Help Electrical Questions

Be careful with ebay regulators, lots of fakes and knockoffs.

If you want genuine Shindengen regulator, get one from roadstercycle.com

He has a video on how to spot a genuine vs fake

 

If you do some careful searching on ebay you can find similar model shindengen R/Rs for much cheaper. I got one off some Honda for about 60 AUD. I can't remember what the part number is, but yeah you can definitely pay less than 270

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In today's world, the only ones worth getting are the FH020AA, which will suit most use cases, or SH847 where one is necessary. The FH012AA is the predecessor to the FH020AA, and the SH775 the predecessor for the SH847.

At work, we get most of our regulators for Gosford Motorcycles. Mostly SH579B-11, which a diode shunt style. Lots of (now) older Ducatis and Triumphs are fitted with these up until around 2012 or so when they finally got onto the mosfet style regulators - which are still a shunt style, just much more efficient at it, generating less heat.

I have a few bikes at work that have now come in every couple of years for a new one, because they die and start overcharging, or fail to charge at all.

Most recently I had a Sprint ST 1050 in for overcharging amongst other work. Boss got an RMStator replacement. Failed to rectify the problem, still charging too high at 15.2v

Boss then got an SH-579B-11 (same as OEM) from Gosford Motorcycles. It has fixed the problem and the bike charges at 14.2v-14.3v. But for how long? The original one of the same model failed (2006 build date on the bike). This sprint's stator outputs 85VAC at 5,000rpm which is higher than most other bikes from what I have seen (usually around 65VAC)

When my budget as an apprentice was a red penny, I bought a genuine 2nd hand FH020AA off a low mileage Tiger 1050 that someone was wrecking on ebay, along with a generic connector kit, to fit to my R6 which had done the regulator and melted the 3pin plug for the stator. Total less than $200.

 

I stand corrected, although the ones I got did have the FH letters in the model number. Mine did 10,000kms on a Lithium with no issues, but I'm happy to be proven wrong on suitability. I can check what one it is when I'm home if your interested. Same body as the FH020AA

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Forgot to mention that I use a Ultrabatt Lithium(LiFe) battery. It's not doing anything difficult, just somewhere to store electricity for the Link ECU and the fuel and water pumps until the bike fires up. I connect the Lambda after the engine is started.

 

If anyone knows could you confirm that the MOSFET R/Rs work differently to the earlier R/Rs. It was my understanding that the function of them was the same, i.e. they shunted the alternator output to ground to limit voltage at the battery. Both being either ON or OFF there is little power developed within the R/R unit unlike if they were analog devices and progressive. I've noted that a place where power is sometimes developed is on the pin that provides the ground, in R/Rs where the ground is not provided through the body of the R/R. The connector gets a bit of corrosion which causes a bit of resistance which with the possible 20a or so can generate a bit of heat. The heat causes more corrosion, and possibly melted bits, and the vicious cycle continues. I had a bike(Z1000J) with this issue and fixed it by cutting the wire and clamping it directly to ground. Problem solved

 

They do the same thing with different internal electrical methodology to achieve the outcome - stable, rectified and regulated power output.
The MOSFETS are more durable in the longer term, it's realistically more up to date electronic components doing the work, and they're less prone to failure.

On either type, good ground connection(s) are vitally important.

 

Let's backtrack a little bit:

1. what is fully-charged voltage of lead-acid battery

2. what is fully-charged voltage of lithium battery?

3. what is max charging current of lead-acid battery (relative to capacity)?

4. what is max charging current of lithium battery (relative to capacity)?

 

1) 12.8v - Anything above that is float voltage. 12.6v is 80% charged.

2) 13.4v - A lithium battery at 20% charge is about 13v

3) 25% of maximum amperage capacity supposedly.

4) I don't know, but our lithium battery compatible charger at work will only charge lithiums at 1amp. Actually, it does that for any other type of battery too.

 

We should also differentiate the 'lithium' batteries there's Lithium Polymer (LiPo) which is the one that can, and does go BOOM on occasion - I wouldn't put one anywhere near an installed motor vehicle battery

Lithium Polymer batteries have two cited voltages, one is the nominal usually 3.6-3.7 volts and the charged voltage which is actually 4.2 volts

Then there's LiFEPO4 Lithium batteries, they don't have as high current capacity relative to LiPo
Nominal voltages of 3.2 volts and charged voltage of 3.5 - 3.65 volts per cell, so you want a regulator that doesn't go much over 14.6 volts if at all possible.
These LiFOPO4 battery cells I believe are motorcycle and car batteries.

Lithium refining and production techniques seem to be improving fairly rapidly, so LiFEPO4 batteries are now offering current capacities that make them useful to start engines.

 

Not sure you can even get anything but LiFePO4 for use as motorcycle batteries. I've been using LiFePO4 batteries for past 10-yrs on all 6 of my bikes. All of them are going on 10-yrs old now. Haven't used lead-acid in decade. Honda has been using lithium as OEM battery for years. Main benefit is power to weigh, similar cranking power for 1/10th weight.

In early days 15-yrs ago, there were problems with batteries without BMS or bad BMS. This allowed me to leave lights on accidentally after turning off bike and killing battery beyond recovery. Same problem as with lead-acid. Newer batteries with BMS has saved me cost of new batteries numerous times when I left lights on. Or developed parasitic drain.

Since full-charge voltage is higher than lead-acid, you're not gonna be able to over-charge it, and BMS will kick in anyway. LiFePO4 can take up to 30C charge rate, 40 amps!!! I've charged them up in less than 5 minutes with auto battery charger. Although most BMS will limit to 10 amps. So much tougher than lead-acid, you're not gonna hurt it.

However, some BMS protect from overcharging only and not over-discharge. Poor charging system and partial BMS will keep battery running at low charge state and eventually kill it. Battery Tender and Shorai make good lithium batteries. Best to have on-board voltmeter to monitor battery voltage and charging state.

Here's my VFR after 4-months winter storage without tender.



I turn it on for 10s and let pump prime carbs, then
hit start-button. After 3-revolutions, >VRRROOM<. Voltage doesn't drop much during cranking either.



So much less maintenance without having to drag tender chargers to every single bike all winter!

BTW - anyone notice OP's incorrect maths? No wonder he didn't understand anything.

 

oh wait, that was you! Thought it was someone else at school...

This was part I didn't get...

If we have (600 sparks)/sec., can't we just flip it to sec/spark? So 1sec/600sparks = 1/600 sec/spark. That's one spark trying to fire every 1/600th sec. not every 1.2s.

Then if we look for max-dwell time, 1/600s * 1000 *2 coils = 3.3 milliseconds charge time. This is also an advantage to using sequential ignition. Then you can remove wasted spark and have 6.6ms charge time for hotter spark.

 

Ah good, maths worked out. Hoping that wasn't causing you any issues with instructors. There are some really good ones and many not so good. Some haven't kept up with times and latest tech. Although they can be quite good at teaching basics.

On dwell, there are smart-coils that manage their own charging time so ECU only has to apply trigger at correct time. However, LS1 coils have major defect. When their charge-time reaches 3ms, they automatically fire spark! So depending upon RPM, 3ms from last spark may be well ahead of desired ignition advance. Many Porsche engines have been destroyed by using LS1 coils! Took some clever sleuthing to figure that one out.

 

This is caused by shunt-circuit RR that drives stator at 100% fulltime. A little of that power is used to recharge battery and power bike while rest is dumped to ground.



Similar thing happens to CBRs and VFRs