Free R/R Schematic and Parts Description

[Keith Winter]

Well, well,
And around and around it goes! As someone mentioned my name at the begining of this post, I'll throw in my .02 worth. As some of you know I also tried to bring a better R/R product to the site. And unlike some people on here I had no intention of trying to make a living from my system, I just wanted a better R/R than is available from any source out there. My finished design DOES NOT regulate by shunting the AC before the rectifier. It only use's 2 SCR's and they only shunt at 20 volts AC wasting very little of the power from the stator. The DC going to the battery is PURE DC, to those that know anything about this they will know the advantage of that. Near perfect voltage and current (.2 volt) regulation at the battery with light's on ect, from 1300 rpm and up, this is available because unlike the "stock type" AC shunt reg that starts to shunt the voltage at 14, mine doesn't have to till 20 volts AC. And NOTHING, I say again NOTHING can hurt the system. Take the battery out with the bike running and (I have demonstrated this to allot of biker's) short out the battery wire's, so what the reg just shut's down and save's the charging system. Heat was mentioned in this post, this too I have shown people, I use a propane torch and heat the R/R to allot higher than will ever be seen on a bike (unless the bike is on fire) so what, it just shut's down. Over load the bike with 10 million watt driving light's? So what, if to much load is placed on the system, it just shut's down till the overload is removed. It has fully adjustable output from about 3 volt and up, though I did not do this for the battery. I have it set at exactly what a 12 volt battery need's with proper voltage and current regulation, 13.8. I made it adjustable for testing only. My idea was to put a seperate circuit and plug in for other things that do not run on 12 volts, cell phones, small CD players, ect. Size of the unit is one problem that can't be fixed. It is bigger than a stock R/R, but I have it tucked down between the battery and the rear brake master cylinder, so it's not THAT big. You really don't have to encapsulate anything in epoxy or anything else to make it water proof or vibration proof either. Most marine VHF radio's (and allot of other stuff too) will work under water and are unaffected by banging, bouncing, and vibration far worse than anything on a bike will ever see, and the electronics in them are not encapsulated in a solid block of anything. The reason some things are encapsulated is because the maker of these product's do not want you to be able to get into them and find out that it was a part worth .03 cent's that failed. Why would anybody go buy a $60 or more replacement for a .03 cent part? I have a few dab's of high temp silicone holding thing's in place inside my reg and that's it, nothing has come loose. It has also been soaked with water many times, I spray it everytime I wash the bike just to see if it fails. The water just run's out the drain hole and away I go. I have been riding the bike with it on there testing it since I gave up on posting anything more about it on the site and have had no trouble at all. The battery maintains a perfect charge level at all time's and I have not even had to add water to it yet. That's quite a few thousand miles with no need to add water. My stock reg worked (and still does) just the way it is supposed to work and I could never had gone this long without watering the battery. I have just finished a more compact unit for my 115 horse Mercury outboard, they have no regulation at all, battery's don't last very long. So far it works just as good and testing will be in a marine environment. I have also cut the cost for materials in half from my original post. Maybe I will repost my idea's after some more testing, that should make all the original "idea basher's" out there happy!
Keith

[bakalorz]

Kieth,

I just went back and read your previous thread.
Very interesting.
How come you quit posting about it back then.
I would be interested in hearing more about it.

Also, at the end of that thread, you asked
" if there is anyone out there that has tried a different winding configuration, let us know!"
...
For what ever its worth, while I was searching around for info on regulators, one of the sites I found said: "given the same coils, connecting them as a delta rather than as a Y would allow them to produce more current, but less voltage."

[Nerobro]

For what ever its worth, while I was searching around for info on regulators, one of the sites I found said: "given the same coils, connecting them as a delta rather than as a Y would allow them to produce more current, but less voltage."

That's actually a problem. Right now we'll see 200v. That's much higher voltage than I'd like to see in this buisness. Heck I'd like to reduce the voltage and go with a buck/boost setup. With the current setup you're really limited to a "buck" setup, which is simpler. Or a linear reg setup... which might be interesting. A bank of linear regs is the simplest..... *tempted to order 20amps worth of 12v linear regs..*

[Keith Winter]

