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Regulator Rectifier questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smokinapankake
  • Start date Start date
S

Smokinapankake

Guest
OK, here we go again....

I've studied the Stator papers thoroughly, I understand what the Reg/Rec does, and after testing following the stator papers and my factory manual, I've come to the uncontested knowledge that my Reg/Rec is faulty. I have an 82 Katana 1000, and my question is this: What reg/recs will fit my bike? I can replace one through Dennis Kirk for about 100 bucks (electrosport) or I can find any number of them on eBay for anywhere from 5 bucks up to whatever I wish to spend. So what will fit? I'm looking in the direction of one off a Goldwing or something similar as they were designed for lots of extra accessories (and therefore should be more robust?) but I'm still a little unsure. Any help is greatly appreciated...
 
All the 4 cylinder honda's should fit I think. You have to splice into the loom somewhere (most use the back brake connection) in order for it to be able to read the voltage & regulate properly.

Make sure you have a dedicated ground lead going back to the battery, that's the most common fault & also overworks them.

Dan :)
 
Just about any R/R will work. 5 wires is standard: three input from the stator, a plus and a negative - both going to the battery. Hook a fuse in line to the plus going to the battery. Some Honda R/R's, but not all, also have a "sense" wire which needs to tap into a switched power wire (people often use the hot lead going to the brake light). It's all fairly easy as long as you can crip a connector or two. Of course, you can also just buy an Electrosport and be done with it. A little more expensive but a reasonable solution. And don't forget to run the harness ground for the negative side all the way back to the battery - Suzuki's big mistake was to ground to the rubber mounted battery box, thus resistance built up and heat followed...and R/R failure followed that.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for all the replies and help, I suspected that pretty much all reg recs are the same (or at least perform the same function) so the next slew o questions are as such: Why would a reg rec off a six cylinder motorcycle make any difference versus a four? and how would I determine which wire is pos/neg and stator? I assume the pos neg will be red and black respectively, and the stator will be any combination of other colors....
When you mention running a ground back to the battery do you mean connecting the ground wire to the neg pole of the battery?
Crimping connections and soldering wires together are no problem, I'm just a little unsure of which wire from a foreign (non Suzuki) reg/rec should go to which wire on the harness....
Thanks again so much for all the help, I'll probably bid on the CBR1000 reg/rec.
 
Yup, negative goes back to the battery post.

To figure out the wiring you might want to check the factory manual for the bike the regulator in question comes from. For example, I bought a R/R from a 2004 CBR600 and downloaded the manual from repairmanualclub.com before I bought it (ebay) so I could confirm the wiring. As far as I know there are no significant differences in the way R/R's work so it doesn't matter much what bike it comes from as long as it can handle the current.
 
The wiring on my Honda R/R went as follows:

Red/White to battery (+) through a 15 amp fuse.
Green to battery (-) and ground.
Three yellows to the stator (White/Blue, White/Green, and Yellow)
Black to voltage sense (hot when ign. is on- I tied it to an Orange wire)
 
And current is a measurement of the output of the stator, correct? So if I had a stator on my bike rated at 130 VAC, and installed a reg rec off a bike with, say, a current of 80 VAC, the 80 VAC reg/rec would be insufficient, correct?
 
Both current as well as voltage would be used to determine the output of a stator. Power = Volts X Current.
You're correct- an 85 volt R/R would not work well with a 130 volt stator.
 
So how do I determine current vs. voltage? My factory manual tells me that if my stator output at 5k r/min is less than 80 VAC, the stator is bad.
I measured off one of the leads 80 volts, 79.5 the other and something like 79.2 on the third. I'm assuming this to be okay as it could be chalked up to a shaky hand on the test probes....
Bottom line, I just want to replace my reg/rec. as cheaply as possible and for the rest of my life, i.e., I never want to have to mess with it again.
Thanks so much for the help!!
 
Your stator voltages are fine. You need to measure the resistance from one of those stator wires to ground. It must be an open circuit. If its not the stator is bad (shorted to ground).

As far as the R/R goes just get ahold of "Duaneage" on this forum and buy one of his Honda R/R kits for $40.00 and forget about it. I did and its works great.
 
So I just bought via Ebay a Reg. Rec. off a 2001-2003 CBR600, 5 wire unit. Total price was 40 bucks with shipping. Hopefully this will solve the problem and give no issues with wiring it up. Any thoughts?
 
A five wire unit will almost certainly be a direct "bolt on" (assuming three wires for stator phases and one + and one -). And much easier than fooling with the 6th "sensor" wire on the older Honda R/Rs, which is the more common conversion.
 
t3rmin said:
A five wire unit will almost certainly be a direct "bolt on" (assuming three wires for stator phases and one + and one -). And much easier than fooling with the 6th "sensor" wire on the older Honda R/Rs, which is the more common conversion.
Click to expand...
"Easier" - probably.

"Better" - I doubt it. If you have a 6-wire r/r available, it will charge at a lower engine speed and provide better regulation because it reads what is downstream of the ignition key and has a better idea what it is putting out than just monitoring its own output wire.


.
 
Steve said:
"Easier" - probably.

"Better" - I doubt it. If you have a 6-wire r/r available, it will charge at a lower engine speed and provide better regulation because it reads what is downstream of the ignition key and has a better idea what it is putting out than just monitoring its own output wire.


.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that most R/R?s are five wire these days. I bought a 2004 CBR600 R/R and that was the case. Not trying to be disagreeable, but if the ?sense? wire circuit design was superior, why did Honda go away from it?
 
I figure that if it came off a 2001, that's at least 19 years newer than the one in my bike now. Should be okay, and bottom line is if it charges my battery and doesn't fry my stator, I'll be happy. Plus, if after 5 years it goes out again I'll know what to replace it with. Should be plentiful and cheap, right?
 
So I did a bit more sniffing around on my r/r and a few interesting things....
Stator puts out 80V @ 5000 rpm. No continuity through the stator leads to the frame (ground). Something like 5 ohms resistance between leads. Everything here ok.
Set my multimeter to diode check, get infinite resistance one direction, something like 572 - 580 (ish) in the other direction on reg/rec. Seems ok. Follow the factory manual for testing with positive lead on red wire, neg. lead on all others (white/red, white/blue, etc.. in succession) with infinite resistance (open circuit) on all. The manual tells me there should be something like 5 ohms on all wires. And when I reconnect the r/r and run the bike, it's not charging regardkess of RPM. Voltage at the battery terminals remains a constant 12-1/2 ish volts.
Sounds like a faulty reg/rec. What I find interesting is the fact I get a reading when on the diode check setting, but straight ohms resistance test gives infinite resistance in both directions. Something else inside the reg/rec. must be faulty.
Sorry if this makes little sense, I did the test about a week ago and have forgotten exactly what the readings were.
At any rate, I should have a new one off a CBR in the mail shortly....
 
Smokinapankake said:
What I find interesting is the fact I get a reading when on the diode check setting, but straight ohms resistance test gives infinite resistance in both direction.
Click to expand...

A diode requires a certain small amount of current before it conducts. Most likely the ohms function on your meter can not supply that amount of current. I'd trust the diode test results.
 
Me too!

Me too!

Mr. Smokinapancake,

I've been following this thread closely because I'm having charging issues too. I've installed a new r/r and I'm waiting on a stator to arrive.

Have you had your battery checked? It's possible you have a bad cell. Except for running voltage at the battery, the rest of your readings look good. But then, some multimeters aren't very good at measuring diode performance.

Keep us informed.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
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