R/R Testing - Voltage through R/R

[BassCliff]

So..if I by pass the light switch like you and don't use my headlight will it hurt my battery?

Hi,

In this scenario, if you turn off the headlight and the charging system is still operating at full capacity, it is possible to overcharge your battery and boil off the water. You should always check the battery level anyway. I use an AGM battery, no maintenance.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[koolaid_kid]

I'm assuming it works as drawn. If someone has a P-Spice they could try and simulate it.

OHMYGOD!!
That brings back bad memories. Hopefully it works better (and faster) than it did in the 80s. A Monte-Carlo simulation on an 8088 (even with a math co-processor) could take hours.

[koolaid_kid]

Hi,

In this scenario, if you turn off the headlight and the charging system is still operating at full capacity, it is possible to overcharge your battery and boil off the water. BassCliff

Are you sure about that? I thought that is where the regulator part of the R/R kicks in and shunts the electrons to ground.

[081dbx64]

Well. what the heck is the regulator for then? I am replacing my stock R/R with a electrosport. It claims to regulate all three windings. So I should be ok right?

[081dbx64]

Here is what I found on Electrosports page.

TECHNICAL ISSUE DETAILSSuzuki's GS models all use a permanent magnet alternator system for charging the battery. This system consists of a stator with three output leads and a separate regulator and rectifier. The rectifier unit rectifies the stator AC output to DC and the output is connected to the battery. The regulator on these bikes is an extremely simple one wire affair. One of the three wires from the stator (YELLOW) feeds directly into the rectifier circuit without ANY regulation. One of the three stator wires (WHITE/BLUE) feeds into the rectifier AND has the ONE WIRE voltage regulator attached to it. The third stator wire (WHITE/GREEN) feeds into into the bike wiring harness, connects inside the headlight to the handlebar switch and comes back from the handlebar switch as a WHITE/RED wire which connects directly into the rectifier bridge without ANY regulation. Inside the handlebar switch the connection between WHITE/GREEN and WHITE/RED is made when the lights are turned on (which is not an option on US models, so the connection between these wires is continuous). NOTE: the stator output is identical on all three wires. The three different colors are not needed, it does not matter how you hook up the stator wires as long as you hook them all up. The result of this cost cutting is an unbalanced load on the stator (the stator wants to see an equal load on all three phase outputs) which causes premature stator failure. Our replacement regulator/rectifier replaces BOTH THE RECTIFIER AND THE REGULATOR and regulates on ALL THREE PHASE INPUTS. This means that the load on the three phase outputs of the stator is equal, greatly improving the system and its reliability. Our ESR models for these Suzukis therefore have THREE YELLOW INPUTS. And it does not matter which YELLOW wire connects to which stator output wire. We recommend removing the loop through the wiring harness and connect the WHITE/GREEN stator wire directly into the regulator/rectifier. If you replace the OEM stator with one of our ESG stators you will notice also that the output leads of this new stator are all YELLOW. We also recommend checking all electrical connections in these bikes. The connectors are not that great, and the bikes are fairly old by now. Clean the connectors one by one with some contact cleaner and make sure the bullet style connectors are tight. Our faultfinding chart: Fault Finding Guide will be a great help in diagnosing when you have a charging problem on these Suzukis. NOTE: These 8-valve GS550 models have a 12-pole three phase stator that has identical dimensions to the later 18-pole units (=ElectroSport ESG010). You can use an ESG010 in these older 8-valve models, but you will have to use the later model (80-83) GS850 flywheel. If you fail to change the flywheel the number of magnet poles does not match the stator and you will have NO OUTPUT from your new 18-pole stator.

[Steve]

In this scenario, if you turn off the headlight and the charging system is still operating at full capacity, it is possible to overcharge your battery and boil off the water.

Are you sure about that? I thought that is where the regulator part of the R/R kicks in and shunts the electrons to ground.

That's what I was thinking, too.

I don't think the voltage would go any higher, it would just get there sooner.

Because there is less load on the charging system, it will start charging basically at idle and will reach the regulation phase very quickly.
When that happens you will simply be shunting MOST of your output instead of A LOT of it.

.

