2004 regulator/rectifier question

I have a question...........

On my 2004 FE550E the solder on the bus connection on the stator for the lighting circuit keeps melting off and then there is no more headlight.

I don't usually use my headlight very much, and this problem first appeared about a year ago. Say 45 hours of running time ago, and the bike has a total of roughly 175 hrs.

The first time this happened I was running both the headlight and tail light assembly while dual sporting in the Gifford Pinchot National forest with Logjump. I checked the circuit with an ohm meter found the open, and pulled the stator. At that time I figured that the solder was just a cold solder joint and the electronics tech at my work agreed that it appeared to be a workmanship issue. He re-soldered the wire to the bus and I was a happy man as I did not have to buy a new stator.

A few weeks back I was again doing some dual sporting in the Sequoia Natinol forest and had to use the Headlight and tailight for several hours, about 60 miles worth coming back to camp in the dark on the asphalt. The next day I was out for a ride (without the headlight on) and it was getting late. A choice had to be made at a trail junction, a short trip back to camp, or a longer one with the possibility of having to use the headlight. I checked to see if the headlight worked, knowing there was bit of history, and it did not work.

Upon returing home I pulled the stator and the same solder joint was melted off again. I noticed too that the yellow wire was basically a dark brown not far from the solder joint, but, by the time it was getting ready to exit the stator cover it was back to yellow. I could see where the solder had melted and dripped on one of the mounting bolts. Once again I had the tech at work re-solder the joint, and questioned him about the melting temp of the solder. He said it was a 50/50 solder, 50% tin, and 50% lead, with a melting point of around 600F, and said it would get soft at 500F.

Upon reflection, the only time I could think of having any such problem was when I was running the tail light. So, I disconnected it before my next trip. I measured the voltage at the headlight ( AC of course) and got 11. 65 VAC. I also checked the amperage and it was right around 5 amps. That's about right for the 60 watt halogen that came with the bike.

While riding this last week up in SNF again, I took it one step further and cut the hot wire heading from the headlight back down the frame to the tail light just in case there was a momentary short in that wiring.

I was coming back from a late afternoon ride and fishing and I needed the headlight b/c I had stayed too late. The light worked fine for about 45 minutes and then it failed again. It had the exact same symptoms when it failed as the times before, it would quit for a minute or so, the a blip of the throttle would bring it back. Afte a couple of times of this, it stayed out for good. This is exactly what happened twice before, so short of having pulled stator yet, I'm going to assume that the solder has again melted off.

So, finally, here is the question. I don't know much about the technicalities of how the voltage regulator works for the AC lighting system. I do know from my experience with my 01 bike with the seperate voltage regulator, that when it failed it had excessively high voltage and the headlight and tail light bulbs would last about 10 seconds before they would burn out. The 04 bike has an integrated regulator/rectifier.

I'm wondering if it would be possible if the regulator could be failing after it gets hot and is shunting more and more current to ground, thus over heating the wire? Have any of you with the Kokusan ignition bikes experienced anything like this? The light never dimmed while riding indicating a voltage loss, it just quits.

I checked over the wiring loom once before to make sure there are no shorts anywhere, and I will check again in the mean time. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Hi Ned,

Thanks for the input. Just for the record the white wire on mine charges the battery, and it is slightly discolored but not burnt. Also, the 60/65 watt bulb is what came standard (admittedly I don't know which filament it's on, the 60 or 65) in my bike. I did consider going to a smaller output bulb as a solution, I know that they come in all sizes, perhaps dropping 20 watt's? That's a decrease of 1.6 amps.

What's interesting is that the solder on the wires for the winding itself, which are on the same bus are not effected, the solder is still in place.

The stator is supposed to be good for 150 watt's total, so I'm assuming that's 75 a side. What do you think about going to a larger conductor, or just running a larger wire in parallel? It looks like there is room in the gromment to put another wire through.

Thanks again for the input,

ned37 said:

hmmm ::?:
dale, my 04 450 experienced a burnt/ desoldered joint on the stator last march, but i noticed it because the bat wasn't charging. this was right after i bought it from bergdude :x (just kiddiing, mike). he said that he had to replace a reg/rect because of a reassembly f/u and a h/l / charging issue. when the bat went dead and i found and fixed the prob with the solder joint, i haven't had any probs since then. looked at it a couple of weeks ago when i did a cam chain and its still the same as i left it. on mine, the white wire conn burned, and the yellow on mine is brown, too.
however, my bike came stock with a 35w bulb, and bergdude changed it to a 55/60 h4. nice and bright, but the system won't charge. put a meter on it with the h/l on and it just loses voltage gradually. works fine as long as i don't run it for more than an hour and use a lot of brakelite. i'll be in the market for one of the new piaa hs1 super plasma lamps when they get available.
imo, i don't think it would be the reg/rect because usually when they are bad, they are dead.
i'm thinkin you are too close to the edge of the output with your lighting amps and the white wire may need to be bigger.

Click to expand...

I'm a little confused here................

Are you running your headlight off of the battery? Mine runs off of the A/C system (yellow wire) that is seperate from the charging system (white wire). IE when the head light quits the battery is still charging.

Dale

VIKING said:

Hi DaleEO
I don't think that the heat from the engine melted your solder I have had cold solders
and once fixed not problem again there only a couple of possibility's left
1/ you have high resistance close to the bus where wire is solder on, thats tough problem
to nail down
2/ short to ground within the stator causing a excessive current flow, I don't think
this is likely since you only have the problem when you use the the light and this type
of problem would be all the time
3/ high current draw caused by a bad componet or short to ground in the bikes electrical
system

I am inclined to think that 1/ is most likely 3/ not as likely since you are not complaining
about a dim light ( high current draw low voltage to the bulb = dim light )
the stator puts out approx. 90W AC and 25W DC these readings are out my 04 450
I have a stock 07 stator that could take some ohms reading on if you are interested to know

VIKING

Click to expand...

HI Viking, thank you for your input,

I agree, the engine heat did not melt the solder. If that was the case, I don't think the motor would be running anymore.

I chatted with Sparks a while ago and he suggested checking the grounding connection on the stator itself. He felt confident that this would cure the problem, and I think this relates to the high resistance too. He also mentioned checking the rivet that holds that section of bus. I will also double check all the wiring in the loom to make sure that nothing is amiss there.

I am going to replace that section of wire that has been soldered to the bus on the stator itself, it's looking pretty tired...... And, if any of the strands are broken in that first section that would explain the high resistance, and thus, the very high heat

I am interested in how you determined what the capacity of the stator output is. I have seen on the Baja designs web page numbers for the KTM stators which are essentially the same, about a 100W AC and 50W DC output.

Thanks again for your input,