Regulator Rectifier questions

[82Shafty]

I could see if you are replacing R/R's with Honda units, but I often get weary of aftermarket parts....Honest John's R/R's just the name makes me cringe.

In the Automotive Businesss it has to be OEM or nothing when it comes to getting the customer down the road. This also includes a carefully elected reman person as well, because to have to do the job twice, it only pays once.

I see that there are many avenues when it comes to replacing parts on these old bikes, as with cars, other than people on here seem to be having better luck with different avenues.

I plan to replace my R/R before the riding season kicks off because lets face it, the thing is 25 years old and I would rather replace it now, than be 3 + hours from home stranded. Being and ASE Advanced level Master Tech, I value replacing aging parts ahead of time to prevent a future break down.

Bottom line is that you can pay now, at least you know what to save for over the winter, or you can pay more later when you need to get your bike rescued.

The old spare, could always help a someone broke down, get home in a pinch.

[Jaguarjoe]

Would you mind drawing up a circuit diagram?

Here it is.

[JMHJ]

Buncha electrical engineers around this place

[Suzuki_Don]

If you have a 6 wire rectifier can you leave the sense wire disconnected to prevent overcharging or is this a no no. I could not get a decent print of the diagram put up by one of our electrical geniuses. is it possible to put a larger and maybe clearer picture up for me please.

How does the power relay work and wire into the system.

Cheers Don

[bakalorz]

If you have a 6 wire rectifier can you leave the sense wire disconnected to prevent overcharging or is this a no no. I could not get a decent print of the diagram put up by one of our electrical geniuses. is it possible to put a larger and maybe clearer picture up for me please.

How does the power relay work and wire into the system.

Cheers Don

The sense lead MUST be connected somewhere in the system. If not, the R/R can't tell what voltage the battery is getting. It would then either never charge, or overcharge (probably overcharge, but it depends on the system)

The relay does not handle much power, so the current rating on it does not matter. It does have to be rated for a coil voltage of 12 volts though.
The relay I describe below has 4 terminals: 2 coil terminals, and a normally open pair of contacts.
Some relays have 5 terminals: 2 coil terminals, common, a normally open contact, and a normally closed contact. For that type, you would ignore (leave disconnected) the normally closed contact, and use the other 4

Get the relay and touch every pair of points with an ohmeter, one pair will have a reading of somewhere between 10 and 10,000 ohms (probably around 200-400). This pair is the coil.

Connect either coil terminal to ground. Connect the other coil terminal to any point in the wiring harness that is switched on by the ignition switch, and is always on when the switch is on.
The other two terminals on the relay will now make contact any time the ignition switch is turned on.

Get an inline fuse and a ring terminal. The fuse handles less than an amp, so any value fuse from 1 to 10 amps is fine. The ring terminal goes directly on the battery positive terminal, and then is connected directly to the fuse. Make sure that all the wiring between the ring terminal and fuse is VERY well insulated, and protected from chafing or cutting. If this wire contacts anything it shouldn't, the bike will catch fire ...
The other end of the fuse goes to one of the remaining connections on the relay. The sense lead goes dircectly to the last connection on the relay.

Don't connect anything else to the line from the battery to the relay, or the relay to the sense lead. The whole point is to have the sense lead have a "pure" connection to the battery.

[willie]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who couldn't make out the diagram. For all the effort that went into drawing it, a larger copy would allow more of us to benefit. How about it?
Willie in TN

[Jaguarjoe]

How do I make it bigger? I don't know how to do that. If you PM me I can email you a bigger image but AFAIK, the forum limits the size of the attachments you can send.

[Suzuki_Don]

JAGUARJOE

My email is dclifton@optusnet.com.au

Cheers

Don

[bakalorz]

How do I make it bigger? I don't know how to do that. If you PM me I can email you a bigger image but AFAIK, the forum limits the size of the attachments you can send.

Get your big original in a graphics program of some type, and go to "save as". under the options, change the color depth to a smaller # (or black and white)

That should let you keep it physically large, but a small # of bytes

[Smokinapankake]

I don't understand why people are so willing to install a 25 year old R/R on their bike when you can get replacements off Ebay all day long for about $40 that are only a few years old. The newer Honda units are way beefier than the stockers and most are 5 wire units.

As I stated before, I bought one off a 2001 (ish) CBR600 (40 bucks with shipping). If the damn thing would ever show up I might be able to update with results. At any rate, all the deep theory etc.. is lost on me. I just want to replace the unit and be on my way. And I also want to know what to replace it with again should it fail sometime in the future.
It's been a very interesting thread and the diagnostic portion has truly enlightened me. I appreciate all the effort from the members to clarify the position for me, but sometimes too much information can be damaging as well. I've completely pulled out my wiring harness and will go through it thoroughly to ensure complete and total connection satisfaction before reinstalling anything. I really don't want to have to go through all this again, you know. I didn't realize that about bullet connectors. And in my disassembly, I did find one ground wire (black/white stripe) bullet connector totally corroded away. Not good.
So thanks again, I will continue to watch this thread with interest...

[JMHJ]

I ordered the Electrex one Saturday night from Bike Bandit (ouch). I needed to pick up a few other small items anyway, and I just wanted to hook up the right one and go. Correct about the site/members being a great help.

I didn't check anything until I had it off the bike, but thanks to the Stator Papers was able to determine that the R/R was indeed faulty, and the stator checks O.K. The clear plastic covering the bullet connectors in the stator wiring looked to have gotten too hot.

I will run the ground straight to the batt negative as suggested, and hope I can remember how to put it all back together. Great fun.

[Smokinapankake]

So I got the replacement Reg Rec in a few days ago, looks to be a nice, burly unit. However, In the meantime, I stripped the bike down to nothing. Trying to find time to tear the motor out of the frame for powdercoat/polishing over the winter. Hopefully next spring I'll be able to update with info about the Reg/Rec. Something is a little odd, tho. The reg rec has not 5, not 6, but 7 wires, separated thusly: 3 yello into one connector, and two red and two green into another connector. I assume the yellows are stator leads, and the others are ground (green) and positive (?) leads? Anybody clarify?