Strange Electrical problem

[cowboyup3371]

I just bought a Caltric for Charmayne's bike and hope to install it this weekend. DO NOT order from their website as it's crap and their phone/email customer support is even worse; they have a page on Ebay that you can order both the stator and a gasket together (at least the 550 was that way).

[mrbill5491]

Okay, got the stator out, It is cooked. here are some pics.100_1916.jpg

[mrbill5491]

Another one you can see where it is crispy on one of the legs.100_1917.jpg

[mrbill5491]

Last but not least, you can see where the the coating burned off, exposing the wire.100_1919.jpg that is the same leg that was toasted.

[60ratrod]

eeeww, well hopefully you caught it before it ate the r/r too

[posplayr]

Do you ride with heated vests a lot or other extraordinary loads? How was the r/r connected to the harness? Did you ever check your connector voltage drops? If you recall what voltages do you recall.

[Grimly]

Yep; it's like the human medical advances. Sooner or later we cure all the heart patients, then everybody dies of something nasty anyway.
I think these stator designs were just a quick and dirty effort from the get-go, and while the series makes a huge difference to their running environment, they're not the magic bullet.
I expect mine will fail soon, but it was an old and semi-cooked one I didn't expect to last this long and if it had been connected to a shunt-type these past two years, would have undoubtedly turned its toes up long since.

[posplayr]

I only saw the pictures before on a cell phone. Obviously heat caused the damage. My questions were centered on figuring out anything that might have increased the load. Apparently what increased teh load was a short but one outside of the stator on where teh multi strand wires are attached to the solid core wire in the winding.

This is basically flying leads of solid core wire least supported when compared to that of the epoxy coated stator poles.

Perhaps I can offer a theory for the failure. It is clear that the stator got hot and eventually failed at one particular pole. The uniformity of the darkening is unusual, it usually does not cook uniformly and at one hot spot. Difficult to tell exactly how teh statro was mounted in teh cover and what was allowed to move, but for what ever reason the loose end of the solid wire that extends from the stator where the pen is pointing shorted due to repetitive movement that wore through the insulation at that point.

If that entire winding was shorted at the wire entry it would heat the whole stator up much more uniformly than had the initial short occurred at the single pole that is charred. That shorting would have reduced teh charging output and you would have probably noticed it with a voltmeter as a drop in charging voltage at RPM. With that kind of a short , if it were persistent, would cause the entire stator to be in a persistent state of short. It would not take long to brown the entire stator and eventually cause a total failure at the one specific pole.

The key is that the solid core stator wires need to be immobilized (epoxy in the winding and retaining bracket inside of the cover). If the factory retaining bracket is insufficient and the short happens in teh leads going to the stator but inside of the cover then there is nothing that can be attributed to the R/R.

I think we are simply seeing what I suspected, since the R/R is doing so much better, previously unencountered design defects are coming to light in the stators. The attachment of the multi strand stator leads to the solid core winding is the new weak link.

After 8 years this might not be a concern. If someone is worried about it they could work on improving immobilization of that point of the stator. I don't think this has anything to do with the R/R and it is probably fine or at least would not have been damaged by any of this stator failures.

It is possible the R/R shorted and caused the damage but with a replacement stator that could be easily determined.


[


QUOTE=mrbill5491;2329770]Last but not least, you can see where the the coating burned off, exposing the wire.100_1919.jpg that is the same leg that was toasted.[/QUOTE]

[mrbill5491]

Do you ride with heated vests a lot or other extraordinary loads? How was the r/r connected to the harness? Did you ever check your connector voltage drops? If you recall what voltages do you recall.

No extra load on the system (no extra lights, no vest, Led tail and stop bulb that's it). The Compufire was connected to the harness per your instructions at that time. All 3 stator wires to the RR, RR grounded to the battery etc. All I did was the the Quick test and the stator test.

[mrbill5491]

I only saw the pictures before on a cell phone. Obviously heat caused the damage. My questions were centered on figuring out anything that might have increased the load. Apparently what increased teh load was a short but one outside of the stator on where teh multi strand wires are attached to the solid core wire in the winding.

