The Next Nerobro's HowTo: Doing the Stator Dance

[Nerobro]

First things first, this is all thanks to the stator papers. However, this is done on a 1983 GS550 stator, which is smaller than the 1980 stator, and I"ll bet it makes the GS1000 stators look huge.

Ah, the hell of simple alternators. If any of you know what happens when a r/r cooks itself, you'd be familliar with this scene:

Sexy ain't it. That thing is burnt. Bad. Several coils overheated, and through heat cycling the copper weakened, and the final failure of this stator was under that black stuff are some completely broken strands of copper. That black stuff is chared on oil. Think of that nasty stuff that develops when the oil from your valve cover drips onto your exhaust manifold.

Pretty isn't it. That's 300' of 16ga copper. Sadly, pretty is all it is. As 90% of that roll is still on that spool. I thought I'd be clever and try to uprate my stator somewhat and use thicker copper. I had to order another spool, 18ga.

This clip is what prevents stresses on the wiring harness from reaching the easily broken, and work hardened copper of the stator. You need to unbend it before you can access those very well done coils behind it. There are three wires there, each one leads out to the r/r. The three wires are tied togother at the other end to form a wye type 3 phase winding.

Excuse the blur please. But before you continue, you should label the poles. That will help you when you wind later.

[Nerobro]

It's coming undone. At this point the wire had actually come off in five peices. The cooking had damaged the copper so badly that it almost crumbled. From here on out it came off in a single strand. As you unwind a stator, count the turns on each pole. Each pole will have the same number of turns, but I garuntee you'll get different numbers. I got a couple 29's a bunch with 30, and two with 31 turns. So it's safe to assume that 30 turns per pole is proper. With the 16ga I was only able to put 23 turns on a pole before I ran out of room for the next pole.

You should label these too. On the left there's the markings for the "start", on the right there are the markings for the "end." I also put an arrow on there to indicate the direction of winding. The direction of winding is VITAL to get consistant. If you wind backwards that's ok, as long as everything is wound backwards. Switch winding directions and there's a whole lot of bad EMF going on.

Nice towel eh? I think it's from when my mom went to college. I now do a lot of my "really dirty" work on it. I ended up unwinding the poles seqentially. You can see that all the insulation is burnt off the copper. That black stuff smelled like an ashtray. It wasn't plesant taking it apart. I'm fairly sure the wire I pulled off was 20ga.

Look at that, the proper wire. 300' of 16 ga high temprature coated copper wire.

[Nerobro]

The first turns. I was able to fit 13 or 14 turns on the first layer. It took me three or four attempts to get the winding of the poles down right. What I came up with was to wind the first layer as tightly as i could, then I'd wind back down four or five turns, I'd wind back towards the top, and by the time I finished winding down the seccond time I'd be at 30 turns.

My first 30. My fingers were sore already.

Three poles. I think I may have screwed up on that connection between the seccond and third pole. We'll see when I install it, if the screw rubs that wire it may ground the stator, and that's a bad thing. With a capital b. Oooh, look, salsa.

The thing finally starts to look pretty when you're a third of the way through it. I didn't realize how gross salsa lids looked when taken out of context.

[Nerobro]

Two legs of the stator done. The whole assembly seemed much heavier at this point.

Yup, I did this all at my desk at work. On the clock...

The winding done. I still need to solder, then insulate the connection for the center of the wye, and attach the leads that take the power back to the stator. I'll update with those pictures once I get them done.

[Jethro]

Very cool write up man!!

But I think I'll stick to spending a 140 at Ricks for a new one. How much did the copper wire cost you and how much time did it take to do?

[Nerobro]

$40 for the wire. I could do it in two hours if I wasn't at work.

[bradleymaynar]

Your workstation chair is the 550, isn't it! Good job on explaining this as you go. It'll be interesting to see how it works.

Brad bt

[Nerobro]

The plan is to find out this weekend. It should take 25 minutes to swap stators. :-) I already have a CX500 r/r sitting on the bike.

[lord1234]

Is there an IM from me in the background of that screen? I bet there is....

[brveagle]

nice job man... Looks clean..

[snowbeard]

sweet work! but doesn't the gs discussion get cleansed if there are no posts for thirty days? can you post this into the tech section, I don't think Frank has that set to expire ever!!? I'll need it when mine goes south!

so you ended up using the 16ga or the 18? did you leave what you had on already on? or keep it the same weight throughout?

[MissFabulous]

Reading this made my fingers ache, but maybe that was because I was splicing some electrical cord at the time...

It really fascinated me tho, especially from the standpoint of my business, since a lot of old timers in the tattoo biz insist on wrapping their own machine (most of us in the biz don't call them "guns" since they're more like sewing machines and old fashioned door bells) coils, but that art doesn't even come close to what you've done - tattoo machines have two simple coils. I'm really looking forward to reading about your progress on this, and it (among other things) is a good reminder of why I am drawn to the older bikes, since if you have the determination, patience and knowledge, you can fix or improve a ton of things on your own because of more simplistic design. The knowledge is right here... the determination and patience have to come from within...

Keep the updates coming, Nero!!!

[Nerobro]

so you ended up using the 16ga or the 18? did you leave what you had on already on? or keep it the same weight throughout?

Nope, 18ga throughout. 30 turns of 16ga would have filled the the space between three poles entirely.

I might crosspost it. Though I'll be more likely to compile all my projects at some point. I already got one project in the gs garage ;-) Maybe this will get added to the stator papers.

Reading this made my fingers ache, but maybe that was because I was splicing some electrical cord at the time... *stuff about doing their own coils*
Keep the updates coming, Nero!!!

This isnt' the first time I've wound coils like this before. Though this is the toughest one I've done. Even modern bikes have these same stators on them ;-) If you catch the right picture of a RC211V you'll see the stator hanging out on the side of the motor.

I can see why a tattoo geek would do their own machine. Do they just run line frequency, or do you have control over stroke speed?

[MissFabulous]

Nope, 18ga throughout. 30 turns of 16ga would have filled the the space between three poles entirely.

I might crosspost it. Though I'll be more likely to compile all my projects at some point. I already got one project in the gs garage ;-) Maybe this will get added to the stator papers.

This isnt' the first time I've wound coils like this before. Though this is the toughest one I've done. Even modern bikes have these same stators on them ;-) If you catch the right picture of a RC211V you'll see the stator hanging out on the side of the motor.

I can see why a tattoo geek would do their own machine. Do they just run line frequency, or do you have control over stroke speed?

Stroke speed is adjusted with a rheostat between the power supply and the machine (connected with a clip cord), or with the contact point which hits the spring. Personally, my hands usually move quickly, so I usually run mine higher than a lot of artists, but I'll turn it down for shading if I don't switch to a smaller wrap machine. Most are 8-10 wrap dual coils, but for outlining, I like a 10-12 wrap and will switch to a smaller wrap for shading, then I don't have to adjust the rheostat, if any of that makes sense...

[Nerobro]

In radio control cars, they were called "turns". The fewer the turns the more amperage made it through the coil, and therefore the more power that would be absorbed by the motor. when you had fewer turns you could fit more wire... so you'd see things like 10 turn tripples. Which is 3 strands turned around the armature 10 times. ;-)

So yeah, you make total sence.

I had considered winding the stator with 30 turns, and 2 strands of 26ga.