Deleting the e-starter

[TheDuke]

Thanks for the advise so far fellas. I'm not planning to race it; but, I like the idea of removing unnecessary parts to keep the weight as low as possible. I figure if I can kick start it, might as well lose the e-starter. Seems like an easy-ish 10lbs to dump.

It also doesn't have anything to do with ego. The fact is that I currently have two ways to start the bike, and weaning myself off of one saves weight. I think it is worth looking at for that reason only. Just trying to trim the fat anywhere it is easy and reasonable.

I have also heard mixed reviews on the Li batteries but really want to lose the battery box for something smaller and more hidden.

So, if I'm not trying to run without a battery, I plan to use an Li version, do I have to worry about anything regarding the starter clutch or rotor??? [Not sure what those do or how they are involved] Can I just remove the starter and plug it and call it good? Will that affect anything other than my ability to thumb-start the beast?

Just how much weight do you plan on losing? :-k

And for what purpose? :-k

If all you are doing is to project a macho image on the kick starter, it seems like a lot of effort for minimal gain. If that is all you are trying to do, just kick it and ignore the button.

.

 

[Chuck78]

this thread linked below it started out bashing the batt-pack or whatever it was called, just a small capacitor and a case filled with sand as a heatsink I assume

Post# 8 sounds well versed like an electrical engineer type guy chimed in and explained it really well. Sounds like around 4800uF (most battery delete kits offer this size, adequate isnt the greatest way to describe it, 14,000uf or 22,000uf would be much better for low rpm ignition and headlight operation).

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263871


basically to sum it up, you need something to store voltage, as you're charging system is an AC signal converted to DC pulses, & a capacitor stores enough energy for a few milliseconds and discharges it when the charging system has gaps in its pulses, so that the gaps between your charging system pulses are filled with energy discharged from the capacitor, it basically smoothes out the DC pulses to make it a more constant voltage supply. A battery is a much larger reserve than the capacitor, longer lasting at least is a way to look at it.while the bike is running, a capacitor is enough to maintain continuous proper voltage if it is sized large enough.

if your system output pulses are 14 volts, then the capacitor will match that voltage and store it for a split second and discharge as soon as the charging system output starts dropping down.

that guy mentioned adding resistors and diodes to make the capacitor function even better for this application. I would assume you'll be installed the same as a capacitor on air conditioner. On an air conditioner, they are wired in as an auxillary voltage source,too hot legs of 120 volt supply the compressor or fan,giving it a 240 volt supply, and then one leg will power of the capacitor and then the output of the capacitor well then go to a third wire going into the motor. I would imagine you would wire the charging system into the capacitor and then power the rest of the bike after that, but I would like some confirmation on this.

 

[Steve]

Yes, you can easily and safely remove the starter and plug the hole, and not worry about anything else. The starter clutch is a gear with a one-way drive (think "ratchet wrench with smooooth notches"). I don't think that gear even weighs half a pound. I have one here, but no way to weigh it. It will not hurt anything to leave it in place.

It is good that you do not plan on running without a battery, because the rest of the charging system will not tolerate a "no battery" situation. Lithium batteries are definitely powerful for their size, which is why they power virtually everything that needs a fair amount of power, but needs to be light enough to be portable. However, the rate of charge, the charging voltage and other specifications of your charging system are designed for LEAD-ACID, not Lithium. That will simply NOT enhance the longevity of the battery.

If you are not racing the bike, I doubt you would even be able to tell the difference, but it's your bike, enjoy it.
Hopefully you keep the maintenance up so at least it kicks easily. :-k

.

 

[Chuck78]

It is good that you do not plan on running without a battery, because the rest of the charging system will not tolerate a "no battery" situation. Lithium batteries are definitely powerful for their size, However, the rate of charge, the charging voltage and other specifications of your charging system are designed for LEAD-ACID, not Lithium. That will simply NOT enhance the longevity of the battery.

.

Can you elaborate on why the rest of tge charging system can't tolerate not having a battery? What about a very large value capacitor?

Are those newer gel cell batteries substantially lighter?

