Swapmeet Louie
Put some metal in yer eye....
AlphaDogChoppers said:
Because You make blanket statements. And Nope. Fuck You TOO!
I can smell passive aggressive bullshit from a mile away...
CB350 overcharging battery?
- Thread starter fairfield
- Start date
Because You make blanket statements. And Nope. Fuck You TOO!
I can smell passive aggressive bullshit from a mile away...
AlphaDogChoppers
Science is true whether you believe in it or not.
Get real, Dude. You have a long history of being pissy and arrogant on this board.
It's uncalled for.
It's uncalled for.
Swapmeet Louie
Put some metal in yer eye....
See ya! Its all yours alphadogbillettird...
AlphaDogChoppers
Science is true whether you believe in it or not.
Typical...
TonUpSoldier
bad assed, super fast and fully gassed
Ahem....
As to the topic at hand..
Typical shunting type regulators are generally what are used in most UJMs that people find. And, with almost every manufacturer (honda, Kawi, Zook..etc) they were built and designed by the cheapest bidder...but that doesnt mean they dont work.
Most often what causes failure of a RR unit is heat build up. This is the result of a couple of different possibilities but not limited to one. Most often, corrosion of the connectors (those cheap bullet pieces of shit
) causes resistance, resistance causes heat, heat causes the RR to fail. Its worth while to, even on your "finished" project, running well or not, go back through, and do a few things. One or ALL of these are good ideas...
One: remove the old crappy bullet connectors and install fresh shiny new spade type weather proof connectors. You can even go so far as to heat shrink them to eliminate any weather from greatly speeding up corrosion, but keep in mind if you do, you'll likely have to cut them off and replace them if you have a failure...you only have so much wire (yes, you can always splice in more, but anywhere theres a splice/connector there is the chance for resistance)
Two: give all of your connections a nice little dab of dielectric grease. This will help ensure a nice clean contact path for your electrons to travel through Clean wiring is happy wiring
Three: (And this may be limited for some of you...i dont know the wiring for EVERY bike...) Eliminate the wiring loom from your charging path. Ideally, the best way to do this is to wire your stator directly to your regulator, and your regulator directly to your battery with an inline 25-30amp blade type fuse holder to simply protect the battery. Many bikes have redundant wiring looms. For instance, Suzuki in their non-retooling for shit, infinite wisdom, had one leg of the stator wired to the headlamp switch when having said switch was legal. When it became illegal in many areas, they didnt bother re-mapping their loom...they left it. So you have this leg of the stator that had to run power through the ENTIRE length of the bike, through multiple connection points before it got to the RR...As you can imagine, over the years, and johnny neglectful owning said bike, the corrosion built up...and one day it didnt charge anymore...
So by eliminating the loom from the charging path, you eliminate any potential resistance problems other than those in the charging path itself.
For those of you with later model RR with a 6 wire set up, usually that 6th wire is a "sense" wire. Its used to sense the voltage of whatever circuit its wired to. Usually switched power (dont wire it to unswitched power or it will drain your battery) such as a tail light, etc. Problem is usually tail light circuits power something else on the bike as well. This means long runs of wire. Longs runs of wire generally mean at least some voltage drop. Voltage drop on the sense wire will cause it to think that the battery needs to charge when in fact it may not, and can cause the RR to allow the battery to over charge. Wire your sense wire somewhere close to the fuse block. I use the ignition switch. Pretty short run (from the block to the switch and back) and its switched power.
Lastly, if you want the latest and greatest in shunting type regulators, go with a MosFET type regulator. These can be found pretty cheap used on Ebay from a Honda Foreman or Rubicon built in or after 2006. Usually around $25-$50.
FET type regulators act MUCH MUCH faster than standard SCR types. Every time a regulator shunts power (that is, diverts overcharge to ground) it creates heat. We know from earlier what heat does to an RR. FET types do it so much faster that they generally create very very little heat.
Now, get out there and clean up your charging system
As to the topic at hand..
