 40 to 50 volts (AC) out of each of those wires. You check "across two of the three wires," not from each wire to ground. If you get the AC voltage out, continue to #4. If you're not getting AC voltage out, you've got a bad stator. Once again, verify your rotor is the desired resistance, and that the same resistance is showing across the 2 wires on the connector. If the right resistance is verified at the connector, you need to replace your stator and start over.
4) Since you're getting AC voltage out of the stator, you know your rotor and stator are good. Next comes the regulator/rectifier and wiring. I don't know of any really good way to check the R/R, so I'll just go through how to verify your wiring is good. There should be two connectors coming out of your regulator. One has the 5 wires that we were working with before, and the other has 3 wires. Black, Red, and Green. This is where my memory gets fuzzy. I'll be back, going to hook up my voltmeter and verify voltage, etc. Be right back!
