Fried Battery - Honda SH232 R/R New Stator

[oohsam]

Hi Guys,

Have pretty much finished my build (gs1100 Romsey) and I took the bike out for a ride.
I got back and my battery was pouring out smoke and leaking acid.
Managed to calm it all down and get the battery out.

I have a brand new stator and I bought a Honda sh232 (from ebay... )

From all the reading I've done, it looks like there was too much voltage going to the battery and this would have caused the problem.
I've read lots of doc's on GSR, but still not sure where to start.

I'm thinking I should start up the bike (with a new battery ofcourse!) and test voltage and different RPM's. But how much voltage is too much?
What is the optimum voltage for charging ?

Thanks guys.

[cowboyup3371]

Have you gone through the stator papers out on the main GS Resources page (In the Garage area) yet? If not, I would start there as I believe it talks about voltage between 14 and 15 at 4000rpm.

That would just be my suggestion anyway.

[oohsam]

Thanks cowboyup.
I've gone through them yeah, lots of info just want to ensure I'm doing the right thing.

[Steve]

If you have gone through the stator papers AND DONE THE TESTS that are called for, you should know what the voltages should be, as that is about the first thing that you check.

Technically speaking, anything over 12.8 volts will charge the battery. The question is "how well and how quickly". It is much better for the battery if the voltage is over 13.6. Suzuki called for voltage in a range from about 14.0 to 15.5, but that is a bit high. 14.0 to 14.5 is near-perfect. If you are running a sealed AGM-type battery, they are a bit more tolerant of high voltage, but I would still keep it under 15.0

[oohsam]

Ran the stator papers.
Stator is producing everything as per normal (as per basscliffe's papers)
R/R is outputting 16+ volts to the battery when increasing RPM's. It even went up to 17Volts at one point before I decided to kill it....

This to me sounds bad...New R/R >?

[oohsam]

At Idle I have 14 .3 volts ...

at 2k rpm i have 16.9 volts
at 5k I have 17.2 volts

Some googling tels me that 17 volts is quite ok...is this the case?

[DanTheMan]

New r/r required, your voltage is way too high.

[Steve]

Some googling tels me that 17 volts is quite ok...is this the case?

Just what are you Googling that is telling you that 17 volts is OK?

Also, are you going to believe some random Google searches or a bunch of guys that have very intimate knowledge of these bikes?

Does your R/R have 5 wires or 6? It makes a difference how you hook them up.

.

[oohsam]

Thanks Steve!...
A site says anything over 17 volts means that its bad. Sorry I mis-read.

Looks like it is the R/R then.

It has 6 wires. I hooked it up as per Dunneage's tutorial, except I do not use a sense wire, that is connected to nothing.

http://www.thegsresources.com/garage/docs/Modifying%20Honda%20Regulator%20Rectifiers%20for%20use%20on%20a%20GS.pdf

[TheCafeKid]

That may be your problem there. The sense wire is supposed to aid the RR in letting it know how much voltage is getting to whatever circuit it's connected to, if it sees nothing, its going to pour voltage until it sees 12.5 volts or whatever amount it's supposed to be looking for. Ideally, you want to connect the sense wire to a SWITCHED power source. So when you turn the bike off, the battery doesn't have a slow drain. You'll want to test for the cleanest switched source possible, meaning one without a lot of voltage drop, or it may still slightly over charge the battery depending on how much drop there is. Most people hook it up to the tail light wire, but many have found that there is a significant enough voltage drop on this circuit to still cause over charging. I tap into the orange switched feed to the fuse block as this is a fairly short run and pretty clean.

[oohsam]

ur joking right?
I was under the impression (mis understanding) that the sense wire just tels the R/R when the bike is on or off and was not really required.

well then egg on my face.

[oohsam]

OH dear lord.
I just went out and hooked in the sense wire to the brake light. Steady 14.6 volts at 5k rpm.

Damn you Sam you stupid moron (abusing myself).

Thanks for the help guys....

[Briars]

I may be going thru this same thing. I hooked my sense wire up to the tail light wire that only has power when the light is on.

I am getting 19 volts with it as is, light off and no power to the sense. I was searching to see if that could be the cause of the problem.

I wanted to get advise before turning the light on, and powering the sense wire and then trying it again.

[oohsam]

That's def ur problem. Hook it up.yo.the cable of the brake light that is always on not when u press the brake only. Ur issue will then go away. Cheers.

[Briars]

I hope it works I will try it again with power to the sense.

I think my problem is I have read a ton of stuff over the last 6 months on the charging system and my options.

The mistake I made was picking the wrong wire. When my stator went out originally it blew my low beam headlight and the tail light. That circuit was powered when I went looking for the sense connection and I did not realize I was hooking up to a non switch wire as there was no headlight or tailight actually on.

Other than that I have it hooked up just like Bassclifs recomendations.

Anyway I will try it with the sense hooked up correctly, if it still reads high then i will check the stator, which I have not been able to do since the ignitor was blown.

If stator checks out I will get another R/R perhaps the one I got is bad. We will see.