12v Stator capabilities?

[Deoodles]

Hi All, I’m interested in measuring my stators capabilities. I’m set up for 12v and it is the full wave DC bike. I have the regulator dialed way down at 12.9v. ( I have dialed it up and seen over 15v DC). Right now I’m running a 18 watt led headlight, and I never have to tender the battery. What I’m thinking about is upgrading the headlight to a sealed LED version. What I am trying to learn is can the system keep up with the power requirements. My online reading says add the light. Turn up the voltage regulator and if I can charge the battery with the new load it’s good. How do I measure useable voltage/amps/watts. I will use this information to select an appropriate headlight? Thanks!

 

[SW Ohio]

Generally speaking, an LED headlight will draw less current than its original filament-type lamp, so its current draw shouldn't be an issue as far as keeping the battery charged.

 

[Deoodles]

Deleted

 

[Deoodles]

I installed a projector LED headlight. I chose this one from Amazon because it was affordable and had 4.5 stars with over 1740 reviews



Here are the results;

With my bike off and lights on voltage is at 12.2vdc
Starting the bike and lights on, voltage is at 12.8 Vdc
Bike running and lights on. Turned up regulator 16.6 vdc.



New headlight installed.
Bike off lights on 11.7 vdc
Bike running lights on 16.4 vdc



Tuned the regulator for best voltage and with the bike idling voltage is 12.3 vdc off idle voltage is 12.8 vdc



The bucket needs to be tidy no birds nests to fit the new headlight. I used the 3 clips to hold the new headlight in.



There is still testing that needs to be done. Questions are will it run hot and damage the wiring in the bucket. How well does it project and are there shadows, will it burn out at WOT, Flicker? I will get answers to these questions soon enough.

 

[Deoodles]

First test was surprisingly impressive. The low beam arc lights up 10’ on each side of the blacktop. There are shadows In the pattern but not significant. My iPhone camera makes them look worse than they are in person ( not kidding). I would say to my eye they are barley noticeable and acceptable to me. High beam isn’t for around town. I’m at least 500 feet from the house in the picture. I stopped in the middle of the road to snap these pictures. Idle keeps up at 12.2 vdc and riding around it was 12.9 to 13.1 vdc. There’s zero flicker. Heat and longevity are all that’s left to know.

 

[69ST]

I'm no electrical engineer, unless "shadetree engineer" qualifies. Only method available to me is to connect an electrical load and measure operational voltage...just as you've done. It's good enough, really. As long as the system will maintain ~12.7v while riding, the battery will never discharge and the lights should perform as expected. As long as you feed steady DC current LEDs won't flicker. And LEDs are a few orders of magnitude more efficient than any incandescent bulb. A 10W LED can be quite adequate, a lot more potent than any stock HL Honda fitted to these bikes. Based on my testing, a decent 24W LED headlight can be significantly more potent than the garden-variety 65W headlight bulbs used in newer cars. The unit I fitted to me red bike throws a good 600ft+ of usable road illumination.The next issue is beam focus and that does vary by LED array. Again, there's no substitute for road testing. If lighting is good enough for you, then it's a successful result.

Congrats on what sounds like a successful lighting upgrade project.