Topic: Battery is suddenly charging?

[IAmCitizenMe]

Since I bought my 550 several months ago, I have always had to keep a charge on the battery. From what I understand it is the rectifier/regulator at fault. After a good day of riding around town, my battery is pretty much dead. Well, today I went to charge it back up and the battery was fully charged. Any ideas what could cause this? I thought it might have been a bad connection draining it or some kind of loose wiring, but I cannot find any problems. Did my bike heal itself?

[Alan F.]

That's wonderful, but I do have one concern.  Has your headlight bulb burned out? Just a thought, but if everything still works you're in fine shape.  Start wiggling wires and maybe you'll find an issue.

[IAmCitizenMe]

No, headlight works great. It's brand new (not stock  ). I'm just concerned it is a fluke that will be short lived, and die at an inconvenient time... like on the interstate.

[Alan F.]

There is always that possibility, I'd get the bike running and start wiggling wires looking for something to noticeably change, trying to simulate the conditions (except motion and rpm) that you'd encounter on the interstate.  Verify that all of your connectors are clean and all of your grounds are good.  Cheers in any case, good news.
And as with all old bikes... ride it until something breaks, and be prepared by having the right tools and a length of wire with you. Do a search of how to 'hot-wire' your coils so the bike will run (bypassing much of the rest of the wiring) and maybe install a small voltmeter that you can see while riding to monitor the system. Someone had mentioned a cool tiny digital one in a recent post, but it was like $60, I'd find an aftermarket voltmeter in a junkyard and pocket it with a bunch of turn signal bulbs.