OK, I hear your theory. But I believe it is fundamentally flawed in a couple of ways; as the voltage in the system goes down due to increased load (your battery failing, a smaller and smaller resistance, a wrench across the battery terminals, whatever the reason), current will increase to a point but not by orders of magnitude. The C-14's alternator can only put out a finite amount of current, after which point it would simply open (burn through) at least one winding in the stator itself and stop working. In short (pun intended), there is just no way for the 'stuff on the bike' (technical term meaning the gross electrical potential of all electric components available on a C-14) to cause such a massive amount of current to do all that damage, or not at least any that I can think of or imagine.
The other thing is that fuses are current based devices, and there is no way to increase their capacity no matter what is done with voltage, including lowering it. A 30 amp fuse will open at, say 40 amps for three seconds, or 50 amps for 1/2 second and so forth (one needs the actual data curve for the specific fuse) but the point is, there is no way to have, say, 60 amps flow through a 30 amp fuse.
As to power delivery, your idea is right but in reality, it will not work that way for very much of a differential in either resistance or voltage. For example: an induction motor will draw more current when it is turning too slowly and the impedance is low. So a 1,000 watt motor will try to draw [close to infinite] current and [nearly zero] voltage (i.e., a dead short) in theory but in practice, it is not a 'perfect current' device and so will actually not draw much more than double its full- load running current. Hence the lights in the garage dim when switching on a table saw but the breaker does not open because while the current surge is high, it is not ridiculous.
In electrical theory, there are current devices (such as an alternator on a vehicle) and voltage devices such as MIG welders but in reality, neither one is really correct and only sorta', kinda' acts that way. A stick welder is a current source and will maintain current and cause the voltage to fluctuate; a MIG welder is a voltage source and cause the current to fluctuate. Both will act to maintain a given power output. And while that is true over a narrow range, it is NOT true over a wider range; set a stick welder for 100 amps, and it may range from 70 to 115 amps as the arc length and plasma density change but it will absolutely not go to 300, 1,000, or more amps of current even given a dead short.
But all of this theory and mechanisms behind us, I still am frankly amazed at what has happened to your bike with no outside power source. If you were doing some welding on the bike, and accidentally sent 200 amps through some wiring and components, I could certainly understand 'letting the smoke out' of all sorts of things. But with nothing but a small battery and a small alternator, the damage you have sustained is honestly amazing to me.
Of course I do believe you have sustained that amount of damage. And there is far more about the world that I do not know than I do know so the fact that it is beyond me is nothing to be surprised about- lots of stuff I do not understand that seems to work just fine in spite of my ignorance. But still, you are holding the 'prize' for electrical damage in both scope and expense that I have ever heard of on any 12 volt vehicular system.
And again, as always, sorry to hear about any of this and of course, I will try and keep an eye on this (and the other) thread and will certainly jump in if or when I think I may have something of use to add that may help you.
Brian
None of what I have experienced since I began fiddling around with the electrical circuit makes much sense. But it actually makes a whole lot of sense when viewed from my armchair. I have theories and suspicions about what happened and what may have caused it. Well, to be fair, I caused the problems. So what follows is my attempt at explanation about WTF happened.
The electrical system failure that I experienced and that ultimately grounded (pun) my bike was a protracted low voltage condition. The low voltage was caused when the battery experienced an internal fault brought about by several high-current, short-circuit loads being imposed upon it due to my botched attempt to "repair" the SLU. Repeated stresses, over and over and over.... The battery then no longer behaved as a power source (ie the internal voltage decreased) because the structures that maintained the separation between plates broke down. It was more than likely mechanical failure but there could have been a chemical element that resulted in degraded charge-discharge performance. There was a time long ago in a land far far away that I could have explained the precise chemical equations involved in charging and discharging a battery... time is a cruel master and I have forgotten more than I care to admit.
What I believe to be the final stroke was when the battery developed fatal short circuit(s). (It was very angry with me which is completely understandable) This resulted in the electrical potential dropping and the battery's capability to achieve/maintain rated voltage. The charging circuit (voltage regulator, via the stator) delivers a nominal 14 to 15VDC every time, all of the time. The charging circuit basically chased the battery down the voltage gradient as the battery's internal resistance and voltage decreased. A downward voltage surge if you will. The ultimate ending voltage point for the battery would be zero VDC or chassis ground (zero volts as far as DC is concerned). The battery was now acting as a huge load on the charging circuit. The voltage drop wasn't sudden as say, flipping a switch, but it was fast enough. And it was also slow enough for the current sensitive components in the bike to feel the heat. Somewhere back in this post I wrote about a little basic electrical theory. Device Power (W) (consumed/required/demanded) = Current (I) X Voltage (V). That equality must be satisfied. So, when voltage is forced down then the current is forced up due to the device's demand/need to keep everything equal and the power delivery where it needs to be. The resultant excessive currents basically burnt up stuff. I say currents because the circuitry that is supplied by the system spreads out to various discreet components which all have their own Power needs and resultant current draw. That's why a fuse can't protect everything when there is a low voltage condition because it has a very high current rating when compared to a discreet component. A fuse is for short-circuit protection and cannot sense nor does it give a crap about voltage. (But there are voltage ratings for fuses, I won't go into why, it's beyond the scope). Individual component current draws are very small in comparison to short-circuit protection.
When I pulled the battery I found that it was nearly spherical (minor exaggeration) and the deformation was so severe that it caused the walls of the battery compartment to bulge outward.
As to why this or that component failed and others did not can be explained. The reason that literally everything didn't get fried was that the KIPASS and/or the DFI ECU failed and shut down the bike. What had already failed was broken and the remainder was saved.
