The X has 150W - 160W spare electrical output at idle

HID driving lights (30W) + heated jacket liner on high (75W) + heated grips on high (~ 50W?) = 155W to accessories = 11.9 V at the battery at idle. The battery would slowly drain while idling if I left all my accessories on max. Kicking the grips to low (high is too hot to hold for long) and the jacket liner to medium gets me 12.8V at idle -- which is just barely enough for the battery to stay charged.

I'd think that there are probably another 30W or so available at the optimum charging rpm which is usually 4k-ish or 5k-ish rpms (going by memory from my 2001 ZX6R).

Tail, turn, brake, and headlight all stock. No FMF programmer. I have a hookup for my GPS, but my wife has the GPS this weekend.

I would have to say that this does not surprise me at all. The output of the alternator at idle should be nowhere near the maximum output that it is capable of. With a quick look on google, I was able to find some charts that show that output at idle could be less than a third of maximum output. These were with a car alternator though. There are too many factors to determine how much the WR is outputting without some hands on testing.

My point is that this power threshold should be easy to reach when idling.

1moreroad wrote:

Kicking the grips to low (high is too hot to hold for long) and the jacket liner to medium gets me 12.8V at idle -- which is just barely enough for the battery to stay charged.

I would say that this is pretty good performance. How long are you going to be idling with heated gear on anyway. I know mine gets hot when sitting still.

They have that kind of extra wattage simply so the stator is not taxed at 100% output all the time
Think of it in terms of a generator in that it will work forever at 80% but it cannot be operated at full capacity for long duration
The other way to think of it, a marathon runner can jog 20 miles, try sprinting and he will die
If you use it frequently at the point where you are getting slight loss of battery charging voltage your stator life will be significantly reduced