Stephenaspr
Member
I have a 2011 Spyder RSS SE5 which has been in storage for 12 months. Today, when I connected the battery, the VCM started buzzing. Has anyone had this issue and what was the fix?
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2011 RSS - DPS buzzing when battery is connected. Anyone else? Any ideas on fix?
- Thread starter Stephenaspr
- Start date
Mikey
Well-known member
Did you try to start the bike, or let it sit powered up a while to see if it stopped buzzing? Sounds like a relay maybe not getting full power or needs replacing. If you could get down, there and put a finger on it and see what's making the sound and what part of it is buzzing. Or maybe give it a LITTLE tap, to see if that helps. Hope you don't have to replace the unit, that would hurt!! Good luck!!
Stephenaspr
Member
Didn't try to start the bike but it was powered up for a few minutes, the buzzing appears to be coming from the RHS of the VCM where the electrical connections are.
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Stephenaspr
Member
Have just started the bike and still have the noise from the VCM (a whirring rather than a buzzing) and a multitude of errors, Limp Home mode, EBD, VSS & ABS and multiple lights on the dash, none of which were there before it went into storage, battery was fully charged before connection and starts the bike easily. The last time I had these errors was when a spark plug lead failed and it took the Spyder dealer 6 months to diagnose it, so I will start by doing the easy jobs and replacing the spark plug leads again and hopefully some of the errors will go away and then I can concentrate on the DPS issue.
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It might not help you any, but I'd strongly recommend that even if your Spyder's engine starts easily, you still do a battery load test before doing anything else; noting that because our Spyders are so power hungry that even if it is still capable of starting the engine, if your battery drops anything much below 12 volts under load, then it is very likely going to be incapable of starting all the electronics properly/at the same time, with the DPS being one of the major and most power hungry devices on your Spyder; and because of that, if your battery gets too low under load, it doesn't necessarily mean it won't start &/or run, but it will generally do things like displaying "... a multitude of errors, Limp Home mode, EBD, VSS & ABS and multiple lights on the dash..." and maybe even causing expensive failures in things like the DPS, the dash module, &/or the starter motor if you persist in operating the bike with less than ideal power. 
Sure, you might think it a waste of time cos your battery 'looked good'; showed a 'full charge' beforehand; &/or was on a tender before all this started happening ('tenders' rather than battery 'tender/maintainers' are renowned for hiding dead &/or die-ing batteries), but you could be surprised - the number of people who've had similar issues with their Spyder when their battery was supposedly fully charged and in good condition juuust might astound you!
And if you go by the number of people who've been caught out by the 'normally accepted' definition of a 'good battery', which is if it shows anything better than about 10.5/10.7 volts under load, who then found out that their Spyder REALLY doesn't work well/play nice with anything less that 12 volts from their battery under load, you may well be thankful for 'wasting' that time. More often than most think, problems like you describe come back to the battery simply not being up to the task! 
And if your battery ISN'T the problem, and it passes the load test with better than 12 volts under load, how much time have you really wasted?? Plus, you will have confirmed that it's not the easy fix BEFORE you've wasted a heap of time &/or $$ chasing a problem that could've been as simple as a flat/battery failure and a relatively easy/inexpensive fix! I find it helps a LOT to check and positively exclude those simple things FIRST, rather than just assuming it isn't the battery cos it was on a tender and so throwing shed loads of time and effort at other things when it really only ever needed a fully charged/new battery!!
So I'd strongly suggest you load test the battery before doing anything much else, certainly not anything that costs much (in time or $$) and look for your battery to maintain at least 12 volts under load!
Just Sayin'
Sure, you might think it a waste of time cos your battery 'looked good'; showed a 'full charge' beforehand; &/or was on a tender before all this started happening ('tenders' rather than battery 'tender/maintainers' are renowned for hiding dead &/or die-ing batteries), but you could be surprised - the number of people who've had similar issues with their Spyder when their battery was supposedly fully charged and in good condition juuust might astound you!
And if you go by the number of people who've been caught out by the 'normally accepted' definition of a 'good battery', which is if it shows anything better than about 10.5/10.7 volts under load, who then found out that their Spyder REALLY doesn't work well/play nice with anything less that 12 volts from their battery under load, you may well be thankful for 'wasting' that time. More often than most think, problems like you describe come back to the battery simply not being up to the task! And if your battery ISN'T the problem, and it passes the load test with better than 12 volts under load, how much time have you really wasted?? Plus, you will have confirmed that it's not the easy fix BEFORE you've wasted a heap of time &/or $$ chasing a problem that could've been as simple as a flat/battery failure and a relatively easy/inexpensive fix! I find it helps a LOT to check and positively exclude those simple things FIRST, rather than just assuming it isn't the battery cos it was on a tender and so throwing shed loads of time and effort at other things when it really only ever needed a fully charged/new battery!!
So I'd strongly suggest you load test the battery before doing anything much else, certainly not anything that costs much (in time or $$) and look for your battery to maintain at least 12 volts under load!
Just Sayin'
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