Typical shunting type regulators are generally what are used in most UJMs that people find. And, with almost every manufacturer (honda, Kawi, Zook..etc) they were built and designed by the cheapest bidder...but that doesnt mean they dont work.
Most often what causes failure of a RR unit is heat build up. This is the result of a couple of different possibilities but not limited to one. Most often, corrosion of the connectors (those cheap bullet pieces of shit
) causes resistance, resistance causes heat, heat causes the RR to fail. Its worth while to, even on your "finished" project, running well or not, go back through, and do a few things. One or ALL of these are good ideas...One: remove the old crappy bullet connectors and install fresh shiny new spade type weather proof connectors. You can even go so far as to heat shrink them to eliminate any weather from greatly speeding up corrosion, but keep in mind if you do, you'll likely have to cut them off and replace them if you have a failure...you only have so much wire (yes, you can always splice in more, but anywhere theres a splice/connector there is the chance for resistance)
Two: give all of your connections a nice little dab of dielectric grease. This will help ensure a nice clean contact path for your electrons to travel through
Clean wiring is happy wiringThree: (And this may be limited for some of you...i dont know the wiring for EVERY bike...) Eliminate the wiring loom from your charging path. Ideally, the best way to do this is to wire your stator directly to your regulator, and your regulator directly to your battery with an inline 25-30amp blade type fuse holder to simply protect the battery. Many bikes have redundant wiring looms. For instance, Suzuki in their non-retooling for shit, infinite wisdom, had one leg of the stator wired to the headlamp switch when having said switch was legal. When it became illegal in many areas, they didnt bother re-mapping their loom...they left it. So you have this leg of the stator that had to run power through the ENTIRE length of the bike, through multiple connection points before it got to the RR...As you can imagine, over the years, and johnny neglectful owning said bike, the corrosion built up...and one day it didnt charge anymore...
So by eliminating the loom from the charging path, you eliminate any potential resistance problems other than those in the charging path itself.
For those of you with later model RR with a 6 wire set up, usually that 6th wire is a "sense" wire. Its used to sense the voltage of whatever circuit its wired to. Usually switched power (dont wire it to unswitched power or it will drain your battery) such as a tail light, etc. Problem is usually tail light circuits power something else on the bike as well. This means long runs of wire. Longs runs of wire generally mean at least some voltage drop. Voltage drop on the sense wire will cause it to think that the battery needs to charge when in fact it may not, and can cause the RR to allow the battery to over charge. Wire your sense wire somewhere close to the fuse block. I use the ignition switch. Pretty short run (from the block to the switch and back) and its switched power.
Lastly, if you want the latest and greatest in shunting type regulators, go with a MosFET type regulator. These can be found pretty cheap used on Ebay from a Honda Foreman or Rubicon built in or after 2006. Usually around $25-$50.
FET type regulators act MUCH MUCH faster than standard SCR types. Every time a regulator shunts power (that is, diverts overcharge to ground) it creates heat. We know from earlier what heat does to an RR. FET types do it so much faster that they generally create very very little heat.
Now, get out there and clean up your charging system
TonUpSoldier said:
You got an example part for those connector? I found these listed as spade on Mouser:
http://ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kobiconn/159-2226/?qs=Keydt0ailpzaup1ZaCzNWA%3d%3d
I'm thinking you meant something like this:
http://ca.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kobiconn/159-2251/?qs=iv5aS%252bKJODM%252bIf4ctdij0Q%3d%3d
The insulator is another part number... don't know if it qualifies as weatherproof.
TonUpSoldier said:Two: give all of your connections a nice little dab of dielectric grease. This will help ensure a nice clean contact path for your electrons to travel through
Good idea.
TonUpSoldier said:
I was wondering if the regulator could be wired directly to the battery through a fuse. It's a 3 wire SCR type. I'm afraid it would it drain current when left sitting (there's most likely a zener in the detection circuit that would leak a bit of current).
On these Hondas, there are windings in the alternator that are only used for charging when the high beams are on. I would like to take the unused stator wire straight to the rectifier instead of reaching the handlebar switch. Is there a problem with doing this considering I would ride with lights on(high or low beam) all the time?
