How much for your new reg

[Clone]

Hey, Kieth, I picked up my regulator, new, not used, for $117. I got it from a motorcycle wrecking yard just off the deerfoot, in the NE. I forgot the name. I called around to a few places and he had an Electrex in stock. It just plugs right in. You take out the old regulator and put this one in it's place. This one is a little larger with bigger cooling fins, but the holes are elongated so you can match it up with the holes in the mounting plate. It is an easy fix and can be done in a few minutes, that is of course not counting the time driving all over calgary. 8)

[duaneage]

I think it is easiet just to use an old Honda Regulator. Probably uses the same circuit anyway and their cheap

[mixongw]

Hey mixongw,
Your right, I looked to, and there is no DC reg out there. Not even one that would be suitable to adapt. They are all SCR type for AC. That's what got me going on this project, I want something better and more reliable than a glorified household light dimmer! I have never taken apart one of these Honda regs, but a SCR can be fired with dc and I'm sure that's what the "sense" wire on the Honda reg does. The stock Suzuki fires off the ac pulse coming from the stator. The one's I have built work both ways but the dc fired SCR's will give a bit better regulation, though you do have to use higher wattage stuff as the dc is on all the time and not pulsing like the ac versions. Your LM317, Zenner, and 2N3055's idea makes me think I've found someone I can really talk to about this stuff! That's were I started out with this project. As you seem to know about that stuff,,, the NPN 3055's work just fine BUT there is a 1 volt base/emitter drop on a NPN pass transistor set up and that degrades regulation when input and output get to close, as in low rpm on the bike. Going to PNP pass transistor's with a wrap-around regulator cicuit solves this problem, though the circuits get more complicated and you have to have a shunting cicuit across the base and emitter in a PNP system to make it bullet proof, it does work and regulate to the battery I think as close to an automotive altenator as is possible with a fixed magnet system. Thanks for the input and if you have any ideas, or want to talk electronics, just give me a shout.
Keith

Keith,

At one point I thought of investigating a MOSFET switcher.

Gary

[Keith Winter]

Hey Clone,
I've checked into the Electrex at Blackfoot Motorsports here in Calgary and both it and my freinds Honda are AC regulators. The sense wire on the Honda reg fires the SCR's with dc from the battery, thats the only real differance. And that's the whole point of all this, I want a better reg than that. Ac regulation does a reasonable job at keeping the voltage were it's supposed to be but not amperage and that means the battery has to absorb the extra that the bike doesn't need. They also offer no protection against shorts and overload conditions. After finding out that there are no regulators made for bike's out there that meet the demand's I was looking for, the project has been to make one that will. The R&D is done, and the packaging is near completion. There seem's to still be some confusion out there as to what I mean. This is NOT a AC regulator (Electrex, Honda, Suzuki ect) those regulate the AC BEFORE going to the rectifier that's why you can still burn out the rectifier with those type of reg's. The one I have come up with regulates AFTER the rectifier circuit and regulates the DC voltage and AMPERAGE going to the battery and bike. This is were the great advantage to a DC reg becomes clear in that,
1) It gives the bike only what it needs when it needs it, the battery does not have to absorb any extra amperage like the AC reg type. Batteries will last allot longer.
2) With DC regulation you can have protection circuits that instantly detect shorts or overloads and shut off the regulation, in affect disconecting the charging system there by saving the stator and rectifier from damage if you have a short or overload. This WILL not hurt the regulator either.
There are those out there that can't see the point to all this, and your happy with what you have, that's great! But I wanted something better and the aftermarket does not offer that, so, that's why I started my project. And duaneage, by the way, my buddy with the Honda who's regulator I looked at? He's my first customer and is waiting for one of these for his bike! He also wants one for his snowmobile as well......
Gary, you know I did look at MOSFET stuff but, they are allot more expensive and because they are a field effect transistor the circuits involved are more complicated. I can't remember off hand but it seem's to me they did not have the duty rating I was looking for. Mind you, if I ever build a 10,000 watt stereo for the bike THEN we will have to use MOSFET's! Thank's guy's for the input, saddly it's now snowing off and on up here now so my "on road" test's have come to a end. Once packaged I may ship one of these reg's down south and have somebody continue road tests.
Keith

[dale schafer]

Rectifier and regulator wiring 1977 GS550

Can someome draw me a schematic to wire a S/H 232-12 one piece rectifier/regulator for a Honda to a 1977 GS 550 with SEPERATE regulator and rectifier. The S/H 232-12 has 3 yellow wires, these should go to the stator. It has one red wire that I assume goes to the fused power supply (Tail light?). Then it has a green wire that I read should go to the ground on the battery box and on to the negitive terminal of the battery. It also has a small brown wire,. I do not have the bike at my location so I can not look at it now. A schematic would show me what to do with the wiring and also that which goes to the GS 550 seperate regulator. I have the Honda rectifier/regulator in my possesion, Your help would be appriciated. Dale

[bwringer]

Would the improved regulator design improve the charging system's capacity? I'd love to add electric grips to my GS850, but it's hard to decide if they would draw enough current to cause a problem.

