2011 Multi 1200 S Errors

[RyanNicholson]

Looks like I spoke too f'n soon when I said I hadn't run into any issues with my Multi in the Luxo thread. Everything has been kosher up until today when I went out for a quick rip. Glad I wasn't in NY like I had planned.

Bike seemed perfectly normal until 10 mins into the ride rolling on the gas on an on ramp I noticed the dash lit up like a Christmas tree, literally every possible light, with an error. I rolled off the gas back to maintenance throttle without any load and everything went back to normal. Rolled back on to see if it would do it again and it did, got a chance to read the error this time an it just said "Can Line"... wtf is that?

I pulled over and did a google search... saw something about a BBS/Loom fault, or possibly moisture in there somewhere. Kind of made sense since there was condensation on everything in the garage after the rain yesterday.

I headed home, and about half way everything in the dash blanked out and all the lights lit up for good. No speedo, no fuel gauge, no tach, etc. Error screen said "Error: BBS/DTC" which I wasn't psyched to see, but made sense. Parked the bike in the sun for a while to maybe let it dry out, ran it down the driveway and got the can line error again. I should note that mechanically the bike seems perfectly fine, it'll still switch modes and power delivery is as expected. Thus far it's just the display that goes bonkers.

Read a few forum posts about the issue and found one guy who brought it to a dealer and replacing the BBS didn't fix it, but replacing the dash unit did.

Anybody have any experience or thoughts with this? Fucking Ducati's.

[theducman]

I just got a multi s this year. I have never seen this before.. seems odd that condensation would do this. I'm definitely going to follow this.

[Rosco61]

I had a multi 1200 for awhile never had any issues. But a friend of mine had his go crazy just like yours and he was about to launch in a multi day trip. The whole thing was his battery. Seacoast sorted it for Him and replaced his battery and off to the races.

[RyanNicholson]

I had a multi 1200 for awhile never had any issues. But a friend of mine had his go crazy just like yours and he was about to launch in a multi day trip. The whole thing was his battery. Seacoast sorted it for Him and replaced his battery and off to the races.

Weird that a battery might do it but I don't know how old this one is... could be original as far as I know. I guess if the output was low it might get confused, but I'd think it would give me an error specific to that?

[Rosco61]

Weird that a battery might do it but I don't know how old this one is... could be original as far as I know. I guess if the output was low it might get confused, but I'd think it would give me an error specific to that?

Can't answer as to why but the battery fixed it. I believe it's worth a try for sure.
His limped home just fine.

[ZX-12R]

..."Can Line"... wtf is that?...

CAN is a data bus used to reduce the number of wires in the loom of a vehicle. Instead of every sensor having its own discrete electrical connection to the ECU, they can tap into a simple 2 wire interface that's common for all the other devices that use it. One of the downsides of everything sharing the same data path is that one sensor/interface can corrupt the bus if it's having a problem.

Without more advanced diagnostic tools, you're pretty much limited to checking all the connections to the bus and make sure they are clean and potentially disconnecting individual sensors to see if there's an improvement in operation.

[nhbubba]

Well, that sucks!

From the hip guess it could be the link to the bus from the display; meaning the bike & ECU are working as intended but the display isn't getting data. Might be programmed to 'run to mamma' and display all faults. This is just me guessing. I think you're in for a service visit. Sucky thing about the more modern, sophisticated machines; you can only DIY diagnose just so much.

[feralchimp]

Hope it ends up being something cheap 'n' easy. F'ing computers.

[Paul_E_D]

The beauty of CANbus is that your blinker switch can toggle through the ride modes, and the start button can control your grip heaters... The ugly part of CANbus is that you blinker switch can disable the bike.

[RyanNicholson]

Just got off the phone w/ Eric up at Clubhouse. He confirmed most of what I'm finding out as well... start with the battery then chase any possible loose connections, starting with the dash unit itself. That at least gives me hope it's something stupid and not a faulty BBS or something more pricey. We'll see. Downside is, chasing electrical issues isn't exactly my forte. Plenty of beer and pizza for anyone that has a bit more experience and wants to come help out.