I plan on updating the rectifier.
TonUpSoldier said:
MosFETs are the shit for this type of work. You've used these in what bikes exactly? As a replacement, this would be cheap and ideal.
Thanks for your input, greatly appreciated.
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
Get spade connectors from somewhere like this
http://www.vintageconnections.com/ConnectorKits.htm
Get the correct crimping pliers though, just squashing connectors doesn't always work (and looks bad)
I re-wire generator directly to rectifier and haven't had any problems, the regulator control/signal wire just goes to any switched 12v so it's off when ignition is off
I find Mosfets pretty fragile, you can overheat them just soldering them to circuit board but some people never have problems with them
http://www.vintageconnections.com/ConnectorKits.htm
Get the correct crimping pliers though, just squashing connectors doesn't always work (and looks bad)
I re-wire generator directly to rectifier and haven't had any problems, the regulator control/signal wire just goes to any switched 12v so it's off when ignition is off
I find Mosfets pretty fragile, you can overheat them just soldering them to circuit board but some people never have problems with them
TonUpSoldier
bad assed, super fast and fully gassed
fairfield:
To your question re: running your Hibeam phase to your RR, I dont think so, but you may ask the Honduh experts on here. Ive had a couple, but never long enough to get that far with
If you've only a three wire RR im going to guess that your honda runs a two phase charging system them? Most of what I work on run a three phase stator either wired in delta or wye (theres debate on which winding works better...frankly i think they both suck, which is why i bought a bike with an ALTERNATOR on it for when my old bikes piss me off and I just want to ride..heh)
Those FET units are a completely sealed set up, look very much like the Shindendingdong pieces of junk we are all so familiar with.
Another thing i neglected to mention. Many times manufacturers would run grounds to the battery box bolts, or someplace on the battery box/electronics panel attached to the bat box. I still dunno WTF they were thinking, as most of those bat boxes were rubber isolated from the frame. Sure, its ground, but its shite ground. And many times, low charging voltage issues, if everything has tested out well enough (stator, RR, etc) can be blamed on pissy grounds (isnt it always the way??)
If you've got the space on your battery terminals, Id also suggest running the ground from your RR DIRECTLY to your NEG batt terminal to eliminate any problems... It helps tremendously, and you dont have to worry about scuffing up that nice shiny paint you just put on your frame to make sure you get good ground...
To your question re: running your Hibeam phase to your RR, I dont think so, but you may ask the Honduh experts on here. Ive had a couple, but never long enough to get that far with
If you've only a three wire RR im going to guess that your honda runs a two phase charging system them? Most of what I work on run a three phase stator either wired in delta or wye (theres debate on which winding works better...frankly i think they both suck, which is why i bought a bike with an ALTERNATOR on it for when my old bikes piss me off and I just want to ride..heh)
Those FET units are a completely sealed set up, look very much like the Shindendingdong pieces of junk we are all so familiar with.
Another thing i neglected to mention. Many times manufacturers would run grounds to the battery box bolts, or someplace on the battery box/electronics panel attached to the bat box. I still dunno WTF they were thinking, as most of those bat boxes were rubber isolated from the frame. Sure, its ground, but its shite ground. And many times, low charging voltage issues, if everything has tested out well enough (stator, RR, etc) can be blamed on pissy grounds (isnt it always the way??)
If you've got the space on your battery terminals, Id also suggest running the ground from your RR DIRECTLY to your NEG batt terminal to eliminate any problems... It helps tremendously, and you dont have to worry about scuffing up that nice shiny paint you just put on your frame to make sure you get good ground...
I was out on the Powerdynamo site today trying to learn more about them and to see if I could do a mix and match on some of their parts for a project. I came across the comment that charging is OK up to 15.5 or even 16 volts and is considered normal by their engineers. That surprised me and I think that the comment really meant that a large stock battery is OK and can absorb that sort of "overcharge" because it has enough volume/mass of material.
Where we seem to run into trouble is with a high charge current/voltage and a small battery that has insufficient capacity to deal with that much of a change in charge/discharge states.
