All kinds of power outages!

Those of us in the southern-most part of Southern California had a very interesting afternoon and night last night. I don't remember exactly what time it was (around 3:30pm I suppose) when all the power went out. And I mean, ALL the power. I was at work on the 9th floor of our office building in downtown San Diego when everything shut down. My colleagues with their smart phones soon learned that the entire county was without power and, in fact, part of northern Mexico, all of San Diego County, and parts of Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties were also without power. An investigation is underway as to the exact cause but from what I've learned the two major supply lines from Arizona into our region were shut down (it's unclear if it was a system failure, human error or a combination of the two). That left about 1.4 million people in the city alone without power. As you can imagine, a fair amount of havoc erupted on the roads. After walking down nine flights of stairs then into our underground parking structure, I found myself in a long line of cars waiting to get out. They manually opened the gate allowing us to escape. That took a fair amount of time and when finally released to the streets, more chaos awaited.

All the traffic signals were out and there simply were not enough police (who were busy responding to other forms of chaos caused by the massive power outage) to regulate traffic. It was bumper to bumper in 100-plus degree weather trying to make it to the freeway, trying not to overheat, and trying not to get run over by frustrated, scared cagers. I, along with a number of other riders, weaved our way through the traffic and saved over an hour getting home. To add to the weirdness of it all, just as I pulled into my driveway, my VFR died. It wouldn't turn over and I had to push it the few yards into my garage. I guess that's lucky considering all the places it could have died. It certainly added to my growing sense of paranoia as memories of sci-fi movies filled my head with thoughts of electromagnetic pulses shutting down all computers/electronics/batteries. A new form of terrorist attack? Aliens invading Cali for our fish tacos? I popped the bike onto its center stand, made one more feeble attempt to start it, then went inside where my dog was waiting, wearing an aluminum foil hat. Okay, he didn't really have the aluminum foil hat. I just got carried away.

Cell phone service was hit and miss as the networks were jammed by people trying to make calls. I was finally able to use my Blackberry to go online and read about the blackout and the assurance that there were no indications that this was part of a terrorist plot; something that certainly crossed my mind being that we are so close to 9/11. Interestingly, no mention was made of a pending alien invasion. I got my flashlight ready, strategically placed candles throughout the house and, I should admit, despite assurances to the contrary, feared something more sinister was going on than a mere blackout so I filled my bathtub with water in the event that "they" were able to shut off our water supply. As the tub slowly filled, my girlfriend's words came back to me with striking clarity. "You really need to clean that tub. It's starting to look pretty nasty." I should have listened to her. I wondered what effect soap scum and who knows what else can have if consumed but figured it would be better than not having water at all.

Amazingly, power was restored sometimes after 3am. This is the biggest power outage in our history (so I've been told) and it was expected that we would be without power quite likely through today as well. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. Instead of going into work (I'm pretty sure my boss isn't a member of VFRW) I shopped around for a new battery and prayed that that was the only problem. I've read about the R/R problems on the 5th Gens and hoped I wasn't dealing with that. I read the battery threads and finally decided I would go with the Shorai Lithium Iron battery. I found two authorized dealers in town...neither carried the battery in stock. I looked online and it seems that the battery for our bike (Shorai LFX14A1-BS12) is apparently back ordered. Besides, I needed a battery now! I found a relatively inexpensive battery ($58 with tax), popped it in and the bike fired right up. I hope the battery lasts and in any event, I'll add the Shorai to my ever growing wish list.

I read on some forum (this one or VFRD) that commuting less than 10 miles each way is not enough to adequately charge your battery even with longer weekend runs. Does that sound right? Is a battery tender really necessary if I'm riding every single day? My commute is right around 10 miles each way. It wouldn't hurt to have a tender so I'll probably pick one up but just never had this be an issue before (this is my fifth bike). Anyway, as it turns out, power has been restored both to Southern California and to my '07 VFR800. Neither outage was caused by terrorists or aliens (as far as we know) and all is right in the world. I think I'll go for a ride.

 

sorry about the bike dying...man that's a rough one SoCal traffic sucks with all the lights working much less none of them working...

 

Thanks. I suspected the battery was starting to go when last week I noticed that my clock had reset on the bike. I was reading some posts about something I can't even remember and came across someone describing their clock resetting randomly. A number of people chimed in that it was a sure sign of a failing battery. I thought, "That's interesting, let's see if mine does it again." Sure enough ...

 

My '99 just had a RR failure

The symptoms were "dead battery". Diagnosis revealed that the RR would "clamp" to short at the regulation voltage.
14.3 volts, and ALL the juice from the alternator was sent to ground.

Shut down the system, and the cycle of events starts again.

I did the diagnosis on the bench using a DC power supply. The rectifier system seems fine, It's the regulator that failed.

In my case, a loose negative battery terminal connection was the culprit.

Mea Culpa

 

Yesterday I was thumbing through the service manual for my '07 VFR800, just seeing how it's organized and learning the names of parts I didn't know existed. I was and remain amazed by the technology that went into making our machines. All these systems working in harmony (usually) so we can fly down the road with big grins on our faces. Truly amazing. It's frustrating when something goes wrong that prevents me from riding but then, there's something really cool and rewarding about identifying the issue, finding a solution and making it right. So, I'm sorry your bike crapped out temporarily but glad you worked it out. I'm sure you enjoyed every minute of it (even if you did let a few curse words fly).