Motorcycle Repair: blowing fuse, 30 amp fuse, royal stars

Question
Hi:  I hope you may be able to answer this.  I have a 96 yamaha royastar.  I continue to blow a 30 amp fuse.  It doesn't do it all the time.  Only when I either turn on my ignition key and turn it back off and then back on it will at some point blow a fuse.  Only when I move the key in the ignition switch.  I can go for a ride, stop, turn it off and back and it may or may not blow the fuse.  Is it possible that the ignition key switch is going bad and has some type of a short in it causing my problem.  I looked around everywhere on the motorcycle and found no apparent bare wires.  It only happens when it wants to, not all the time.  It does appear the key has some play inside the ignition which I didn't notice before.  At times I can turn the key on and I would move the key off then on and it wouldn't do anything then all of a sudden when it wants to after I turn the key on it would blow the fuse. When the motorcycle is running, I have no problems.  I would appreciate your opinion on this matter.  Thank you.

Answer
I think your diagnosis on the ignition key may be correct.  However most of the circuits on the bike are only powered when the key is turned on, so it may need further investigation.  I'm not that familiar with Royal Stars but what I typically do is to remove as many circuits from the electrical system by disconnecting them, and then check if the problem still exists.  That way you can eliminate a lot of the accessory circuits etc.  If you don't want to keep blowing the fuse, you can look for a short by disconnecting the battery and putting an ohm-meter across the terminals.  As soon as you connect the ohmmeter and switch on the ignition, you will get a resistance reading but it should not be 0.  When it hits zero you have reached the shortcircuit condition.

Good luck,  Jan