I am contemplating a small 4ah battery and starter delete vs a very large 22,000uF 50vdc capacitor

 

[850 Combat]

yes- the capacitor. you can look these up as "motorcycle battery eliminator"
here's one:
http://www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/BEC.html

looks like something out you could rip (carefully) out of an old tube tv, to me. It'd be lighter than a lead battery.
I still have trouble imagining that it'll work as well as a magneto but you get to keep your lights, I guess.
(maybe Dimont46 will report back
http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=213821)

I have run magnetos too. The capacitor works at least as well. When I ran a mag on the Atlas, I had to have the alternator too for the lights, which of course dimmed at idle badly. I would go to any Brit bike parts place for the Capacitor. Unlike the GS, every Norton part is still available.

 

[Gorminrider]

I have run magnetos too. The capacitor works at least as well. When I ran a mag on the Atlas, I had to have the alternator too for the lights, which of course dimmed at idle badly. I would go to any Brit bike parts place for the Capacitor. Unlike the GS, every Norton part is still available.

Interesting!
Too bad my starter-motor is in a kind of pit, on this engine....if it were "hanging out" in plain view and accessible like some bikes, I can almost imagine a crank like a Ford model T -man, that'd be a conversation starter!

 

[Steve]

Can you elaborate on why the rest of tge charging system can't tolerate not having a battery? What about a very large value capacitor?

The charging system on these bikes uses a shunt-style regulator. That means that the stator will put out as much as it can, ALL THE TIME, and the output is rather directly related to engine speed. Whatever the bike does not need for coils, lights, charging the battery, etc., is shunted directly to ground to waste it. If you don't have a battery to re-charge, more is going to be wasted, adding to the load that the regulator has to shunt.

Why not a capacitor? Rather simple, actually. What is going to power the coils while you are trying to start the bike?

Are those newer gel cell batteries substantially lighter?

A true "gel" cell battery does not usually have the current capacity to handle an electric starter, but in your case, it might work. Is it lighter? Not by much, unless you get one with absolute MINIMAL capacity.

I am contemplating a small 4ah battery and starter delete vs a very large 22,000uF 50vdc capacitor

Not sure what good the capacitor is going to do in that setup or what your "starter delete" is (removing the starter motor?), but the battery might work.

.

 

[Chuck78]

I have a Shindengen SH775 series regulator, which seemed to me to be 1,000 times better than a shunt! Also, I read of a 22,000uF battery delete cap from developed by a huge critic of battery delete kits that the very large cap took about 1/2 a kickstart engine rotation to fully charge the capacitor, which basically equated to slightly longer that just a quick push of the button to instantaneously start the bike.

Dropping the weight of the battery/starter etc is just one more step to making a 550lb bike into a 485lb superbike, & itll handle much better.

For the low cost of surplus caps, I may try one out in the future

 

[Chuck78]

http://www.goodluckbuy.com/100v-22000uf-electrolytic-capacitor-1205050mm.html

I was thinking of trying out something like that, a very large capacitor in a very high current handling capability. sounds like a series regulator-rectifier like the sh775 or compufire is a must. Got it already

 

[Gorminrider]

The charging system on these bikes uses a shunt-style regulator. That means that the stator will put out as much as it can, ALL THE TIME, and the output is rather directly related to engine speed. Whatever the bike does not need for coils, lights, charging the battery, etc., is shunted directly to ground to waste it. If you don't have a battery to re-charge, more is going to be wasted, adding to the load that the regulator has to shunt.

huh? but they do that anyways...what's that got to do with running battery-less?
Because after all,"the stator will put out as much as it can, ALL THE TIME," depending on rpm and doesn't "know" or carethat there's a battery there or not. Or lights, or coils or anything else, for that matter.
as to the coils, (ignition generally) that IS what the capacitor is running, isn't it?
But a person would need to disable the Always-On nanny lights...

 

[Gorminrider]

...one thing that occurs as a theoretical...if the capacitor is really really big, and discharged, it acts like a short circuit (unless there's a ballast resistor in series.) So, whether series or shunt, the stator will have full output for some period of time...somewhat similar to recharging a very depleted battery... maybe a Fuse issue, eh..? This isn't going to be a problem kickstarting it, but ....

 

[Chuck78]

From the advrider post link above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CapacitorCapacitor

A capacitor is two metal plates separated by an insulator. If you apply a voltage to the plates, they will store an electric charge. If you disconnect the voltage source the charge will remain on the plates and the measured voltage on the plates will also remain until it is drained off by some external circuit. The amount of charge stored on the plates is related to the physical dimensions of the plate and the voltage applied to the plates.

Charge stored = Voltage across the plates * Capacitance of the particular device.



