Stater and Reg/Rect problems on 82 GS650Ez

[Suzukian]

Motorcycles, as stated in the above post, as like automotive alternators, but the regulation and rectification is not done within the same unit. Some (if not all) car units use a field wire to generate the magnetism, while motorcycles have magnets built into the stator. Car Alternators have a field wire to generate an electric field in lieu of permanent magnets, which is why they are so much cheaper to produce. The spinning on both creates an AC current, where in a car, it's all within one unit, and belt driven, and on a motorcycle, divided into two components, stator and Voltage Reg/Rect in a separate component..

Understanding "Ohm's Law" negates the Voltage/Amperage issue, they are part of the same thing, Voltage being potential, and Amps being the actual flow of electrons. Understanding Ohm's Law really helps in understanding the sometimes weird terms that are used.

Excess Voltage is not what destroys these systems, it is a poorly designed Regulator/Rectifier unit. My Electrosport Coil produces 20% more Voltage than the stock one, and combined with the Yamaha XS1100 Reg/Rectifier I use, has functioned beautifully for my '83 GS750ES (which I have owned since new).

[Nessism]

Nobody ever said excess voltage causes the Suzuki charging system problems (other than when a R/R fails,) it's excess POWER. Remember, ohms law. It's not the voltage that kills stators, it's the current.

Did you read the link about how more than 11% of GSR members bikes suffered a stator failure after installing a Honda R/R? That's because shunt R/R's cause the stator to fail.

We all know that the Suzuki R/R's were too small to deal with the power, which resulted in a ton of heat and subsequent failure. Installing any decent R/R will solve that problem.

What you have never explained is why so many stator failures? Please explain how one shunt R/R is better than another in regard to saving the stator. I've already explained that ALL shunt R/R's kill stators, but feel free to explain why I'm wrong.

Oh, and BTW, with a high power stator and a shunt type R/R, don't be surprised if your stator burns up. All the extra power from the stator does nothing other than create more heat when it's shunted back to the stator by the R/R. The bike doesn't need the power, especially when the stock AC generator already makes more power than the bike can use.

[Suzukian]

Power, in electronics, is "Heat"= Watts, remember 100 Watt bulbs? I'm not going in circles with this anymore. The chart above is accurate, how a person interprets it, well, that's on them. If you use the OEM R/R on my Suzuki, it's crappy design will burn out your charging system. Thanks.

[Nessism]

Power, in electronics, is "Heat"= Watts, remember 100 Watt bulbs? I'm not going in circles with this anymore. The chart above is accurate, how a person interprets it, well, that's on them. If you use the OEM R/R on my Suzuki, it's crappy design will burn out your charging system. Thanks.

No disrespect, but you might want to educate yourself more on GS charging systems and the faults they have. Our (now departed) electrical guru Posplayr posted endlessly about the virtues of series type R/R's, and how they save the stator from burning up. You might want to search on his name, and then check key terms like "stator", R/R, compufire, stuff like that. It will be enlightening for you. This link will get you started...

https://www.thegsresources.com/_foru...or#post1630965

Edit: in Posplayr's profile he has some nice graphs about the GS charging system. One in particular shows that a high tech FET shunt R/R returns 3x more power to the stator (where it's converted t heat) compared to a Series R/R. He also has a photo of one of your Electrosport stators, which burned up while using a shunt R/R.

[Nessism]

I found a more easily understood comparison of a Series R/R to a Shunt R/R

With a permanent magnet AC generator (alternator) any time the rotor is spinning, power will be generated and sent to the R/R. A high power stator will generate more heat than a low power stator, for obvious reasons.

With a shunt R/R, the power from the generator/alternator, is on at all times, thus heat is always being generated.
With a series R/R, when the bikes power demands are reached, the R/R will disconnect the stator from the system, thus turning it off, and keeping it cooler.

