Improved rectifier/regulator

F

Frank from Quebec

Full member
Location
St-Ours Quebec Canada
Hi guys,

Since trying it on another bike with good results I wanted to try a moffset series type regulator on the Laverda.

Here is the piece :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400230299854?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

The Suzuki GS guys are raving about the 3 phase version saying that it saves heating the stator needlessly and improves the battery charging.

Of course on the Laverda I used the single phase version with both charging coils wired in parallel.

It did a significant difference, decreasing the RPM at which 13 volts is attained from 3000 to 1800 with headlight off and from 4000 to 3000 headlight on.

This is compared to good working unit that came from a Kawasaki ex500.

So maybe not a complete cure for the marginal charging system but a significant improvement.

Frank.
 
Hi Frank

the Compu Fire is good quality stuff, but $112.95 is full bore retail. The American's can order it through Amazon.com for $93.95, although as usual we Canadian's get screwed, Amazon.ca doesn't list it and Amazon.com won't ship to us.

the Compu Fire r/r described by Frank is actually designed for Harley fitment, it is even available in nice smooth shiny "billet" case without the unsightly heat disipating fins..... :o

I lke the Compu Fire stuff, I used to fit their high output starters to my monster motor Harley engines when iwas still into that sort of thing...

Paul LeClair
 
Worked for me too.

Now in your original post you stated that you tied the 2 stator coils in parallel and fed to the single phase version. I suspect this will waste a lot of the power and as the Suzuki guys have said will gereate heat in the stator. This is because the power cycles are out of phase so will just feed back into the second stator coil. The reason the 3 phase ones are better is they have recitifiers in each coil circuit separately in a delta arrangement. This means that it doesn't matter what phase the actual coil is, all the power will go to the rectifier rather than back through the coils.

Now if you only have 2 stator coils there's no reason why you couldn't connect them to 2 of the inputs of the 3 phase RR, it will work better than having them tied together in parallel on the single phase one. You should of course check with the RR manufacturer that this is OK as I don't have a copy of the input circuitry of the RR.

But then I'm no Auto Electrician........
 
I'm no auto electrician either....
But it seems to me that the 2 charging coils are in phase because when wired in series they give twice the voltage and when wired in substraction they give just about nothing so to me it means they are doing the same thing at the same time.
With the 2 coils together giving maybe 15 amps. I see no problem in feeding it all in a 32 amp regulator.

Frank.
 
I'm not an auto electrician either, so we're all equally un-qualified. But that's not going to stop me expressing an opinion  :D

I'm not sure whether the two stator coils are doing the same thing at the same time. What voltage they generate at what time depends on the where the magnetic poles are located in the rotor.

However, the stator coils mounted 180 degrees out of phase on the stator plate, so one thing you can deduce from that is that they see the same magnetic field going past, but with 180 degrees phase difference. That means whatever current the coils are producing, they're doing it 180 deg apart.

You can still connect them in parallel regardless of the number of magnetic poles in the rotor. The coil voltages will either be in phase (even number of magnets) or 180 degrees out of phase (odd number of magnets). If you get them arse-about, the coils will cancel each other out and you get nothing coming out of the DC side of the RR. In that case, simply reverse the connections for one of the coils to get them back into phase. You should then have roughly double the current output of a single coil.

Drikko is right though. If you have a 3-phase RR, you may as well use 2 phases to get the most out of each stator coil. Makes no difference which way around you connect them.

Cheers,
Cam

 
Yeah that all makes a lot of sense Cam, my brain only pictured them being out of phase being a pessimistic prick. Next time I'm over at Reds I'll check one out and see how they are wired.

But then I'm no auto electrician......

 
This stuff is well byond my understanding of the green smoke but John Wilson was working on a 3 phase RR years ago and was using my 3C as a test bed.I was running 2 big charging coils,one extra was added as Johns Ignition didn't need it for power.It proved problematic,kept dieing with much bigger spikes than he expected.BTW all this I just wrote was probably BS but its as close to what I could glean from Johns description,it was as usual well clever.He ended up with the Kawasaki 240watt alternator as a better mouse trap.
 
Dunno if this helps the discussion - a picture from John Wilson back in the MSN days

 

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Black finned model, 32 AMP, 55120: $75.95 at cas4.com
Click to expand...

Great link Cape, but sadly a bit of a pain for the world outside USA:

[size=8pt]
All " NON-USA Citizens " must pre-pay by
MONEY ORDER or WIRE TRANS ONLY.
Unless you have a USA shipping address Credit Card.
Click to expand...

Funny that I can use my credit card to buy flowers (over the phone) for my girlfriend in the US, but can't buy bike parts the same way.....

I would love to do business with US companies, but I don't think US firms are much interested in doing business with the rest of the world... ::)

Pete
 
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