This is basically flying leads of solid core wire least supported when compared to that of the epoxy coated stator poles.

Perhaps I can offer a theory for the failure. It is clear that the stator got hot and eventually failed at one particular pole. The uniformity of the darkening is unusual, it usually does not cook uniformly and at one hot spot. Difficult to tell exactly how teh statro was mounted in teh cover and what was allowed to move, but for what ever reason the loose end of the solid wire that extends from the stator where the pen is pointing shorted due to repetitive movement that wore through the insulation at that point.

If that entire winding was shorted at the wire entry it would heat the whole stator up much more uniformly than had the initial short occurred at the single pole that is charred. That shorting would have reduced teh charging output and you would have probably noticed it with a voltmeter as a drop in charging voltage at RPM. With that kind of a short , if it were persistent, would cause the entire stator to be in a persistent state of short. It would not take long to brown the entire stator and eventually cause a total failure at the one specific pole.

The key is that the solid core stator wires need to be immobilized (epoxy in the winding and retaining bracket inside of the cover). If the factory retaining bracket is insufficient and the short happens in teh leads going to the stator but inside of the cover then there is nothing that can be attributed to the R/R.

I think we are simply seeing what I suspected, since the R/R is doing so much better, previously unencountered design defects are coming to light in the stators. The attachment of the multi strand stator leads to the solid core winding is the new weak link.

After 8 years this might not be a concern. If someone is worried about it they could work on improving immobilization of that point of the stator. I don't think this has anything to do with the R/R and it is probably fine or at least would not have been damaged by any of this stator failures.

It is possible the R/R shorted and caused the damage but with a replacement stator that could be easily determined.


[


QUOTE=mrbill5491;2329770]Last but not least, you can see where the the coating burned off, exposing the wire.[ATTACH=CONFIG]47480[/ATTACH] that is the same leg that was toasted.

[/QUOTE]

Before I pulled the stator out of its mounting area, I check the wire loom for any chaffing/ movement/ etc. Didn't see anything. I think it was just a slight flaw in that spot and over time it took its toll. So now that we all know the stator is bad, any recommendations for a new one we be greatly appreciated. Rick's, another ElectroSport, not sure I want to mess with a Caltric, I'm not set up to buy anything off Ebay anymore. Oh yeah soon as I can get too it, gonna go through the whole harness and the connections to make sure something didn't go goofy there as well.

[posplayr]

[QUOTE=mrbill5491;2329770]
Before I pulled the stator out of its mounting area, I check the wire loom for any chaffing/ movement/ etc. Didn't see anything. I think it was just a slight flaw in that spot and over time it took its toll. So now that we all know the stator is bad, any recommendations for a new one we be greatly appreciated. Rick's, another ElectroSport, not sure I want to mess with a Caltric, I'm not set up to buy anything off Ebay anymore. Oh yeah soon as I can get too it, gonna go through the whole harness and the connections to make sure something didn't go goofy there as well.[/QUOTE]

I would get another Electrosport (because of the heavy epoxy coatings). Worst thing is it last another 8 years. You ca try and restrain the area that is suspect and many be it will last much longer.

[60ratrod]

bill,

I have a stator that came in a cover set that I bought for my 81 650g when I tore the motor down to fix the transmission. I just cross checked the p/n on partzilla, and it's the same part number for both bikes. I think it's an electrosport, since all 3 leads are yellow. pm me your address if you want it.

[mrbill5491]

Was looking at my bad stator a bit more closely the other day. Where the epoxy burned through and shorted, it had actually burned through between two wires and let them touch and was touching that leg. Poof went the stator.

[posplayr]

Was looking at my bad stator a bit more closely the other day. Where the epoxy burned through and shorted, it had actually burned through between two wires and let them touch and was touching that leg. Poof went the stator.

That is what I thought you were showing. The short occurred where the wires enter the stator, not actually on the stator which is why the browning was so uniform.

[mrbill5491]

My new stator arrived and I inspected it, looks like they reinforced those areas where my shorted. Looks way better then the old one. Time to get it buttoned up.