Charge is measured in Coulombs, Voltage in Volts, and Capacitance in Farads.
An Amp is the rate at which charge moves, in Coulombs per second.
A coulomb is 6,241,506,000,000,000,000 electrons.

Capacitors also have a voltage rating, usually printed on the case next to the capacitance value. It refers to the highest voltage that can be safely applied to that capacitor.

In this case, guessing by the picture, the capacitor is probably 5000 microFarads. So when charged to 15V, it stores 15*.005 = .075 coulombs of charge. Compare that to a 7Amp-hour battery which stores 7*3600 = 25200 Coulombs.

The point of the capacitor is not to provide power for any accesories -it can only run a taillight for a fraction of a second. It is there to help the conversion of AC power from your stator to smooth DC power. The rectifier converts the AC into pulsed DC, the capacitor has to provide power for the dead time between the pulses. In the case of devices running off wall current, the cap has to power them for 1/(60Hz*2) = 8.3mS. For motorcycles, the frequency is higher, 1/(240Hz*2) = 2.1mS in the case of my XR. The *2 is because there are two pulses per cycle.

So using the XR as an example, The load is 6A, so the voltage on a 5000uF cap will drop 6 * .0021 / .005 = 2.5V. So if the regulator limits the voltage to 14.5V during the pulse, the voltage will drop to 12V just before the next pulse.



A battery uses an electro chemical reaction, and will generate a fixed voltage, that will slowly decrease as the chemistry is expended.

A rechargable battery is the same, but uses chemistry that can be "reversed". You feed power into it, it undoes the previous chemical reaction, you pull power from it, it re-does the chemical reaction.

A capacitor simply stores a charge... and will seek the voltage applied to it. So if you drop 13.2 volts across a capacitor, it will draw a LOT of current quickly until it stores enough energy to go up to the applied voltage (13.2 in this example). A capacitor will quickly go to whatever voltage you apply to it (or explode trying) based on the resistance of the current path. The more resistance, the slower the voltage goes up (by a deterministic RC time constant).

Thats a lot smaller cap then I would have expected for a battery replacement. And if I were building one, I would want some sort of current limiting, a simple resistor with a diode in parallel (arrow pointing away from capacitor) would do the trick nicely, it would make the cap charge slowly, but discharge quickly if necessary... though at the cost of a .6 volt drop.

All in all, a battery is probably a better solution, though something like this could work and weigh next to nothing. Mendelsons electronic surplus in Dayton Ohio has about 4 acres of electronic surplus, and you can probably buy a mil spec capacitor the size of a beer can for $5.

 

[Chuck78]

Basically most "battery eliminators that mostly bobber/chopper/"cafe" builders buy off the shelf are around 4700uF, and will give you this erratic voltage pulsing as mentioned by one of the two people I quoted, voltage fluctuating from regulator output (say 13.2v) down to 12v in 2 millesecond cycles... A larger cap of at least 14,000uf will have much more voltage storing capability and not drop like this, as some bikes will definitely have an erratic idle and flickering lights at idle speed with the smaller cap. And you don't have to have one the size of a beer can, look at the $15 22000uF cap I posted, size listed as 120mm x 50mm.

 

[Gorminrider]

mmm.well, as to ripple, and all that,
I got curious and so I idled my gsx400 yesterday without a battery or capacitor just as a curiosity but didn't actually notice any ripple in the lights at 1600-1800rpm...the bike will just quit if the revs are too low.My cheapo led digital voltmeter freaked out and went into a swoon so there is ripple, I bet.
Given stator coils are spinning at about 1800 rpm : divided by 60 seconds is 30 cycles per second even were it the simplest of 1 phase ac generators,let alone 3 phase-so say 90 cycle? compare this to housepower at 60 cycles.
but perhaps the capacitor is really needed because there's something not quite right ..lights not as bright, spark not as snappy..something.Perhaps where a battery or capacitor can "store" the peaks the regulator is passing, running the system without results in a lower average voltage. I will have to find an old analogue meter to see, I guess.

It occurred to me that if I were doing this,with a kickstart,and the Miraculous Capacitor I might keep the stop switch off for a few kicks?....

 

[850 Combat]

More than likely, below 1800 rpm, you don't have enough voltage to operate the electronic ignition. Points would probably keep it idling.

 

[Gorminrider]

aha-likely so.well spotted,850'-that's a better diagnosis.... especially cogent as my stator in this bike is amateur-wound and a bit low on the windings-count as well...

(but 'tis good enough in normal usage, I need say.)