[Suzukian]

None of my posts refer to what you go on endlessly about. Ass I wrote earlier in the thread, what I did I did to my bike, and to many others with great success. I didn't use O.E.M. parts, so nothing you post relates to me. Address someone else. Funny how you say the system generates too much power, but then denigrate a work around. You acknowledge in one half of your brain, and dismiss with the other half. I won't be responding to you anymore. I just want to be courteous. You can have the last word. I'll have the last..........

[bitzz]

...A Series R/R shuts off return current to the stator, whereas a shunt R/R send it on through. That's why a Series R/R saves the stator. There have been guys here with a current clamp on meter who showed the current doesn't go back to the stator with a SH775, regardless of RPM. That's the whole point here.

That's not how electricity works. You can't "return" current to the stator.
If you were to put a AC amp clamp on one of the stator wires, it would show the presence of AC energy, but AC doesn't have a direction, only potential.
In DC power the electrons travel from the negative TO the positive

[Nessism]

This is a summary of the collective wisdom of the GSR, learned over a decade or more of accumulated study, and PROVEN in actual usage by the majority of members here.

Failures in the GS charging system:

- Stator failures from overheat damage (extremely common)
- R/R failures from overheat damage (common, but not as common as stator failures)
- Wire harness damage, in the "stator loop" and at connection points between the harness and the stator. Also at ground points (ground point failures are very common, harness melt down not so much)

Faults within the GS charging system:

- Poor grounding on several models
- R/Rs that are very small and can't dissipate the required heat while shunting excess power
- The stator loop, up to the hand control, adds a lot of extra wiring into the harness, which can overheat as resistance from age, particularly in the connectors, increases, resulting in the melt down of the harness.
- Stators that put out more power than the bike can consume

Fixes for the charging system:

- Rewire the charging system. The three stator wires should feed directly into the R/R, the power output should go to the original place in the harness, feeding the bike directly, and the R/R ground can either go directly to the negative post of the battery, or to a single point ground system (if you set up such on your bike.)
- Get a SERIES type R/R. This eliminates both failure of the original R/R, and stator failure. Reason being, a SERIES type R/R shuts off the stator, so to speak, when the bike's power demands are satisfied. This keeps the stator cooler than when using a SHUNT type R/R.

[Gorminrider]

I've heard recently that a car style alternator is basically the stator and r/r under one cover. I can live with that. (I haven't touched a soldering iron in half a century.)

Rob, yes... on newer alternators, there's actually a little solid state unit inside them that regulates by controlling the magnetic field of the rotor. This then controls the stator's output...

Motorcycles usually? (my Yamaha 650 had a car-type alternator ) have permanent magnet rotors so they can't control the field and have to regulate the whole stator output by "dumping it" (shunt) or "stopping it" (series)

[Gorminrider]

I found a more easily understood comparison of a Series R/R to a Shunt R/R

With a permanent magnet AC generator (alternator) any time the rotor is spinning, power will be generated and sent to the R/R. A high power stator will generate more heat than a low power stator, for obvious reasons.

With a shunt R/R, the power from the generator/alternator, is on at all times, thus heat is always being generated.
With a series R/R, when the bikes power demands are reached, the R/R will disconnect the stator from the system, thus turning it off, and keeping it cooler.

Yes this suits most people. And Shindegnen makes a good product whichever type you prefer *....The actual physics going on is much more complicated...and I have a lot of stuff I could spew but won't.

Still, one cogent question I repeatedly ask is -what is the actual saving in heat? What IS this "evil overage" in "wasted power" everyone gets so excited about? IF it exists. Personally, I can't calculate it (simplistically) to make a lot of difference to the coating on the windings or in comparison to the engine beside it....

another question would be exactly how do the original systems fail? and why? There are suzukis of the era with original owners here that go quite awhile without issues. How much is maintenance(low,bad,disconnected batteries,switches etc) , bad factory practise (crummy varnish on windings degraded by oil,age and heat) poor design of regulators,(I incline to this) etc.


