I attempted to test the reg/rec. I don’t know how. Does someone know the procedure. I have a good multimeter with the diode check function. I just don’t know what to do. I really want to find the cause. I’ve been using this CDI stator setup for a few years and don’t believe in coincidence. Something I did or didn’t do caused the failure.
Adding a LED to an aftermarket large housing.
- Thread starter Deoodles
- Start date
I went back to beginning and re-read some of your checks when we first started out. In post #13, you noted continuity: Yellow to ground, White to ground but no continuity white to yellow? It seems that you've always had one leg that was grounded, but the coils were isolated from each other? Maybe there is a bad check along the way or something has changed?
Regarding your voltage measurements, do you read any voltage yellow to ground? White to ground? I may have missed the reference point for your voltage measurements. Y to Gnd? Y to Gnd? Y to W?
Anyhoo, no need to worry about your rec/reg until you have something for it to rectify and regulate. But to answer your question, there is a not a good way to check a rec/reg, especially since we don't know the type you have or what's inside. I have a hunch what you have but will save it for later.
I have thought about your resistance readings. 2 ohms Y to G & W to G seems a little high based on my guesstimate of your wire size and amount of wire. I would expect it be less than 1 ohm, more like ~ 0.5 per winding. Just to humor me, please double check this when you have time.
I am 100% with Bob on this. Even if your rec/reg went out to lunch, slim chance it ate your stator for desert. Same goes if both the yellow and white wires were tied together and connected to ground. There is just not enough power available to smoke the windings in a 15 mile excursion. Adding to this, you have no obvious visual clues of smoked or physical damage.
Regarding your voltage measurements, do you read any voltage yellow to ground? White to ground? I may have missed the reference point for your voltage measurements. Y to Gnd? Y to Gnd? Y to W?
Anyhoo, no need to worry about your rec/reg until you have something for it to rectify and regulate. But to answer your question, there is a not a good way to check a rec/reg, especially since we don't know the type you have or what's inside. I have a hunch what you have but will save it for later.
I have thought about your resistance readings. 2 ohms Y to G & W to G seems a little high based on my guesstimate of your wire size and amount of wire. I would expect it be less than 1 ohm, more like ~ 0.5 per winding. Just to humor me, please double check this when you have time.
I am 100% with Bob on this. Even if your rec/reg went out to lunch, slim chance it ate your stator for desert. Same goes if both the yellow and white wires were tied together and connected to ground. There is just not enough power available to smoke the windings in a 15 mile excursion. Adding to this, you have no obvious visual clues of smoked or physical damage.
I reread as well. I can confirm no voltage on yellow or white. Also I removed the stator and can confirm yellow to stator ground is 5 ohm and so is white. Only 2 ohms between white and yellow and I can verify continuity between them. The CDI coil wire came off while I was removing the stator coil. I re soldered it but now I have a no start condition. My soldering skills are kind of like Mr. Hankey from South Park. Meaning a little messy. I hate that I ruined that coil. Now I can’t ride it at all. As much as this sucks there is a silver lining. My understanding of the coils, CDI, reg/rec and battery where why and how’s has gone up significantly. I really am not overly concerned about the current ( no pun intended) state of the bike. I could use and do appreciate the help I’m getting here.
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I wish I had never looked at the picture......
Easy part first. Do you still show 300 ohms on the coil for the CDI? If not, correct this and you should have ignition again.
Now on the part that makes no sense. See attached pic for my questions.
Appears that you have 2 wires going to Coil A, then a single wire going to coil B, then a single wire going to coil C and other end of coil C is grounded? That's what I see but just want to confirm before going any further and tossing out ideas.
Worst case, you can send the lighting coil to me and I'll re-wind it for you. I have about 75 feet of wire but not sure what gauge you have. If you have an accurate caliper, see if you can measure the diameter. It's probably some where between in the range of 0.8mm.
Easy part first. Do you still show 300 ohms on the coil for the CDI? If not, correct this and you should have ignition again.
Now on the part that makes no sense. See attached pic for my questions.
Appears that you have 2 wires going to Coil A, then a single wire going to coil B, then a single wire going to coil C and other end of coil C is grounded? That's what I see but just want to confirm before going any further and tossing out ideas.
Worst case, you can send the lighting coil to me and I'll re-wind it for you. I have about 75 feet of wire but not sure what gauge you have. If you have an accurate caliper, see if you can measure the diameter. It's probably some where between in the range of 0.8mm.
Stayed on the cdi coil issue since I understand it and have it cleaned up and running again. With the battery powering everything I can ride again. I know with a full charge I have a few hours before I lose the lights. I added a volt meter to keep an eye on the battery
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Yup. Coil C starts at ground then wound and jumps to coil B then wound and jumps to coil A then wound and out comes white and yellow look at the picture there are twisted wires. 2 wires soldered to the yellow lead and the wire soldered to white comes from the center of coil A. I can’t tell what’s going on there. My math says .037 thousandth or .9mm
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That is wild. For sure, 5 ohms is too high by a factor of 10, Looks like the wire gauge is close to 20 gauge. There has to be a connection in coil A, probably toward the end, and this wire comes out as one of you stator leads.
For what it's worth, I could not find a replacement stator anywhere in the configuration you have. Looked at 20 pages of stators on Alibaba, and not a one with a "long" CDI coil and 3 pole lighting/charging coil. That's strange as well.
Now this raises my curiosity factor on your Rec/Reg. It has to deal with a grounded stator? It's probably a 12v version of this one.
https://sep.yimg.com/ay/dratv/some-wiring-help-i-think-3.gif
If you're not attached to your current rec/reg, now is this time to make the change. The coil can be wound ungrounded, which opens the door wide open to use off the shelf, cheap thru expensive, rec/regs?