[posplayr]

OHMYGOD!!
That brings back bad memories. Hopefully it works better (and faster) than it did in the 80s. A Monte-Carlo simulation on an 8088 (even with a math co-processor) could take hours.

That computer would have been from about 1984, I had a clone PC (from PC shopper) with an 16 Mhz 8088 with 20 Mb HD back then as well .

At Delco Electronics (where i worked) layout was still being done by the drafting department, so I'm not sure P-spice was really widely avaliable in 1984-85. Computers are stupid fast these days compared to back then, throughput almost seems to be an afterthought these days.

[posplayr]

Pos, what is the value of those resistors?

no idea, Suzuki doesn't provide that info.

[081dbx64]

LOL...back in 1985 I paid $5,000 for a 10 MEGAbite hard disk. Yikes

[raistian77]

The resistors and the zener are there to fire the SCR when the voltage on the Red (+) output is too high. The SCR shorts the winding so that the current stays in the stator and doesn't go to the battery.

The SCR is like a latched diode. It is turned on by a "gate" (controlled by the zener and resistors) and then is shuts itself off when you try to drive current backward through it (when the AC reverses).

My buddy explained it to me, but can't say I followed it ; it is a little confusing so I won't even try. The complication though seems to be that the control circuit is not measuring the output with respect to the ground but rather the one phase.

I'm assuming it works as drawn. If someone has a P-Spice they could try and simulate it.

I can see it now that you explained it. Simple design, I don't care for the shorting the leads together to shunt the current. Would be much better to open the phases up.

[koolaid_kid]

Computer Shopper, geez. I heard they finally went out of business. Back then it was a huge book, and pretty much the only way to get any decent prices.
I built my first PC from parts purchased at a local computer store. It was an 8 MHz 8088 back when everyone else was running 5.7 MHz. Started with a whopping 256 Kb of ram and a single floppy. I was going to school at UTD and the computer labs were impossible to get into, so I built one so I could do homework at home. It just cascaded from there.
I won a sales contest at work and purchased a hard drive and controller card. 30 Mb back when everyone else had a 20. Woohoo!
O.K., hijack over.

OP, if anything, I would expect the extra power being shunted to ground to create more heat in the R/R. IMHO, the stock one on my bike did not have enough cooling capacity; the Honda R/R I replaced it with appears to have about twice as much (bigger unit, so fin area greatly increased).

[081dbx64]

Computer shopper...god I loved that book.................a pervibal computer skin mag.

[koolaid_kid]

I can see it now that you explained it. Simple design, I don't care for the shorting the leads together to shunt the current. Would be much better to open the phases up.

I agree, it must be that way for cost reasons. However, my GPz (and probably my former 81 KZ750) has the same design and never had any problems. I should post a pic of my GPz stator, it looks brand new. I suspect Suzuki just has a faulty design in the R/R area, but I have no data to support my suspicions.

[posplayr]

LOL...back in 1985 I paid $5,000 for a 10 MEGAbite hard disk. Yikes

they were cheaper in Computer shopper. Mine (8088 clone with 20 Mb ST-220 IIRC) was about $1500 with a monochrome Hercules video card.I also got one of the first IBM PC's at work and it was probably about $4000 (same time frame)

[posplayr]

Computer Shopper, geez. I heard they finally went out of business. Back then it was a huge book, and pretty much the only way to get any decent prices.
I built my first PC from parts purchased at a local computer store. It was an 8 MHz 8088 back when everyone else was running 5.7 MHz. Started with a whopping 256 Kb of ram and a single floppy. I was going to school at UTD and the computer labs were impossible to get into, so I built one so I could do homework at home. It just cascaded from there.
I won a sales contest at work and purchased a hard drive and controller card. 30 Mb back when everyone else had a 20. Woohoo!
O.K., hijack over.

OP, if anything, I would expect the extra power being shunted to ground to create more heat in the R/R. IMHO, the stock one on my bike did not have enough cooling capacity; the Honda R/R I replaced it with appears to have about twice as much (bigger unit, so fin area greatly increased).

Last time I looked , Computer shopper was still around? Must be 10-15 years since I looked

your probably right on the clock speeds., it has been a while.