did GL1500SE come with a Alternator light from the factory

[sidecarwilliam]

Can some one tell if the Alt light I have is aftermarket or did the light come from the factory?
I am beginning to believe the bike did not come with the light and I just need to disconnect it and find a better meter than I have now.
Thanks,

bill.

[WingsandThings]

I just looked in the owners manual, It does not show an alt light on the dash anywhere,, pretty sure my 93se does not have one. I cannot say for sure what other models/years have.

Where is the light located?

[offcenter]

The 1500 did NOT come with an alternator light.
The strange thing is, they left a blank spot on the far right
of the instrument panel, so I added one to mine.
It's saved my bacon twice so far.

[sidecarwilliam]

But mine is bad. Where did you tie in at?
I want to turn mine off and I have ordered a digital meter to mount near the same place.
I would feel better if I were to terminate the old wire and not just put tape over the light
I might even find the thimamagij that turns it on and off.

bill.

[Rambozo]

Back in the day there was a kit to add this function. This or a voltmeter is pretty useful as these bikes lose ignition long before you see the lights dimming and such when your alternator gives up.

viewtopic.php?p=363223

[offcenter]

But mine is bad. Where did you tie in at?
I want to turn mine off and I have ordered a digital meter to mount near the same place.
I would feel better if I were to terminate the old wire and not just put tape over the light
I might even find the thimamagij that turns it on and off.

bill.

I tied mine in with a wire direct to the battery.

[offcenter]

Back in the day there was a kit to add this function. This or a voltmeter is pretty useful as these bikes lose ignition long before you see the lights dimming and such when your alternator gives up.

viewtopic.php?p=363223

The bike will lose ignition when the battery gets down to about 7.5 volts.
Don't ask me how I found this out far from home in the hills of Vermont.

[sidecarwilliam]

Thanks to all the picts on the last post gave me the idea what to look for.
New meter here tomorrow.
Any problems you may be able hear me screem.

bill.

[Rambozo]

Back in the day there was a kit to add this function. This or a voltmeter is pretty useful as these bikes lose ignition long before you see the lights dimming and such when your alternator gives up.

viewtopic.php?p=363223

The bike will lose ignition when the battery gets down to about 7.5 volts.
Don't ask me how I found this out far from home in the hills of Vermont.

Wow, mine started missing and dropping cylinders a lot earlier than that. 9.5 or 10 volts as I recall. The starter would still spin over fine, but the bike would not light. Most other bikes I've had, the starter would give up long before the ignition. This one caught me off guard for sure.

[offcenter]

What happened was that the alternator had failed while I was riding but I didn't know it.
The engine kept running fine on the battery....until there wasn't enough battery left.
My volt meter was reading about 7.5 volts when the bike died at the side of the road in Vermont.
If I had actually looked at the volt meter, I would have known something was wrong before the engine quit.
After that incident, I added the alternator light in the blank spot at the right side of the panel.
The bright red alternator light gets your attention a lot quicker than a slowly dropping volt meter.

[Swagonmaster]

This idea is from a long time ago so I hope that I remember it correctly. If you put a light between the alternator output and the positive post of the battery with a diode in line to prevent current from going from the alt to the battery (the normal way) it will allow the bulb to light when the alternator output is less than the battery charge (will get a ground by going through the alternator). If the alternator is charging then the higher potential makes the ground go away and the bulb is not able to burn. This may be incomplete because if the battery is defective and the alternator gives up trying to move the electrons the bulb won't be very bright and if the brushes really take a dive the ground won't be there but under normal conditions it sounds like it should work.

[Swagonmaster]

BTW, when my alternator died (has happened twice) the first thing I noticed was that the cruise control wouldn't set due to the low voltage so if your cruise stops working during a ride you might want to pay attention because you may already be in trouble.

[WingAdmin]

This idea is from a long time ago so I hope that I remember it correctly. If you put a light between the alternator output and the positive post of the battery with a diode in line to prevent current from going from the alt to the battery (the normal way) it will allow the bulb to light when the alternator output is less than the battery charge (will get a ground by going through the alternator). If the alternator is charging then the higher potential makes the ground go away and the bulb is not able to burn. This may be incomplete because if the battery is defective and the alternator gives up trying to move the electrons the bulb won't be very bright and if the brushes really take a dive the ground won't be there but under normal conditions it sounds like it should work.

That's possible - but if your alternator is slowly dying (which happens fairly often) rather than just kicking the bucket all at once, the light bulb is not going to see enough voltage to illuminate.

Far better is a simple comparator circuit. A simple LM386 op amp, a fixed voltage zener diode, a couple other components for the op-amp and an LED or light. As soon as the system bus voltage drops below the voltage of the zener diode, the comparator switches on, and your warning lights illuminates.

[Swagonmaster]

Neat and sweet. The only cars that I had actually seen this used on were ones that used an exciter wire to start the charging and it worked well there with the bulb inline. Excitation voltage was dropped to about 9 volts which is enough to induce the magnetic field and usually the system worked well.