For what it's worth, I could not find a replacement stator anywhere in the configuration you have. Looked at 20 pages of stators on Alibaba, and not a one with a "long" CDI coil and 3 pole lighting/charging coil. That's strange as well.
Now this raises my curiosity factor on your Rec/Reg. It has to deal with a grounded stator? It's probably a 12v version of this one.
https://sep.yimg.com/ay/dratv/some-wiring-help-i-think-3.gif
If you're not attached to your current rec/reg, now is this time to make the change. The coil can be wound ungrounded, which opens the door wide open to use off the shelf, cheap thru expensive, rec/regs?
A factor of 10 ? Hope I can read my multimeter correctly 
Okay I’m lost. That is my 12 volt reg/rec. I got it from the doctor. Are you telling me if it gets rewound without the ground it will be a full wave 12 volt? And I can use it to keep the battery charged and that’s it?
Okay I’m lost. That is my 12 volt reg/rec. I got it from the doctor. Are you telling me if it gets rewound without the ground it will be a full wave 12 volt? And I can use it to keep the battery charged and that’s it?5 ohms is way too high for what I see on that stator. I would expect to see no more that 0.5 to 0.8 ohms. This is purely a guess on my part based on wire size and rough guess on amount wire on the 3 coils. To put things into perspective, 5 ohms indicates a high resistance connection (somewhere) or 450- 500 feet of wire. Since that amount of wire is not possible, you either have a measurement error or a really bad connection somewhere that is common to both windings.
Yep. An isolated ground stator system with a "standard" rectifier/regulator gives you a full wave bridge setup with regulation.
You may want to go back and read my comment in post #23 regarding my suspicion on the Rec/Reg you have.
By the way, rewinding the coil is not rocket science. I feel sure you have the skills by now to tackle it, and test it right on the spot. I'll gladly give you a few pointers or do it for you. It should take less than an hour to rewind it. Will also share where I get the magnet wire. You're looking at no more than $10 for the wire, $15-$50 for the rec/reg and some elbow grease. I doubt you'll even raid the advil bottle for this project.
How can I turn that offer down? I’d enjoy learning how to do it. Especially when you have my back if I mess it up. First some questions. Am I going to have to lift grounds for all the electrical components as well? That would be overwhelming. Is it easy to wire in to the bikes system. I wouldn’t know how. And, do I leave the CDI coil alone?
Started unwinding the coils. A was wound funny. White 10 feet then soldered to the yellow lead then a new winding another 15 feet from yellow on A then on to B then C. 25 feet on B and 25 feet on C. then to the ground lug on C. This makes no sense to me back on post 13 I did not have continuity from white to yellow but based on how it was wound it should have been there. This isn’t going to be hard to rewind. A and C wound ccw and B wound cw. One note was the coating on the wire was brittle and falling off.
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One basic question I've yet to see answered: does the stator array have to have an even number of coils, with alternating rotation of the windings, to generate a balanced output of each half of the AC waveform...that a diode-bridge can rectify into DC? IOW, would an odd number of coils create an electrical input imbalance that would be incompatible with this type of rectifier?
Nice job on unwinding the stator. A little surprised the yellow lead was connected almost in the middle of coil A? Anyway, you now know you need 75 ft of wire. When you order the wire, just make sure you get the 200C version, which has Ployamideimide insulation. From experience, the insulation is a little "tougher" than what is on the 155c wire.
Can you see the magnets on your flywheel? If not, do you have a cheap Coy Scouts compass so you can find the number of magnets and arrangement of the poles? I would assume 6 magnets alternating between north and south poles.
Honestly, I do not know. Purely a guess here, the 6 coil version would be more efficient if combined with a 3 phase rec/reg.
Can you see the magnets on your flywheel? If not, do you have a cheap Coy Scouts compass so you can find the number of magnets and arrangement of the poles? I would assume 6 magnets alternating between north and south poles.
Honestly, I do not know. Purely a guess here, the 6 coil version would be more efficient if combined with a 3 phase rec/reg.
Obviously, it has been getting hot for a longggggggg time. Anywho, you're well on way to having something better than you had before.
I did that and all I have to say is..."don't!!". I lifted every ground in the system, including the OEM horn button, which took a fair bit of microsurgery. Three days painstakingly going through & verifying everything, plus unwrapping and modifying the already heavily modded wire harness, the experiment was a complete failure. Worse yet, there's no way to make a full wave rectifier work with a grounded stator...and you're on your own as far as technical assistance. The Trail Tech folks really left me pissed-off, at the time, with the sudden the lack of tech support...right in the middle of the project, whilst following their instructions.
Cut to the chase...A floating ground stator + full wave DC power is the cleanest solution, bar none. It's "real bike" electrics, with everything fed clean DC from the battery.
Think about it, isolating every ground on the bike: HL, TL, horn, ignition switch(es), brake light, battery, neutral light, turn signals (if present), speedo light, high beam indicator..kinda messy isn't it. Then, there's the engine...how is anyone going to electrically isolate that?
Now, I do know that a 3-coil stator can be used with a simple diode...i.e. "half wave". And, the six-coil Nice stator is just two 3-coil arrays...one feeding a silicon diode, the other AC power to the HL circuit...it's just equal output to both circuits, unlike the typical 5-coil Chinese alternators, the old 6v Honda stuff and the 12v era Honda. Thus, lifting the grounds and rewiring all 6 coils in-series, not only works but we know it has 3 coils wound CCW +3 wound CW...which still doesn't answer the basic odd/even number of coils question.