That's not the battery ground spot; that's where one of the engine mounting bolts slide through.

i thought it looked awkward, too, but then i took a look at some of the photos on page one of this thread. everyone's got their ground bolted to that hole.

Any spot you could anchor it to the frame is a potential ground spot, make sure where ever you decide to ground; contacts bare metal for a good ground. Electricity flows across the surface of metal not inside of it. If you decide to make your ground there; i'd suggest the mounting bolt go in other side first, that way you have to remove just the nut and not the whole bolt, if you need to change or replace the ground wire.

The "skin effect" you're referring to is correct for alternating current (AC) only, not for DC. DC electron flow tends to be equally distributed throughout the conductor material.

In my engineering for electricity class, the skinning effect was the resistance value of the material that electricity was supposed to flow across. That the difference between AC and DC when applied to metal was its frequency in ferrous and non-ferrous material due to the skinning effect, such as DC welding works better with non-ferrous materials like aluminum as a rod instead of iron.

I was taught that all electricity flows over the surface, whether it was AC or DC didn't matter. There could however be different resistance value depths depending on the material were penetration is involved; the difference was most likely nil, since that was never covered.

The skin effect is largely driven by the counter electro-motive force (counter EMF), which tends to be greatest at the center of the conductor, forcing electrons to the outer edges of the conductor. It's the AC that creates the counter EMF. No skin effect with DC, but we've really taken this thread into the ditch, huh?

Meh, the forum has been slow lately...nothing wrong with some debate. ;) I have the feeling we are describing somewhat the same thing, just using different terms, the type of metal plays the largest part in whats happening...electricity falls under the theory label, so not much of it is written in stone. Quantum mechanics, super conductivity and thermal dynamics like to throw a lot of things for a loop.

If you really want to see some bizarre but fascinating shit check this link out on the Hutchison Effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wJYce3I8OE

I longer one explaining how this mad scientist :cool: did in his garage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD__K...eature=related

i'm still working on the horn issue, which i thought i had nailed down to needing a fully charged battery. i went out to the bike this AM with a freshly charged battery, buttoner her up, kicked her over...no horn.

i think i might have a poor ground connection. i'm having trouble locating the correct bolt for the engine mount point mentioned above, so i've got it grounded to the free hole above the battery and the ground wire routing is a bit of a mess. as a troubleshooting step, and because i just need to locate the correct bolt, i'd like to use the engine mount hole as my ground (after i clean it up, anyway).

i've looked all over the fiche and can't locate this bolt. i'd think it'd be on this diagram, but it's not. anyone know the size of this bolt or maybe willing to pull theirs and have a photo of it?

I don't know if you've tried spokes advice; but there is a horn adjustment that makes it function properly, even though it has sounded it can be (out of tune) if that makes sense.