The fact I can't replicate the issue revving the bike in neutral, and only when I accelerate with a little force has me leaning towards a loose connection instead of the battery or R/R?

[ZX-12R]

I did a little digging and found this about the CAN bus on the Multi: Introduction to the electrical system of the Multistrada 1200

It's written in a manner to help out a Ducati technician working on a bike. The advanced diagnostic tools I mentioned apparently has a name (DDS - Diagnosis Ducati System). The overall CAN bus doesn't seem to have very many things attached to it. In the following picture you can see the dashboard, ECU, hands free ignition module, suspension module, and the BBS that basically takes a bunch of legacy sensors and acts as their gateway to the CAN bus. The DDS requires the CAN bus to be in working order for it to troubleshoot other modules so your best bet may be to try and find a way validate that the CAN bus is healthy prior to paying a Ducati tech to do that basic troubleshooting first. Not having the specifics of how the modules work together, I would suspect that if the dash is in an error state saying there is an issue with the CAN bus, I would attempt to start the bike using the hands free feature since I would expect that module to communicate with the ECU to allow operation without a key. If that works, the bus is probably fine and the issue is isolated to the dashboard or its connection to the CAN bus.


Your mileage may vary but at least it won't cost you anything to try it.

[xxaarraa]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Electrical problems are the worst. I went through something similar on an Aprilia and it took a whole season and shotgunning several hundred dollars in parts before we were able to eliminate the root cause.

My best suggestion is to get it hooked up to a Ducati diagnostic tool, pull all the codes, cross reference against TSBs and recalls and common failure points BEFORE you throw any parts at it. I am not sure what ECU is in your multi, but I have a VDST you can borrow (you'd need to research if it can talk to your ECU). Or just take it to Seacoast and have the pros pull codes with the official Ducati reader.

Shotgunning parts can add up real quick when it comes to chasing electrical gremlins. If you have another bike with a good battery, that's easy to do, but I wouldn't go much farther than that before you have a good POV on what's wrong.

[number9]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Electrical problems are the worst. I went through something similar on an Aprilia and it took a whole season and shotgunning several hundred dollars in parts before we were able to eliminate the root cause.

What was the root cause of your issue?

[xxaarraa]

What was the root cause of your issue?

Wonky demand sensor. I somehow was not convinced that was the real reason because prior to New Haven replacing the demand sensor and resetting everything with Aprilia Navigator, I had thrown in a replacement used ebay demand sensor at it myself to no avail. Over several agonizing months, I went through and replaced nearly every relay, greased nearly every connection, checked every connection, etc. pretty much everything suggested in this thread. And nothing worked.

[RyanNicholson]

Fucking mice. Of all things. Guess I can't blame Ducati lol.

[SteveM]

What did they nibble on?

[RyanNicholson]

What did they nibble on?

Lent a buddy my multimeter, so I had him return it and went to dig into the bike... starting with testing the battery. As soon as I took the seat off there was a nest under it. Figures. They chewed up what I think is the diagnostic plug under the seat? It was a loose plug that's always been there, with 4 wires that were originally bundled. Luckily they didn't chew the wires themselves too bad, but they were bare and touching each other. For a bandaid fix I tightly wrapped each in electrical tape again and then wrapped them all together... bike functions as expected now.

Crazy how fast that can happen apparently... I had the seat off less than a week prior and didn't see any evidence of any visitors.

[Paul_E_D]

Tie a dryer sheet under there. Works to keep mice out of my van.

[ZX-12R]

...but they were bare and touching each other...

All it takes is one of the two CAN bus wires to short to something else and the whole thing will stop working. I'm glad it was something simple that you could find because who knows how much you would have been charged for pure diagnostic work at the dealer.