Hi,
This was the idea I had as well, rewind the stator in a "delta" configuration and produce, or at least have the ability to produce more current. There could how ever be some problems with this idea. In a AC system like we have on our bike's we need to have a large enough difference of potential (voltage) in order to cause enough current (amperage) to flow to meet the requirements of what we want out of the system. As the current demand goes up, turning on the headlights, using the turn signals, some like to crank up the demand with high output lights, ect, ect, the voltage output goes down. In a "delta" winding of our stator you would divide the stock voltage output by 1.7, or close to that. The stock "wye" winding will make about 15 - 16 volts AC at an idle with a very light or no load draw. This drops with the load just to run the bike and headlight to a point that will just maintain things at idle up to about 2000 rpm, depending on the reg you have and how good the windings are in the stator. With a "stock type" shunt regulator the voltage is shunted to ground at 14, or close to 14 anyway, and at slower rpm this won't make allot of current. In a "wye" winding you will make less voltage and less "ability" to make current flow. I am sure that at higher rpm's the "wye" would work perfect and give us a far easier output to manage, but at lower rpm's?? I have a friend with a old bike shop and I have been given a 18 pole stator and rotor that I am going to set up on the bench and spin at different rpm's to test these ouput's from both the wye and delta windings. It's a like new 3 phase stator so it should produce good stock type output. Ok, ok, I know what's next, "mangle a like new stator??" It's from a Kawasaki. Heat may also be a problem, and I have not tested this yet, with a delta winding as well. As the wire get's hot it increases in resistance and more resistance isn't good for current output. It's pretty hot inside the engine where the stator is and I don't know yet if this will cause a further voltage drop in the delta system. As I have the time, the testing will go on. The reason I quit posting my test's and results is that; a) I am really bad at explaining things in a way that make's any sense to most people, or anyone for that matter, b) I don't like to leave anybody out of the "loop" and I just didn't have the time to try and answer every question personaly, c) because of a) and b), I didn't have the patience to try and argue with people that are quite content with buying used Shindegies, Woo Phats, Binford 1300's, or any of the other stuff on E-Bay. Those out there that have a vested interest in the used reg market have their own idea's, and if they are happy with used stuff GREAT. But don't try to shoot down somebody else's idea's, especialy if you don't know, say, the difference between an alternator and a generator! I don't think this web site was set up for idea bashing, brow beating, or for a select few "guru's" that think they know everything. Those that are content with $4 used E-Bay stuff shouldn't be ****ing on those that are not, they can just go to another thread, can't they?? ANYWAY, before the thread I started way back then turned into a, "your an idiot" fest I just quit posting. To those that ARE interested, I am still testing and re-testing different system's that would work on our old machine's and one day I will tempt the wrath of the know it all "guru's" and post some more results, with pictures and schematics. Later.
Keith

[Rick]

Building a better mousetrap

Good going Keith...You tell em .....yes of course we can build it better ,we don't have the bean-counters looking over our shoulder to "keep" us in check.
My current project has me driving a 700ma load with a drive that can 'source' 20A.
____________________________________________Rick.. .........

[Nerobro]

Keith, you're right. You can't write. :-) I'm not so hot myself.

My only arguement with what you're going is that watts is watts. No matter what the stator puts out, you're gonna get the same energy out of it. Be it 10amps at 10v or 20amps at 5v. When you convert it to what the bike can handle it's going to be the same 100w.

I only mention this becuase you didn't get around to explaining what the benifit of winding the stator for a lower voltage output would be. I don't think our stator/charging systems problems have much to do with the actuall physcial consturction of the alternator. Just the way it's handled.

Talk to me, I'm listening. :-)

[Keith Winter]

Hey,
Yes Nerobro, your right, once again my lack of explanation ability's come out. This voltage drop with current demand work's out ok (as we know) with the stock wye stator winding and as you pointed out if we use a delta winding and produce more current than we need into the load resistance to run the bike, then the voltage will come up anyway. Like I said, I have to make the time to set up the stator/ rotor that I have been given on the bench and test the delta system in "real world" test's under different loads and rpm, then we will know for sure. Like you said Nerobro, the voltage division of 1.7 in a delta winding should be made up for by the multiplyied current gain of 1.7, though in all honesty I have never taken the time to find out what the load resistance of the bike really is! As this load resistance changes with battery condition and probably with the rpm/ ignition draw as well, I didn't bother to test it. If we DID know what the load resistance was, then by Ohms law we could calculate things better I quess. Oh well, I seem to have some kind of twisted interest in driving myself crazy testing this stuff, so I will get that stator running on the bench sooner or later.
Keith

[gremlin]

way to go Keith

i love the ideal of a better R/R. every one knows the bike makes want a cheep product that will just bearly work. thay get to save that penny and make a buck selling you spair parts.