On paper, anyway, e-grips would probably be OK, since everything is in good shape with my Honda reg/rect, but what about higher loads like an electric vest?

Of course, so much depends on the integrity of antique wiring that it would be impossible to make any guarantees.

[cloudbreakmd]

Do they sell a version for my 1983 GS750T? I couldn't find it at Z-1 (but I might have missed it too).The combo kit sounds like the way to go. Help!?

[Keith Winter]

Boondocks,
I just got time to look at the PDF file you posted,it look's almost the same as what Honda must use judgeing by the circuit layout. It is a improved version of the AC reg in that it use's transistor's instead of Zener diodes to fire the SCR's, BUT, as with all AC regulators the rectifier pack is conected direct to the bike and the battery. There is no way to get short circuit/ overload protection from a "better" AC reg. Also like the file states our stator's produce nearly constant current, this would happen when out on the highway at high rpm, and the bike simply does not need as much current to operate as is produced, so the battery has to absorb the extra. A DC regulator will regulate voltage AND current ALL the time so it will supply the battery and the bike with only what it needs AS it needs it. When in stop and go type riding a DC regulator will allow as much current to the bike as the stator will produce (till there is to much) this is almost like what a AC reg does, but because the voltage climbs up before the current and AC regulator will start shunting at low rpm's. This has a negative affect in that the bike is trying to draw current and the reg is shunting. With a DC reg the only job of the SCR is to limit the maximum AC output of the stator to what the rectifier diodes will handle. I am running 17.5 volts AC into my stock rectifier and have no heating problems. The big advantage to this is that low speed charging is improved and regulated in ways no AC regulator can even come close to matching. By allowing a higher AC voltage and current at slow speed operation and then regulating it on the bike side of the rectifier, the stator is shunted less resulting in less heat in the windings. Battery life is also increased as it no longer has to absorb any extra current at any rpm.
cloudbreakmd,
If you are talking about a DC regulator at Z-1 for your 750, no they don't. That's the idea of this post, nobody makes a better reg. This is my project, to build a better reg for ALL our bikes. This has been done and will soon be packaged. I started this post to get some input on the subject from everone out there. No point in tooling up to make allot of these things if no one wants to bother, I have spent enough cash already!
bwringer,
Saddly for us Mr Suzuki only had so much room for so much wire on the stator and nothing will make a big inprovement on the charging system capacity. Like I said before a DC reg will make slow speed charging more efficient, but we only have so much output at any rpm to play with. A DC reg will save your rec and stator from overload if you plug in to much stuff, all you will get is a low battery and not a rectifier that is on fire, but we only have about (at best) 15 amps at @13.5 volts or less. To blast down the highway with your headlight on highbeam, your ignition working right and allowing some margin for turn signals and brake lights requires about 10 amps max on the safe side. In reality this leaves us with about 5 amps left over if your stator is good. As most things are rated in WATT's, divide the watt's by 13.5 and you will get the amperage draw. So if your grip's say are 40 watt's this divided by 13.5 gives you 2.96 amps. I'm not really too sure how many amp's our stator's will put out as the 250 watt rating in the book does not state whether it's AC or DC. If it's 250 watt's at 80 volts AC the formula for figuring the available DC amperage becomes more complicated and I would have to look it up. And like you said the wiring and grounding becomes a issue as well.
Thanks for all the input.
Keith

[mixongw]

Keith,

Just one other thought. Seeing as how you are the project engineer, I'll feed these dumb ideas to you. I was wondering if we could get better low RPM performance if we went with three bridge rectifiers instead of full wave. Just a thought...

