Charging system odd behaviour

[notme]

If quite low revs means idle to 1000 or 2000, then I bet it's more than 40VAC if you rev to between 1/3 and 1/2 of your rev limit....which means it's 1/3 of the RR gone.

[CookMySock]

If quite low revs means idle to 1000 or 2000, then I bet it's more than 40VAC if you rev to between 1/3 and 1/2 of your rev limit....which means it's 1/3 of the RR gone.

I'm thinking the same. The last RR did exactly the same, and the bike shop says its a weak point.

Aftermarket RR time I think. Will try and get at it today.

Steve

[pete376403]

There was a thread on KB some time back about electronic r/r. Search for "the great kiwibiker regulator thread" - Dave Reid, around 14/9/8
I've got the pdfs of the circuit, but never built (bought another bike instead)

[neels]

I'm thinking the same. The last RR did exactly the same, and the bike shop says its a weak point.

Aftermarket RR time I think. Will try and get at it today.

Steve

I had to replace the one on my bike a while ago, was slightly different to your fault in that it went open circuit and boiled the battery dry. It was interesting that the replacement had a huge heatsink on it rather than just the metal case, obviously some improvement had taken place between designs.

[pete376403]

On my Suzuki the R/R was mounted to the bottom of the battery case, just above the swingarm pivot. Bugger all airflow there, as far as I can tell. I extended the wires (fairly heavy guage wire, proper crimped plugs and sockets, etc) and relocated the R/R to the front down tubes, just below the steering head. It never got much more than mildly warm after that.

[vifferman]

On my Suzuki the R/R was mounted to the bottom of the battery case, just above the swingarm pivot. Bugger all airflow there, as far as I can tell. I extended the wires (fairly heavy guage wire, proper crimped plugs and sockets, etc) and relocated the R/R to the front down tubes, just below the steering head. It never got much more than mildly warm after that.

I did the same thing with my VFR750. It seems Honda likes to hide the R/Rs away, whereas bikes of yesteryear (and many cruisers) have them out in the airflow. On the VFR, I cut out all the wiring, replaced it with beefier stuff, doubled up the earths and eliminated all the plugs, and mounted the R/R where the horn goes, on some 3mm aluminium plate.

[rogson]

Check what AC voltage the generator should be putting out for your bike (spec should be in the shop manual) - 40VAC seems low to me. Also, check that you have continuity between each of the phases and no continuity between the phases and ground.

If the generator voltage is below spec the R/R won't work.

[CeeBee]

Steve, I doubt you will fry the stator becuase its undercharging...be different if it were overcharging....stator would be coking.

[bogan]

I'm tempted to build a switch-mode reg/rect, but there isn't a 400 watt design available to pinch. I understand the technology, but not well enough for my design to assemble and work first time.

It would put much much less stress on the stator and consume less engine power as well. This idea of burning excess energy as heat in the stator is rather outdated.

Any electrical engineers want to offer a circuit?

Steve

similar problem was found on the hawk forum, something about some stators having different configurations of windings (star delta kinda thing i'm geussing) and the high revs one just wasn't working. I can probably find the post if you want?

Also if you put it through a simple rect and use a switchmode (national.com has a cool webbench designer that lets you pick input and output specs and it generates a parts list and circuit for you, at 85% efficiency or above, hopefully putting together one they designed for me in next few days )

edit: just saw its all a month old so you have prolly fixed it already.

[CookMySock]

We swapped the reg/rect for a new aftermarket one, replaced the battery, and seems to be solid so far. The headlight is not doing its' dimming thing now. Will post in this thread if it falls over, but my guess is it will be all-good.

@bogan, yes that makes sense. Dunno if they would handle 400 watts though.

Steve

[bogan]

We swapped the reg/rect for a new aftermarket one, replaced the battery, and seems to be solid so far. The headlight is not doing its' dimming thing now. Will post in this thread if it falls over, but my guess is it will be all-good.

@bogan, yes that makes sense. Dunno if they would handle 400 watts though.

Steve

400W sounds like bloody heaps, thats 30amps at 13.5V, the one I'm making to power all the lights and dials on my electric is only 80W, granted that is on the low side cos I'll be swapping out lights for high efficiency ones, but still 60W headlight, 20W brake light, 15Wx2 indicators, where does the rest go

[notme]

@bogan - 400W is typical for bikes, an average car will have a couple of kW or more rated alternator. This is the reason some race bikes run a battery only system, so that they aren't wasting 0.4kW that they could use for winning the race.

Where does the power go? Think about a modern bike.....fuel injectors, all the lighting, fuel pump, accessories, ignition...... it all adds up and automotive alternators are only putting out more and more as vehicles demand more from them with more and more electrickery bits.

[CookMySock]

Search for "watts" on this page.

http://www.motorcycle.com/specs/hyos...0r/detail.html

edit: and on this page, for an even bigger alternator.

http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/mod...200LT%2099.htm

edit: @allun, dunno about "a couple of kW or more". I have seen 55-90 Amps. 700-1100 Watts.

Steve

[notme]

DB - check the link: http://store.alternatorparts.com/hig...ternators.aspx

Crusty old Crown Vic (standard US cop car of yesteryear) had a 160A alternator (2kW) and bigger/more luxury/more accessorized cars will have 210A, 220A units.

The demand is only increasing with more and more gizmos in vehicles, hence the current (hehehe bad pun i know) puich to go to 48V in vehicles to keep the current down.

[CookMySock]

Woh. Yeah I did wonder about modern vee-hickles with all their modern 'lectrical stuff.

Steve