And the comment above about grounds and earlier ones about connectors are spot on.
Where we seem to run into trouble is with a high charge current/voltage and a small battery that has insufficient capacity to deal with that much of a change in charge/discharge states.
And the comment above about grounds and earlier ones about connectors are spot on.
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
There I was, thinking you knew what you were talking about and you mentioned alternators and stators as though they are different ;D
Stator is component of alternator, stator (stationary coils) and rotor, (rotating magnet, either permanent magnet or electromagnet)
Wye and Delta are used in different situations.
I don't know or care about the math, but, in general, low rpm bikes (cruisers) use delta and high rpm bikes use wye
Something about higher charging amps at lower rpm?
Automotive alternators are exactly the same internally (GM rectifier will fit into Suzuki and Yamaha's with alternators mounted behind cylinder, possibly Honda and Kawasaki as well?)
Just because there is a single wire, it doesn't mean there is more 'magic' inside them
I usually wire Honda alternators as 3 phase with a different rectifier
You can just connect the yellow and white wires together and feed into one rectifier lead, not sure if it will cause excess heat though? (should be fine with lights on all the time?)
Stator is component of alternator, stator (stationary coils) and rotor, (rotating magnet, either permanent magnet or electromagnet)
Wye and Delta are used in different situations.
I don't know or care about the math, but, in general, low rpm bikes (cruisers) use delta and high rpm bikes use wye
Something about higher charging amps at lower rpm?
Automotive alternators are exactly the same internally (GM rectifier will fit into Suzuki and Yamaha's with alternators mounted behind cylinder, possibly Honda and Kawasaki as well?)
Just because there is a single wire, it doesn't mean there is more 'magic' inside them
I usually wire Honda alternators as 3 phase with a different rectifier
You can just connect the yellow and white wires together and feed into one rectifier lead, not sure if it will cause excess heat though? (should be fine with lights on all the time?)
TonUpSoldier
bad assed, super fast and fully gassed
Well, they arent really different, no. But single unit alternators have less of a propensity for individual units breaking down because there are less connectors and less runs of voltage sapping wire.
Im quite familiar with how a alternator, generator and such are designed. But the fact remains that the more you break these parts up, the more likely you're going to have issues. Its pretty uncommon to see a modern bike with a driven single unit alternator have a charging failure.
Suzuki used to use a separate regulator unit and a separate rectifier unit. So on top of having a separate stator/rotor combo to run wire from, you had wiring run all over the damn place.
Plus, having a single unit alternator gets all the weight of a rotor off the end of your crank
Im quite familiar with how a alternator, generator and such are designed. But the fact remains that the more you break these parts up, the more likely you're going to have issues. Its pretty uncommon to see a modern bike with a driven single unit alternator have a charging failure.
Suzuki used to use a separate regulator unit and a separate rectifier unit. So on top of having a separate stator/rotor combo to run wire from, you had wiring run all over the damn place.
Plus, having a single unit alternator gets all the weight of a rotor off the end of your crank
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
Yep, but I don't think any of the Japanese manufacturers use single wire any longer? (maybe Honda on Goldwing?)
I've been a bit specialised in Suzuki for the last 6 yrs so a bit out of touch with what the rest are doing.
As far as I know, all the sportbikes are using neodinium (?) magnets in rotor on the end of crank?
Unofficially, Suzuki STILL have a crap reg/rect unit (up to 2010~11)
I can't say much, 'gagging' order in my termination agreement :-[
I've been a bit specialised in Suzuki for the last 6 yrs so a bit out of touch with what the rest are doing.
As far as I know, all the sportbikes are using neodinium (?) magnets in rotor on the end of crank?
Unofficially, Suzuki STILL have a crap reg/rect unit (up to 2010~11)
I can't say much, 'gagging' order in my termination agreement :-[
TonUpSoldier
bad assed, super fast and fully gassed
Exactly. Ive been rebuilding GSes for years...the first things to go in the garbage are the RRs. Absolute JUNK. For a while there was a bloke doing Honda rewires that were plug and play for the GS...crazypj said:
To be honest, aside from the Zook crappy RR, 85% of charging issues IMO are resultant of poor connector maintenance. People spend big bucks on oil changes and the hottest mods they can get their hands on, but do little to nothing to upgrade or at least maintain their charging system/harness..