Gary

[Keith Winter]

Hi Gary,
There are some ideas that are dumb, but your's isn't one of them. In a round about way if we had too much voltage/ current this is what we would do and there is the problem. We don't have to much at low rpm, we have barely enough! All silicone doides used in rectifiers have resistance and therefore there is a voltage drop when current goes through them. It's about .7 of a volt per diode and we need 2 diodes per circuit in the stator output for our full wave rectifier. Each "leg" of the stator will drop 1.4 volts peak to peak from going through the diodes. If you add more diodes you drop more voltage. At higher rpm this would be great but down low in rpm the stator just won't put out enough and we would drop to much. There are relationships between voltage and current that most people don't understand, and I'm NOT saying you are one of them, but when dealing with stuff like this they are important. For example; how much voltage do we need for our bike's? The lights, ignition, battery, they are all 12 volt right? Do we need 14.5 to 15 volts? No we do not. We only NEED 13.5 volts to get the maximum life out of the battery and everything else. Our stators are wound with a certain size of wire stock and the size of this wire gives us the relationship. The smaller the wire the more of it can be wound on there the higher the induced voltage will be. However the smaller wire will pass less current and there is the relationship we are looking for. As current goes up voltage goes down, voltage up current down. This relationship can not be changed so it then becomes how much of each do you need. When making millions of bikes thick wire costs more than thin wire. Also as thick wire passes more current the SCR's in the regulator will have to be heavier duty along with the diodes in the rectifier, this also cost's more, so you make everything JUST enough to get by and still have the bare minimum to make things work. Can you see what I mean? I took this and applied it to my stator when I re-wound it. Do we really need 80 volts ac across each circuit, no we don't. I re-wound my stator with a thicker guage wire and lost about 5 wraps on each post. This means I get 50 volts ac across each set of wires instead of 80, but who cares as I get more of what I want and that is current. I still get more than 25 volts DC coming out of the rectifier with the reg unhooked. If I re-wind my stator again I will go with even bigger wire as even 25 volts is more than you need, but more current will be the result. Of course the stock reg now ran hotter than before and that's the begining of my DC reg project. And here's the answer to the low rpm charging. By increasing the current from the stator the low rpm voltage dropped, not to bad but it did drop, BUT by using a DC regulator that allows a higher AC voltage at low rpm compared to a ac reg this is off set and as the dc reg also regulates current (ac does not) as the current not needed is restricted by the regulator the voltage goes up! End result, better low speed charging. I am so bad at explaining things I hope this makes sense to anyone reading this! Back to work.
Keith

[jeff.saunders]

Keith, several thoughts for you - if you carry this beyond a one-off...

Size - I'm assuming your ideas would allow the reg/rect unit to occupy the same or smaller space. Currently, many of the aftermarket reg/rec units are larger than stock and this can present problems mounting them cleanly on some bikes.

Plug and play - this might be one of the tougher things - most people would prefer a total plug and play (idiot proof) replacement - as soon as you get into splicing, soldering or crimping wires, many folks will lose interest. It is currently difficult to get all the variants of connector blocks for all the bikes (currently in that situation with Ricks - we want them to produce a PNP reg/rect for some other bikes and we cannot get connector blocks at a decent price).

Resilience - it must be able to withstand weather, chemicals, heat and vibration, and last many years without degrading or failing.

Cost - be at a comparable cost level (or lower) to the Electrix or Rick's units otherwise most folks would shy away even if it's a better mousetrap.

-----------------------

Would your ideas work on all the charging system types? I know with other bikes (Honda / Kawasaki in particular) you get a variety of charging systems employed.

[Keith Winter]