I spent way to much riding time sorting out bad wireing on my old bike. even ended up adding gounding wires to help the system out.

it does not mater who makes a bike or auto thay will do short cuts that will end up a pain in the rear later on. i have had my fair shair of working the bugs out of every thing from bikes to big rigs. 99% of the time it was a bad grounding systems or under size wires.

one more time way to go Keith, for working your tail off for every one to over come the bad R/R problem.

for thoes who are giving you a pain on your new better system well. thay are passing up what could end up to be the fix all for the R/R problem.

[Keith Winter]

Hey gremlin,
Thank's for the pat on the back, though I'm not the only guy out there working on this old bike problem, I do like the positive comments! I don't really have the skill's at electronic's that Cletus does and what would take him 5 minutes to figure out probably would take me a week... but, I have been hard at this thing for quite a while now. Cletus is the real pro, I just tinker and test and hope I don't burn up to many parts! My reg has been in the bike and working perfect for maybe a year now??, I'm not sure really how long it's been, but it's still working fine. Maybe I have it right, that would be shocking! In any case, there are many different way's to tackle this problem, as many as there are opinion's on the subject. And Rick, if you are still following this thread, I would like to hear more about your system! I looked at building a better SCR shunt type reg at the start of this and after getting my hand's on the schematic's for the Kawasaki, Suzuki and Honda R/R's, I started out that way. There are 2 way's they work. Some regulate by triggering the SCR's with the AC and some, like the Honda's trigger the SCR's with a "sense" voltage from the battery or any other B+ from the bike. The SCR shunt type are all VERY simple and compact and have the least amount of part's, they also from a production point of view have the CHEAPEST part's as well. It was after looking at the schematic for a Honda CBX R/R that got me thinking about something maybe better. The CBX reg is totaly different than the other Honda reg's. I don't know why and my buddy that own's 2 CBX's had no clue either, but the reg on them is more like a linear regulator. In fact the way you test a CBX regulator is by hooking up 2- 12 volt battery's in series to get 24 volt's going to it and then you hook up a variable load machine to it and load it up! It was at that point that I went with the linear design. The CBX reg is complicated and has allot of pass transistors in it, the more load the more transistors get switched in to handle the output. Linear reg's are bigger though and they have small resistance's in the circuit's that cause's heating and this means increased heat sink size, BUT, on the plus side they do offer near perfect voltage AND current regulation regardless of load, and they have built in safe guards against damage. Short circuits, fried battery's, overload's and even heat have no effect on them, they just shut down till things are back to normal. This protect's the rectifier's and stator from damage as well. As long as the wires from the reg to the stator don't get shorted out, nothing you can think of is going to hurt the system. Unless maybe your bike is on fire, and then all is lost anyway! Anyway, thank's for the positive input and I will post some schematics in the near future.
Keith

[Nerobro]

Looks like hte CBX does about what I want to do. However... linear regs suck. they burn lots of energy when they regulate. ;-) We can do better. However linear regs are stupidly easy and cheap to setup. I could dig up the part numbers if you're interested. http://rocky.digikey.com/scripts/Pro...497&M=L7812ABV That would cut the musterd if you could figure out how to keep the input voltage below the breakdown voltage of the linear reg. And used 15 or 20 of them in parallel. 1A each, and 81 cents each it's not a bad deal. Actually... going with the alternate stator winding method might make that work better. Though I'd go with the 15v version.

There are lots of ways of doing this ;-)

[Keith Winter]

