luhbo

Spoiler!

Hi Gelos, nice finding. Thanks, I'll have a look at it.

Has someone possibly found linear aftermarket springs for the KR type forks, or for the longer version in the Tenni for instance?

When the battery is at 12V and it only needs 0.5V difference to get 8A going, and on the other end the same voltage difference results in only 0.5A, then I think this should be a matter of internal resistance. I even see a chemical explanation for this. What do I miss? But before you again call that nitpicking, the point is that once the battery is above 13, maybe 13.5V, what a good one should be right with the engine revving up, a voltage rise to 14.6 or more does not mean a relevant current load for the battery, because of the above described "observation" and because it's wired in parallel to the rest of the bike. A charged battery contains practically nothing that could get the current through in this direction. Current wouldn't be the problem anyway. The voltage is the problem. Above 14V it will severly start gasing, running at a high risk to relieve the pressure and to dry out (call it ageing). So you better keep the voltage below 14V (13.8 says the battery's label). That just a side note.

Call it nitpicking, it's ok. Anyhow, watch the charging curve of a good Hawker and you'll think twice about the internal resistance. I saw them taking 8A at 12.5V, what later went down to 0.3A at 15.2V (no positive iones left). Figure the factor. I drove the V11 with a flat battery and also for some days at probably 18 or 19V because of a dead regulator - and nothing got damaged besides the battery and two headlamps (that's how I noticed it).

Regulators don't pump Amps. Nothing pumps Amps. The alternator creates a certain potential difference, then according to the resistance behind it a certain current will start to flow. Now I assume a more or less fixed resistance for the harness,for the battery a floating one (rising remarkably with higher voltage), consider that I'm looking at a voltage divider (the battery is parallel to the harness, not in series), then I can really not see any reason for any "exponential Amps pumping", especially not with this rather small 350W alternator. BTW: had one dead regulator after 10 years or so. The main problem with these units is the shrinking green stuff used for sealing the electronics. Moisture gets in, corrosion starts, the green stuff stresses the connections due to incompatible thermal expansion coefficients, things like that. Electrically they're ok, as well as the whole system including reference pick up and so on. The culprit is that most of the components are just too cheap (fuse holder, connectors and such). But then, how many of us have bought their bike new, and of those who did, how many have thought 2 or 3 times about buying it because of its price, and how many of all those buyers put more than 50.000 km on their bikes? A bike's a leisure product, like a MP3 player, or a leg shaver for the ladies, its calculated life span goes against Zero when you compare it with an average car.

Totaly out of context, I'd say. He's talking of current through a battery, not about diodes. Besides that, regulator or whatever diodes you have in mind would still see exactly the current that goes through the regulator. A bike is not a laboratory or diode test stand.

No Roy, I still cannot see it. What if you just take Ohm's law here: I = U/R ? That's as linear as it could be. Why do you call that 'Exponentially'? What physical laws do you apply for your 13-13.5-14V current estimation?

"Gran Tourismo" so far was the best fitting paraphrase I've found here. It sounds mighty, sporty, sexy too maybe, pricy, has to do with heritage and seniority, all that and more bling. Relaxed - that's it. Gran Tourismo, never the fastest, just everybody thinks so.

Lost in the Oberpfalz No wonder it was night when you arrived. You knew that Karlsbad/CZ was not that far away?

I'm not sure what you say. The Ducati regulator isn't a shunt type, as previously mentioned by Roy for instance, so once it sees the nominal voltage it just cuts off one half of the alternator output (waves). Then, basicaly, only half the current is driven -> half load, half heat. Easy for the alternator, easy for the regulator. Nothing to do. That's it. When a regulator is rated with 35A, then in my opinion that means it could bear 35A when this load is distributed evenly on all the built-in diodes, SCRs, MOSFETS what ever. Ignore part of them and the rest will probably overheat once the alternator tries to push the same current over less regulator silicon. A datasheet of the earlier mentioned Shindengen would be nice here, the more as a proper power rating should be given in Watt, not in Amps (at 12V). (BTW, why would someone want to screw his Guzzi with such a name? I know a lot of people who would never buy other tires but Pirelli for instance, just because Pirelli sounds right).

The same here. That's not how electrics do work. When it is rated at 35A for a 3 phase system, it will work with an AC system, too, ok. But is it still rated at 35A in this case? You have any numbers? The line with the cooler alternator and regulator, how do you think that comes? Is it just a commercial text, found somewhere in the internet, or do you know an explanation for the mentioned effect?

That doesn't make sense. That's not how electrics work.

Roy, what I know is that a MOSFET might theoretically be switchable from On to Off whenever some circuit wants it, differently to Tyristors (SCRs), but practically there's no way to do it. While the RDS(on) (switched fully On) of a MOSFET is rather low, its resistance when switched Off naturally is rather high. Now guess what happens when you try to switch Off a MOSFET under high loads/currents, means rise the resistance from zero to unlimited at maybe 30 Amps. As said above, theoretically this might be possible, practically it usually leads to sudden smell and smoke. Then switching under load is also a bad idea when you have to reach certain EMC goals. These usually are not negotiable. Don't know how it is with computers, vehicle electronics are always build on the lowest possible edge, that means the smallest and cheapest parts available, no reserves to fool with.

Roy, you should go a bit deeper into detail here. For that I think you should for instance consider the fact that the internal resistance of the battery is not constant and that voltage here, as always, is the result of possible power output of the alternator, power consumption of the bike and actual resistance of the whole circuit (bike). Especially the last part "the current goes up exponentially" went slightly off. At least I do think so. Maybe you could give an easy example based on some resonable numbers/measurements of what you had in mind with 'exponentially'.

All of the above clearly speaks for the OEM Ducati Energia unit.

... unless you haven't overtorqued the axel. What is when you loosen it a bit?

You should hear and see even if the pads were grinding, so that should be out of question. Then only the bearings can have an influence. As long as they turn smoothly, no grindy, snappy or loose feeling when you turn them things should be ok. Bearings need a good amount of pre-tension to work properly and they're greased and have two sealing lips each. So the wheel definitely should not spin freely like a bicycle wheel when you take all this into account.

It's like galvanisation. The material follows the current. I don't have the details, but the newer twin plugged engines of the Breva types use two different plugs per head and also have the cables explicitly marked inside/outside. Swaping them would ruin the plugs I read somewhere.

Find the Eagle

when ignition is triggered by whatever mechanism, contacts or electronically, then that only means, that a spark is brought on its way. When will it finally jump is a complex question, for how long it will burn and how long it will take to get the combustion going, quick and easy answers can't be given neither. Just yesterday, down on my knees in front of my Greeny, I looked at her twin plugged heads and this thread came to my mind. The dual plugging was cheaply done, as usual, by just switching the standard coils against FIAT wasted spark ones, means the spark has to pass two cables, two caps, two gaps - and of course all of the extra resistors eventually added inline. That's a real interesting setup I'd say. What time behaviour can I expect? Can such a setup really be superiour to the standard one plug solution? Is it more or less robust against moistured caps or rotten wires etc. etc.

The red one comes on after half an hour in the rain. Only white is still missing, so we have still room for improvements.

Hey, that's a 'Flying Brick', though not for intercontinental use?

The park authorities sell black shirts and sweaters with this logo embroidered in red. Look for their info bureaus.

Be carefull down there. Some days the main roads can be totaly overcrowded, full with mad cyclists, mad bikers, senile campers, ignorant buses, cars of all kinds, tractors ... you get the picture. Then, on these ant roads, the cops are trying to do their business as good as possible. And Austria is not cheap in this regard. Will this be your first visit to the Alps?