If you REALLY REALLY want to get rid of all possibility of RR problems, short of using a all in one alternator bolted to the top of the trans case and powered by a belt or chain off the primary sprague clutch gear, Id suggest using a Compufire or like series regulator. These units actually turn OFF completely rather than shunting power to ground. The problem with even FET type regulators is that where-ever that power is shunted to, (ground, RR, Stator) heat is going to build and eventually ruin the unit...
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
+1 on the Honda Reg/rec.
I never made them for other people but I've been swapping them into various bikes since at least 1980.
The CB/CM400 reg will take up to 22amps for short periods, it gets hot but keeps working.
Only Suzuki reg/rect I've found ultra reliable is the Intruder V-twin. (GS500 twin aint bad and all the SACS cooled motors work well but they are 'single wire' alternators )
I never made them for other people but I've been swapping them into various bikes since at least 1980.
The CB/CM400 reg will take up to 22amps for short periods, it gets hot but keeps working.
Only Suzuki reg/rect I've found ultra reliable is the Intruder V-twin. (GS500 twin aint bad and all the SACS cooled motors work well but they are 'single wire' alternators
)
AlphaDogChoppers
Science is true whether you believe in it or not.
Took no time to cook the charging system on my GS450 after I upgraded from the single 30/50W headlight to dual 55/60W. What I also didn't realize when I wired the bike was that some parts of the stator go to the lighting circuit unregulated. I wired the new headlights through relays from the battery. It cooked the stator.
I replaced the stator with a more powerful ElectroSport stator, and used their regulator, too. The regulator was three times the size of the original. Haven't had any trouble with low battery since.
I am riding my daughter's GZ250. I am running a Gerbing jacket liner and gloves. So long as I am running at highway speed, it can still manage to keep the battery charged, which surprises the Hell out of me. After running the numbers, I had like 5W to spare at 5,000 RPM. It's a miracle that I have not cooked the stator on the poor little thing.
I replaced the stator with a more powerful ElectroSport stator, and used their regulator, too. The regulator was three times the size of the original. Haven't had any trouble with low battery since.
I am riding my daughter's GZ250. I am running a Gerbing jacket liner and gloves. So long as I am running at highway speed, it can still manage to keep the battery charged, which surprises the Hell out of me. After running the numbers, I had like 5W to spare at 5,000 RPM. It's a miracle that I have not cooked the stator on the poor little thing.
TonUpSoldier
bad assed, super fast and fully gassed
That headlamp loop was originally there for when you used to be able to shut off the headlamp. When they had the switch, and you shut it off, it killed one leg of the stator. But like I said, Suzuki didnt like to re-tool for shit. (Hence all of their "parts bin specials" we love so much. They do make a darn good bike honestly. Except for their traditionally crap suspension and charging systems) So when Uncle Sam decided that he needed to look out for us, and mandated that headlamps must be on at all times, Zook never re-routed the one stator leg loop. So you have all that wire running up and down the bike, and there are at least one or two crimp joints in that as well that will always be corroded. Which is why I always suggest running the charge path on its own, separate of the rest of the loom..AlphaDogChoppers said:
AlphaDogChoppers
Science is true whether you believe in it or not.
My 450 still had the switch to turn off the headlights. They just put a different thumb piece on the switch with a nub on the underside that made the switch immovable. I pulled the thumb piece off and took the nub off with a Dremel. Now I can turn my headlights off! Leaves extra power available for starting.
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
I know Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda just used a jumper inside handlebar switch when DOT mandated lights on all the time so the 'bodge' isn't confined to one manufacturer (I think Kawasaki did the same but can't remember?)
Early Kawasaki and many Yamaha's had wiring worse than Suzuki but they did use a better R/R (70's~80's)
Early Kawasaki and many Yamaha's had wiring worse than Suzuki but they did use a better R/R (70's~80's)