Hi Jeff,
Size is one of the problems that I have worked on. And there is no way to have a better system without more components. Keeping the heat dissipation good has also been a challenge. There is no way around it, it's going to be bigger than a stock unit. So far my unit is about half again bigger than a stock reg. There are so many configurations out there that packaging one rec/reg for all makes and models wasn't really my original plan. I have no plan's for mass production on a retail, mass sell sort of thing. I have to go to work like everyone else out there, this project for a better reg/rec was something I wanted for my bike's to solve the classic problem these old bike's came with, and being as I like playing around with electronic stuff, I gave it a go. Once I realized that charging system weakness in my bike was easy to overcome, I thought there might be others out there who want the same thing. For some the stock, or copies of stock, are good enough in a cost/function way. I'm not one of those type of people and if I can have something better I want it. I can live with the cost (if it's not too unreasonable) and if instalation is not to much of a extra hassle, I don't care. I posted this stuff to see what other people thought about it, as I'm sure I'm not alone in my ideas. I could speed up the building process somewhat with premade jigs and such, but to get and keep the quality I want everyone of these things would be hand built and tested. This IS just a hobby for me!
Now, the plug and play was the first issue. I have tested this on the bike many time's and I wanted to be able to plug and unplug anytime while out on the road, so yes, with the stock wiring on my bike(or any other bike with the same wiring) it is TOTALY idiot proof. It will not plug in wrong. If, of course, I made one for a different make and model I would need a schematic or a clear picture of the wiring to make it "plug and play" but as I would be hand building everyone of these, I don't see as that would be to much of a problem. Of course if the wiring is not stock and has already been butchered, that's a different story. In my ham radio hobby weird connections are a way of life and I have had to fabricate my share of connectors. I have no intentions of trying to get rich from this and, really, I don't care if not one single person out there want's one of these. If I have to make connectors/adapters, it's just time to me. I am quite familiar with the need for resilience, mostly from work with marine applications of electronic components. Once the final packaging is worked out, and as I already have the heat, short circuit, overload, problems solved, the rest will be relatively easy. The actual components should last a very long time as they are all three times heavier than they have to be. I have burned out ALLOT of stuff in my quest for reliability. One example; to test the filter capacitor on the input I ran the stator output unregulated into this reg on the highway in the bike with the headights turned off to get the worst case AC load that the reg will ever see. The first capacitor actualy blew up shorting the battery side of the reg to ground till the ground wire almost burned away. I saw this happen as I have a multi meter duct taped to the bars. This did not hurt the reg or the charging system in any way as the reg has circuits to shut down if this happens. Replace the ground wire, install heavier capacitor, test the reg (it still worked perfect) plug into the bike and try again. This is the kind of testing I did. And yes this DC system will work with any fixed magnet stator AC system on older bikes. It would not work with a automotive style altenator that the newer bikes come with. As long as the stator is putting out what it should be for the stock AC reg to work, a DC reg will work just fine.
Cost? Like I said, I built this for me. I have no plans to retire or get rich from this. The type of person that put's 98 cent a quart oil into their bikes will not be interested, but there are people out there who want better stuff and most of them know that better products DO cost more. Thanks for your comments Jeff, the more input the better.
Keith

[jeff.saunders]

Keep us all posted with your progress. I'm interested just from a curiousity perspective.

[jhovel]

Hi Keith,
I've been having this discussion on a Honda CX500 forum for a few weeks as well:

http://cx500.gobinet.se/smb/thread.cfm?TID=2345

Have you progressed any further with your regulator?
I have found a few ads for "series" regulators (as opposed to "shunt type"), eg:

http://www.cyclecustomizing.com/products/cycle_electric_regulators_7996.html

But I'm not convinced they actually are what they suggest they are....
I contacted one of the importers here in Australia and was told it was a "ceramic series hybrid" type regulator - whatever that is.... "made in the USA that have the latest technology"..... not that helpful....
Let me know if I can help with prototype development (I'm handy at measuring, soldering and mechanical construction, but not an electronics engineer :? ...
Cheers,

[jimg]

Just a few comments on this project. I do believe it is worthwhile to upgrade the charging system but there are a few other things you need to consider.

1) A generator is NOT a constant current source device. Its output current depends on the load presented to it. Consequently, the battery DOES NOT have to "soak" up any extra current.

The problem is that the voltage presented to the battery is higher than the float voltage of the battery thereby overcharging the battery causing heat stress and boiling of the electrolyte.

A solution is to keep the output voltage at 13.6 volts. However, this means you have two voltage sources in parallel (i.e. something like two batteries in parallel) and the one with the lower resistance will provide the most current to the systems on the motorcycle. This will quite likely be the battery unless your regulator is carefully designed. So now you are back to discharge/charge cycles on the battery which reduces its life.

This is the point where product testing is important. Just what voltage is needed to maximize the life of the battery?

2) The input filter capacitor on your first system blew because of the AC voltage from the generator. Look at the sizes of AC moter capacitors and you will see they are very large in order to handle the AC. I suspect you will not have very good reliability (i.e. years) from this part if you use a standard electrolytic and continually subject it to large AC voltages.

The solution is to probably put a diode in each of the stator winding legs to create an unfiltered DC voltage. The diode is a simple half-wave rectifier and will keep the large negative AC swings from the DC regulator and its associated input filter capacitor.

3) This goes along with (2). Put your rectifier (the diode in each stator lead) in front of the DC regulator. That IS what your designing, a DC regulator. Give it DC to begin with, not AC!

Leaving a rectifier after the regulator is redundant and doesn't allow the voltage regulator to directly read the battery voltage because of the diode voltage drop. The rectifier after the regulator will give some protection to the regulator against someone hooking up jumper leads backwards, but there are other ways to provide this protection.


Overall, a good project! Getting rid of the shunt regulator will dramatically reduce the power and heat generated in the stator and regulator. The existing shunt regulator simply shorts out the stator making it supply full current during the time overvoltage is occuring thereby creating a lot of extra heat both in the stator and the SCR in the regulator. This is an unnecessary waste.