6 volts only, where's the rest?

Hey chaps,

I'm putting my 03 650 onto the road and I'm sorting the electrics.

For the purposes of electrical supply, I have a regulator/rectifier (not a Husaberg one) where one circuit is simply regulated to about 12v AC for the lights and the other rectified to about 12v dc.

Now, when run I get all the voltage I need on the regulated ac circuit but on the rectified circuit I'm only getting about max 6-7 volts. It's not the unit that's faulty because I've tested it back to back with another unit and I've tested it on another bike and get the relevant voltages absolutely fine.

I'm getting exactly the same voltages from both the yellow wires straight from the stator - 10-12v at idle.

Now the weird thing is, if I wire a simple 12v light bulb to the dc circuit that's showing just 6 odd volts it lights up fine but it will not power the horn, for example.

I have no resistors in the dc circuit when testing.

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Simon

I can only suggest an OEM regulator/recifier.
Of course we know that it would be impossible to have a problem with a SEM stator......right?.......ummmmm.......right?? :wink:

Simon said:

Hey chaps,

I'm putting my 03 650 onto the road and I'm sorting the electrics.

For the purposes of electrical supply, I have a regulator/rectifier (not a Husaberg one) where one circuit is simply regulated to about 12v AC for the lights and the other rectified to about 12v dc.

Now, when run I get all the voltage I need on the regulated ac circuit but on the rectified circuit I'm only getting about max 6-7 volts. It's not the unit that's faulty because I've tested it back to back with another unit and I've tested it on another bike and get the relevant voltages absolutely fine.

I'm getting exactly the same voltages from both the yellow wires straight from the stator - 10-12v at idle.

Now the weird thing is, if I wire a simple 12v light bulb to the dc circuit that's showing just 6 odd volts it lights up fine but it will not power the horn, for example.

I have no resistors in the dc circuit when testing.

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Simon

Click to expand...

Hi Simon, its great to hear from you.

Try the horn while the DC output is loaded with at least a 2 amp load. If it toots then the problem is you do not have the rectifier properly loaded with a battery to make it always regulate at 12+ volts.

If you add a capacitor across the output of the regulator your problem should be solved.

Search on 'regulator capacitor'.

Let us know if this solves your problem.

Cheers,

Joe

JoeUSA said:

Hi Simon, its great to hear from you.

Try the horn while the DC output is loaded with at least a 2 amp load. If it toots then the problem is you do not have the rectifier properly loaded with a battery to make it always regulate at 12+ volts.

If you add a capacitor across the output of the regulator your problem should be solved.

Search on 'regulator capacitor'.

Let us know if this solves your problem.

Cheers,

Joe

Click to expand...

Hey Joe,

Good to hear from you too!

Thanks for the pointer. The bulb I had attached was only 10 watts. I'll try again with a 35 watt bulb and see what results I get.

Not knowing much about this stuff, what would you suggest the minimum uF value should be for the capacitor in this application - simplyfor the horn, no battery charging for the time being?

Cheers,
Simon

berger said:

Of course we know that it would be impossible to have a problem with a SEM stator......right?.......ummmmm.......right?? :wink:

Click to expand...

Well, knowing how rock solid these SEM stators are, surely, it couldn't be..... :wink:

The stator in this case is still alive.

Cheers,
Simon

Simon said:

JoeUSA said:

Hi Simon, its great to hear from you.

Try the horn while the DC output is loaded with at least a 2 amp load. If it toots then the problem is you do not have the rectifier properly loaded with a battery to make it always regulate at 12+ volts.

If you add a capacitor across the output of the regulator your problem should be solved.

Search on 'regulator capacitor'.

Let us know if this solves your problem.

Cheers,



Joe

Click to expand...

Hey Joe,

Good to hear from you too!

Thanks for the pointer. The bulb I had attached was only 10 watts. I'll try again with a 35 watt bulb and see what results I get.

Not knowing much about this stuff, what would you suggest the minimum uF value should be for the capacitor in this application - simplyfor the horn, no battery charging for the time being?

Cheers,
Simon

Click to expand...

The one in Dales post Simon.