Hi Nerobro,
Well, linear reg's do use a little juice (and make a little heat) in the pass transistor's. This part of a linear wasn't as hard to deal with as some of the other stuff with them though. One of the problems in my first design was the input to output voltage, as in you need at least 2 volts difference for the regulator to work. I used NPN (3055's) in the first reg I built, driven at the base, but the voltage drop from emitter to collector was no good at slow rpm stator output. In my second design I used PNP (2955's) pass transistors with a 1.5 amp regulator chip in a "wrap around" configuration. This system worked perfectly and at a idle, with a little creative circuit work, it still pumps out a little juice to the battery, about what the shunt type reg does. The only problem then was heat, and keeping things as compact as possible. I changed the regulator chip to a 3 amp version and replaced the 2955's with 200 watt PNP's, adjusted a few resistance's, and it's been working in the bike ever since. Like I said somewhere before it's not to big, it fit's between the battery and the rear brake master cylinder and on my 1000, that's not a big spot! It never get's hot enough, ever, that you can't touch or hold onto it, so heat isn't a big deal. I run it at 20 volt's DC input from the rectifier and I'm sure it would be fine with a even higher input going by how cool it run's now. It's not bolted to anything it just rattles around in there, if I bolted to part of the frame and got even more heat sinking it would run even colder. I'm not to sure what you mean with those part's numbers. My reg use's 2 pass transistor's and 1 regulator chip. I have the bill's for them somewhere, but I think the regulator chip was $3.50 and the 200 watt transistor's were $4 each, they were cheaper than the 35 amp SCR's, I think they were around $6 each. Anyway, it's been working perfect in the bike for about a year now, so I don't think I need any parts. Thank's anyway though. Maybe this week I'll crank up the input from the 20 volt's it's set at now and see when it goes into shut down mode. Who know's, maybe it will be ok with full output from the stator/rectifier! That would be good. Talk to you later.
Keith

[Nerobro]

The comment wasn't directed at you keith. It was directed at the audiance in general. And it was more sarcastic than anything else.

Though I think I've discovered your communication problem. You need to seperate your thoughts into paragraphs. If you do that your comments will be much more clear.

I'm still stuck on the switching power supply thing. I'm confident that a switching power supply would stay "touch cold" even under full load, and at full alternator output. I think I found a chip that can handle the switching. No, it wasn't the one I posted. I'll get to that in a bit.

[Keith Winter]

Hey,
I think you are right! Maybe I should change my style and it may actually make sense! I am one of those weird people who can never shut off their brain and can think about 4 different thing's at once, any more than 4 thing's though and I end up with a really blank look on my face! In the future I will try and slow down and think about 1 thing at a time when I am posting stuff!
I agree 100% with the switching reg idea of your's. I have been pouring over schematic's of the switch mode power supply design and I think this form of regulation is going to be the hot ticket for our need's.
We have just moved out to the west coast of Canada from Alberta, and allot of my equipment is still in box's. Also, here on Vancouver Island, I will not have a un-ending supply of electronic supply store's to shop from and will end up waiting for all but the most common of components to be "ordered in". But the BIGGEST problem of all, is not being side tracked! Vancouver Island is almost a paradise for motorcycle's this time of year. Smooth, twisting road's everywhere, very light traffic OR in some place's, no traffic at all. I end up going on all day ride's instead of getting anything done! And if not the bike, it's my boat. The lure to throw the boat in the water and blast off for the day is almost impossible to resist!
Anyway, the switching reg is going to be the best in the end, like you said. I did mangage to find my schematic of the CBX reg, but, I'm not sure how I can post it. YES, I am that computer stupid! I have scanned the image to my bike file in my computer and need some direction on how to put it on here. If you or anyone else could tell me how, I will post it. And remember, I am a dummy when it come's to this sort of thing.
Keith

[fastpakr]

I don't have a web (HTTP) server running at the moment, but if you want to email it to me I can stick it on my FTP server and just post a link to browse to the file in the thread.
Edit: Keith, I just sent you an email with the credentials to log in and upload the file. If that doesn't work for you, you can just email the file to mcj (dot) usmc (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll post it on my end.

Anybody else who wants to look at the file can click here and it should open an FTP session in your browser with my server. Obviously, there won't be anything there until we can get the schematic posted.

[bakalorz]

I did mangage to find my schematic of the CBX reg, but, I'm not sure how I can post it. YES, I am that computer stupid! I have scanned the image to my bike file in my computer and need some direction on how to put it on here. If you or anyone else could tell me how, I will post it. And remember, I am a dummy when it come's to this sort of thing.
Keith

The easiest way is to go to a free hosting service and upload it
The first one I found in google is
http://www.mysharefile.com/index.php

to do it:
go to "select file" and click the browse button
find and click on the file you want to share.
type something (anything) in the description box
click on the upload button
wait for the upload progress bars to stop moving.

below the blue area of the screen is the sentence
File: successfully uploaded! Here is the link: [Open Download Link]

click on the words [Open Download Link]

you will be taken to where you can download your file.
after a 20 sec wait where you watch their advertisement, you could download the file if you wanted.

But what you want is the address of that site, it is now in the address bar of your browser.
it will read something like:
http://www.mysharefile.com/v/4778685...dbook.pdf.html

Highlight the address in your browser, copy it, and paste it into a message here.

Go ride your motorcycle after all your hard labor.