2018 RMK Pro 800 - flickering head lights, handwarmers not working

jeremyp111 · Jan 7, 2018

I had an interesting thing happen to me yesterday and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. We've had some seriously cold temps up here in the Northeast over the past week plus and I went to start my sled for the first time in two weeks yesterday morning. It started fine but the IDD did not come on and I didn't touch anything else. Handwarmers were on low from the last ride.

After letting it warm up I turned it off and restarted. Upon restart the gauge came up fine but I noticed the frost was still present on the hand grips so clearly my handwarmers were not working. I put them on high, same thing. I then went to rev up the sled and noticed that on the headlights flickered, more like a strobe like on/off effect on anything above 2000 rpms.

I ran it around the yard a couple times and put it back in the shed. The headlights were still flickering and the handwarmers didn't seem to be getting any warmer. I stopped by one Polaris dealer on the way home to talk to them about it and they didn't' seem to know anything that might cause it but agreed something wasn't right. A call to another seemed to think it might have just been the severe cold but could be the voltage regulator. I did some searching and came across some info on bag capacitors from a couple years ago but those problems have seen to be fixed?

Has anyone else run across this problem? Any ideas? I didn't bring the sled home but apparently I should have to bring to my dealer... I'm hoping to figure out some things before heading back this weekend. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks

JP

kiliki · Jan 7, 2018

Bad relay. Also sounds like you need a better dealership

greasemonkey3406 · Jan 7, 2018

This happened a lot to the 2015 flatland 800s and I believe a lot of the issues were caused by the capacitors.

ksright · Jan 7, 2018

Not enough voltage in the cold temps? The headlight can flicker between high/low beams at idle when the engine goes into a "safety" mode. "safety" mode shuts off some of the electric accessories to keep enough voltage for the electric oil pump to keep pumping. Maybe the oil pump was just working really hard to pump the cold oil and drawing the voltage away?

Electrical gremlins are no fun to chase down.

ullose272 · Jan 7, 2018

i had the same thing happen last year, headlight was light a strobe light, handwarmers didnt work. after some testing with a multimeter, turned out being the voltage regulator.

jeremyp111 · Jan 8, 2018

ullose272, Based on my reading and the conversation I had with my dealer that seems to be the direction. From what I understand is that the capacitor issues experienced a few years ago with the early trail sleds caused a true random flickering of the headlights. The strobe effect above idle was more in line with a voltage regulator problem. My dealer said that the capacitor problem was actually due to the voltage regulators, which is what the fix turned out to be.

ksright, That was my original thinking and I'm hopeful that it was the cause but my friend's sled had no issue in the same conditions. And more importantly, it didn't go away after the sled warmed up. I'm still crossing my fingers though.

kiliki, Is this indicative of what you see from a bad relay? Do you have any information or point me in the direction so I can do some more research on this?

gtwitch · Jan 9, 2018

Sounds like a Load Shedding problem!! The hand warmers and high beam do not come on because of the load shedding until 2200 rpm or so! The dealer should understand this if he (or his mechanics) have been to the Polaris training and really picked up on this! If you need information on the Load Shedding, go talk with a well trained Polaris mechanic or just PM me or direct at gtwitch@uwyo,edu
gtwitch in wyoming

kiliki · Jan 9, 2018

jeremyp111 said:
kiliki, Is this indicative of what you see from a bad relay? Do you have any information or point me in the direction so I can do some more research on this?

ac coils on the relays can have this problem causing the relay to "chatter" if the shading coil is broken this will cause the flicker. on the dc relays more of the supply issue. IE VR or cap.
just swap the relays with your buddies sled and see if the problem follows the relay.

mountainhorse · Jan 9, 2018

Helped a guy with this on his 17.... may or may not be your issue.

The brass contacts inside the stator connector were not fully seated in the housing... and making intermittent contact...Worth a check.

Also, worth checking for any chaffing on the harness.

.

jeremyp111 · Jan 13, 2018

Guys, Here's an update:

I finally got back up to the cabin yesterday. It was much warmer and the problem was still there.

I took it for a short test ride and noted the following:
With warmers off, headlights on high the headlights strobed intermittently.
With warmers off & lights on low there was no strobing.

I picked up a voltage regulator this week just in case so I installed it. No more headlight strobing and the hand warmers work. However, I did notice one thing. If I have the lights on high beam, they would dim to low beam at idle. Is that normal for 2018s? I don't remember my 2016 SKS doing that. I could be wrong...I just don't remember. I just hope it's not indicative of another problem.

Let me know what you think.

JP

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

diamonddave · Jan 13, 2018

Interesting. Did you check DC voltage with a meter on the original VR? I’d be curious to know what that thing was/is actually doing?

jeremyp111 · Jan 13, 2018

Diamonddave, I didn't bother since it only took a few minutes to swap it out and test.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

ullose272 · Jan 16, 2018

jeremyp111 said:
Guys, Here's an update:

I finally got back up to the cabin yesterday. It was much warmer and the problem was still there.

I took it for a short test ride and noted the following:
With warmers off, headlights on high the headlights strobed intermittently.
With warmers off & lights on low there was no strobing.

I picked up a voltage regulator this week just in case so I installed it. No more headlight strobing and the hand warmers work. However, I did notice one thing. If I have the lights on high beam, they would dim to low beam at idle. Is that normal for 2018s? I don't remember my 2016 SKS doing that. I could be wrong...I just don't remember. I just hope it's not indicative of another problem.

Let me know what you think.

JP

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I believe this is normal due to load shedding, power is prioritized to the oil pump. like I said, I had the same issue and it was the voltage regulator. confirmed with multimeter

Csellors · Jan 22, 2019

headlight and handwarmers not working

Hi all
I have the same issue with hand warmers and headlight. I've replaced all three relays, checked the 2 amp fuse and get 14.1 v from the voltage regulator. I also inspected all my connections and unplugged and re connected them all. No change. Any ideas? I ordered a capacitor as well, but it will be a few days before it gets here. Is there a way to check the capacitor? Anything else you would suggest?
Thanks in advance

kylant · Jan 22, 2019

jeremyp111 said:
Guys, Here's an update:

I finally got back up to the cabin yesterday. It was much warmer and the problem was still there.

I took it for a short test ride and noted the following:
With warmers off, headlights on high the headlights strobed intermittently.
With warmers off & lights on low there was no strobing.

I picked up a voltage regulator this week just in case so I installed it. No more headlight strobing and the hand warmers work. However, I did notice one thing. If I have the lights on high beam, they would dim to low beam at idle. Is that normal for 2018s? I don't remember my 2016 SKS doing that. I could be wrong...I just don't remember. I just hope it's not indicative of another problem.

Let me know what you think.

JP

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Normal. all of the Axys sleds in our group do that

Dosey Wales · Jan 22, 2019

I did same year and sled,install new hand warmers short in hand warmers wires
Computer should tell u voltage shortage pull,anyway installed 2 new warmers fixed problem

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2018 RMK Pro 800 - flickering head lights, handwarmers not working

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