Post link

Cheers,

Joe

Simon,

I just realised that you said the regulator/rectifier was not Husaberg!

Do you have a schematic for mounting and connecting it?

Does it show a case ground and a wire lead ground to the bike chassis or 2 seperate wire lead grounds?

Please post it for us.


Please show have you wired it?

Cheers,

Joe

Heya Simon
Check thru the electrical forums if you can spare the life-force required. I have posted as best I can how I think the regulators work. A non-Husaberg one will still work the same.

The voltage problem you see has more to do with the meter you are using to measure voltages than a problem with the bike itself.

Hallo!


I was just wondering how to check/notice if the stator doesn´t work properly?

/Rikard

Hey Joe,

I don't have schematic available to post and will attempt to explain instead

Regulator/recitifer has 4 wires/connectors:-

Green - earth
Red - rectified 12VDC feed (e.g. to battery & starter relay)
White - Feed from stator
Yellow - regulated 12-14VAC

My stator has, for our purposes and ignoring the ignition, 2 yellow and one blue.

Blue - connected directly to earth on the bike chassis
Yellow - White on the regulator/rectifier
Yellow - Branches to Yellow on regulator/rectifier AND light circuit.

BundyBear,

Can you explain more about the meter issue please?

I am using 2 meters - one is an old Farnell Instruments mains powered laboratory meter, the other is a Gunson's professional automotive multimeter.

Now, regarding the capacitor issue, looking at a component supplier I have used before, a capacitor for just 27000uf 50vdc is going set me back about 25 pounds after taxes and postage. Instead, I am able to get a 12vdc .8ah or 1.2ah lead acid battery for significantly less. I'm considering perhaps doing the battery thing instead? What do you think?

Cheers,
Simon

Simon,

Per Bundy, did you check your voltmeter on a 12volt battery yet? You must have one in your car.

Have you tried using the 35Watt bulb yet?

You mentioned you are putting it on the street. In my area we have to have a battery that will provide 20 or so minutes of head and tail light use with the engine off.

I would put the standard Yusa battery back in the bike.

The capacitor will be easier to mount than the small lead acid battery, and probably a lot lighter.

Cheers,

Joe

Hey Joe,

Yep, done the tests. Now, both my meters come up absolutely fine on just a 12volt battery and they also both show 12.7volts dc when I connect them up to the regulator/rectifier and run it on a different bike....

Now, going by the Farnell meter if I run the engine on the 650 with nothing connected up the the rectified circuit, I get about 6-8 vdc. If I then connect the 35w lamp I get a drop in voltage to about 3-4vdc (or - 1.13v) but the bulb lights up. (As a note, I had been using a 21w bulb previously so not far off from 2amps).

I won't even go into the readings I got from the other multimeter because they were way off the ones I got from the Farnell meter - weird.

By my calculations a 35w bulb should be drawing about 2.9 amps at 12v.

Anyway, I gave up on that and instead lifted a small 5ah battery from another bike rigged it up to the rectifier and hey presto, 12.7 to 13 something at idle no problems (shown on both meters too).

So, thanks Joe, you were right all along.

But I must say I'm going away from this somewhat confused as to why adding a load such as the bulb did not work whereas the battery solved the problem immediately. I'm also quite confused about why I'm getting weird readings from one of my meters some of the time - maybe it's time for a new one.

I think I'll go down the route of getting a battery and making up a bracket so that if I need to I can run the lights without the engine running.

And if I get round to it I might connect up my oscilloscope and see whether that helps to answers some of the questions regarding the function of the regulator/rectifier.

Cheers,
Simon

Hi Simon,

Good to see you back riding again.

Enjoy every minute of it.

Cheers,

Joe

Cheers Joe,

Speak soon.

Simon

Simon
I'll be out for a few days but I'll try to sketch up a waveform picture to explain what I mean. Pretty sure what you report makes sense.

BundyBear said:

Simon
I'll be out for a few days but I'll try to sketch up a waveform picture to explain what I mean. Pretty sure what you report makes sense.

Click to expand...

Thank you Brad,

I'd really appreciate that if you have the time and inclination - I'm interested to learn what's going on.

Cheers,
Simon