Sonreir said:
Not quite right... The 360 has a permanent magnet charging system so the alternator doesn't use any voltage, it only produces it. The white wire is an AC partial circuit that is normally off. When you turn on the high beams, that switch also completes the circuit for the white wire and you get extra charging to help account for the high beam's extra wattage draw.
The stock regulator has a yellow wire, black wire, and green wire (ground). The yellow wire acts like an "input" to the regulator so that it knows how much voltage is being produced by the alternator. As the voltage increases, the regulator will shunt more voltage from the DC side (black wire) in order to keep the voltage levels in range.
Actually, the Black wire is the DC Battery Voltage reference wire. The regulator actually shunts (grounds) the AC yellow wire to ground to regulate it.
On the later 360's, if you do not have the right pod on/off light switch, Honda connected the white and yellow together under the tank, at the big wire junction. On the older ones, the light switch controls the output. Light off, yellow only, lights on, yellow and white together. the Yellow is about 1/3 output 45 watts or so, the white is about and additional 85 watts or so. Ignition and battery charge can be handled with 40 watts. The lights, added up, need the additional 85 or so. Headlight is 35W/50w, with low beam you get yellow markers up front, 3W each plus tail 3 w, plus brake light can be 7W. Signals are 7 watts each, 2 at a time. Plus the 4 gauge lighting lamps, and intrument indicators (high beam, neutral, signal).
The system has pretty much just enough output to light the lights, spark the plugs, and up to 40 watts to charge the battery when the lights are off and the coils not being powered between points closing and opening.
that's why a 55/60 watt H4 bulb, on an otherwise stock system, puts it on a deficit, as there is nothing left to charge the battery.
The math isn't exact because the numbers aren't exact. this is because the average current draw of the coils varies with RPM, as does the output. At idle, you do NOT have the full 130 watts. The full amount should be available above 5000 RPM. At 9000 RPM, it can put out over 130 watts, but you are going to kill the engine if you race around at 9000 rpm all day.