There’s a long story below, but the question is, “Could the additional draw from a phone charger rated 5W 2A, be sufficient to melt the plastic around an auto fuse and the cover on a twin bullet connector?”
The story, then!
Having had my speedo and GPS pack up in quick succession, I resorted to using my iPhone to do both jobs.
Initially I used Velcro to attach phone to my tank bag or tank, but this had the disadvantage that I had to keep looking down to read it.
So I bought a handlebar mount, which had the added advantage, or so I thought, of having a USB charging port built in. The iPhone 7 has a notoriously short battery life when using Google maps.
On a few short trips around town this seemed to work well , but on my first long run, I was about 30kms out when the bike died. The instantaneous cut-out made me think of a blown fuse and when I checked the plastic on one side was melted – it’s one of those auto blade fuses (15A). The fuse itself was OK, but I replaced it anyway, disconnected the charger as this was the only thing I could think might be the issue – nothing else had changed – and all seemed well.
30-40 kms later, same story. Fuse was OK this time, and having checked all connections, the bike started. Next time, it wouldn’t start after I switched off at the first police check at the Jordanian border. I waited a few minutes, tried again.
Several hours later I was out on the Israeli side, quite a bit later than planned thanks to the unscheduled stops and a slightly longer than anticipated crossing. By now it was dark and at first I was afraid to use my headlight; the road was well lit so I used only my day riding light. On one occasion earlier, switching on the headlight resulted in immediate death of the engine. However the street lighting soon ended and I had no choice.
Thankfully the engine didn’t die this time and I was able to continue. Until, at some traffic lights 40kms later and 36km from my destination the engine died again. Checks under the left-hand cover revealed nothing amiss, but I had no spark and no headlight. I did have indicators and rear light though, and the starter turned over.
I have fitted a relay to save the key switch and this feeds the headlight and coils, so my first thought was that the heat had damaged to relay. I tried a new one with no luck. I checked other connections, including in the headlight shell and found nothing amiss.
Bear in mind it is now 8pm, it’s raining and cold and I’m at the side of the road and, having entered the country only hours earlier, I had no cell phone comms. I was just contemplating spending the night camped in the bus shelter I was at, when I thought to bypass the relay. So I connected the feed from the battery directly to the wires feeding coils and headlight. Happiness and joy, everything came back to life.
This was clearly a get-me-home fix, so next morning, under a half-erected garden gazebo as it was still raining, I set about trying to get a more satisfactory solution. Relay was checked again and was OK. Then I noticed some burning of the plastic around the two way connector supplying the relay from the battery (Term 30). I found nothing else wrong. Everything back together and zoom!
So, the question again, “Could the additional draw from a phone charger rated 5W 2A, be sufficient to melt the plastic around an auto fuse and the cover on a twin bullet connector?” And if so, old this have caused the problems described?
My only thought is the connections were loose and the extra current caused overheating and more intermittent connections??
Any thoughts, if anyone has waded thought the saga, welcome. I have a couple of hundred kms to go and then I’m on a ship for 4-5 days, so will hopefully have time to check/fix anything you might think of.