(* I prefer an R/R of a motorcycle over an R/R from a snowmobile)

[Grimly]

That's not how electricity works. You can't "return" current to the stator.
If you were to put a AC amp clamp on one of the stator wires, it would show the presence of AC energy, but AC doesn't have a direction, only potential.
In DC power the electrons travel from the negative TO the positive

It's three phase, remember.

[Nessism]

Still, one cogent question I repeatedly ask is -what is the actual saving in heat? What IS this "evil overage" in "wasted power" everyone gets so excited about? IF it exists. Personally, I can't calculate it (simplistically) to make a lot of difference to the coating on the windings or in comparison to the engine beside it....

another question would be exactly how do the original systems fail? and why? There are suzukis of the era with original owners here that go quite awhile without issues. How much is maintenance(low,bad,disconnected batteries,switches etc) , bad factory practise (crummy varnish on windings degraded by oil,age and heat) poor design of regulators,(I incline to this) etc.


(* I prefer an R/R of a motorcycle over an R/R from a snowmobile)

I don't know exactly how much hotter the stator runs on a Shunt R/R bike vs. Series R/R bike, but Jim (Posplayr) posted this interesting chart in his profile album. He also posted a photo of a low mileage "high output" Electrosport stator that's suffered overheat failure (when he was using a shunt R/R, thus began his study of Series R/R's.)

And as I said earlier, Kawasaki KZ bikes have lower output charging systems, and they don't burn out stators nearly as often. Less power and heat generated = less damage.

Oh, and BTW, SH775's came on a range of different bikes, not just snow mobiles. In fact, there is a higher power derivative Shindengen Series R/R used on the V-Strom, for example. Big bikes like this often get fit with accessories which increase electrical load, so the manufacturers set them up with a high power "generator/alternator",but without this load the stator takes a pounding from heat...thus the Series R/R.


stator current by nessism, on Flickr

stator burn by nessism, on Flickr

[tom203]

Back in 2013 before I swapped in the SH-775 unit, I used a clamp on AC current meter to measure the 3 phase line current output feeding into the existing SH-232 shunt unit. Leg current was running about 11 amps at 4000 rpms …power output then was about 270 watts total. Swapping in the series unit produced a leg current of about 6.5 amps….power output then was about 160 watts which is apparently all bike needed to run happy. The surplus 110 watts was just baking the stator needlessly.

[Suzukian]

From "Electrosport":

"ESR100 is a high quality regulator/rectifier that replaces the not-so-reliable OEM regulator on many older Suzukis. Power handling of our ESR100 regulator/rectfier is superior, and this part is a plug in replacement on many Suzuki models. We have incorporated a heat sink that gets rid of internal heat to the housing quickly and efficiently, making for a very reliable unit. This regulator/rectifier regulates all three phases coming from the stator, unlike the stock unit which only regulates 1 or 2 phases (depending on the model). Three phase regulation is a major step towards reliability on these Suzuki GS models. Like all regulator/rectifiers manufactured by ElectroSport ESR100 also comes with a full one year warranty.:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ElectroSpor...-/162045208136 (scroll to bottom of page).

[Nessism]

From "Electrosport":

"ESR100 is a high quality regulator/rectifier that replaces the not-so-reliable OEM regulator on many older Suzukis. Power handling of our ESR100 regulator/rectfier is superior, and this part is a plug in replacement on many Suzuki models. We have incorporated a heat sink that gets rid of internal heat to the housing quickly and efficiently, making for a very reliable unit. This regulator/rectifier regulates all three phases coming from the stator, unlike the stock unit which only regulates 1 or 2 phases (depending on the model). Three phase regulation is a major step towards reliability on these Suzuki GS models. Like all regulator/rectifiers manufactured by ElectroSport ESR100 also comes with a full one year warranty.:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ElectroSpor...-/162045208136 (scroll to bottom of page).

Okay, I believe you that the original Suzuki R/R didn't regulate all three phases, but I don't think this is a significant factor in the charging system health.