Charging Questions

[big J]

Ok guys,need advice from someone from anybody with experience.

 

Charging light on intermittently.With the lights on,I have to rev at 5000 or more for a while before the light goes out. Reading at battery terminals is in the region of 12.5-12.9 volts,so obviously not charging.

 

Yellow wires from alternator--connecting between one yellow wire and earth,ign off,gives 2.2m ohms.

(Manual says above 10)

 

Connecting both wires across meter--0.9ohms

(manual says 0.2-0.3)

 

Running the bike,at idle gives 25 ac volts.At 3000 rpm gives 50 volts

(Manual says 15 and 40)

 

So,is it likely that the alternator is toast or should I be looking at the reg/rec?

 

Should I extend the reg/rec earth wire to the battery and try again?The earth looks ok,but I get different readings from the reg/rec earth and the battery earth.(?)

[badmotogoozer]

 

Running the bike,at idle gives 25 ac volts.At 3000 rpm gives 50 volts

(Manual says 15 and 40)

 

So,is it likely that the alternator is toast or should I be looking at the reg/rec?

 

Should I extend the reg/rec earth wire to the battery and try again?The earth looks ok,but I get different readings from the reg/rec earth and the battery earth.(?)

 

Reading high isn't necessarily indicative of a problem. Need to know more about type of meter you are measuring with...

 

The last statement says something though. IIUC, when you use the reg ground as a reference for your measurement and the battery ground (sorry, earth) as a reference for the exact same measurement, you get two different readings (HOW different??). There should be very little (no real discernable) difference. I would run the wire as you suggest.

 

Failing that I'd think the reg/rec has shit the bed. If there is 25-50Vac going in and only battery volyage coming out, the problem is here. Wether it is a bad reg or a bad wire requires investigation...

 

cheers, and good luck with your problem child...

 

Rj

[Martin Barrett]

Mine seemed to be the regulator,

 

Felix's altenator seems to have taken down down his regulator.

 

Not much help I know but my regulator seemed to have suffered some sort of intermitant failure and allowed a surpless of charge. I wish things either work or fail comletely they'd be so much easier to trouble shoot.

 

Sorry for the incoherantness - played tennis after work (made up numbers on an existing four) - first time in the last quarter of a centry ( I even won one of my service games and went to duece on a couple of others) and treating the aching musles with libral aplication of G&T.

[big J]

Agreed Martin,if it failed completely,life would be so much easier.

 

Ryan,yeah,I agree that there's plenty of juice coming out but I didn't know how to interpret the resistance readings.I'm getting a higher resistance going to battery ground than reg/rec ground.I'll re-route and extend the wire tomorrow and see if it helps.

 

My meter is a nice yellow one with a big rotary knob and a wee screen at the top.I'll take a pic tomorrow.It's dark now.

I'll do some knitting with the wires too and see what happens.

[jrt]

y meter is a nice yellow one with a big rotary knob and a wee screen at the top

LOL. Sorry- but that strikes me as funny.

 

A lot of meters will have trouble reading very high resistance values because the meter is at the limit of it's dynamic range. Your low resistance reading of 0.9 ohm could be high just from some oxidation on the surface of the connection (0.2 to 0.9 ain't a big difference in this context), so your alternator sounds ok to me. I'd focus on the regulator. Also, when you get it sorted, add an additional ground from regulator to the engine block.

 

Have you measured the voltage at the battery at idle and 4K rpm?

 

Have you unhooked the wires from the regulator and checked for continuity between each wire and the aluminum case of the regulator? If any show continuity, the regulator is bad.

 

A bit of a tangent- could a car regulator be used in this application? Surely the Guzzi (or Saprisa or Ducati or whatever it is) alternator can't be too different from any other two wire alternator. Or is it that car regulators are just built into their alternators?

[belfastguzzi]

A bit of a tangent- could a car regulator be used in this application? Surely the Guzzi (or Saprisa or Ducati or whatever it is) alternator can't be too different from any other two wire alternator. Or is it that car regulators are just built into their alternators?

Made me think of older Land Rover electromechanical devices (minute fraction of cost in comapison), which presumably aren't appropriate at all, and then I started looking around. Some of these links may provide interesting reading in a general way – and perhaps someone who knows about such things would care to point out what may be relevant to the 'modern' Guzzi application?

 

Note that Harpers describe the Ducati brand part as 'famously weak'. Is this the same part as in V.11?

 

electromechanical reg

http://www.ponypics.com/spitfire/regulator.html

 

Replacement parts & fault finding

http://www.electrosport.com/Images/fitting.esr510.a.pdf

http://www.electrosport.com/Images/fitting.esr450.pdf

http://www.electrosport.com/electrosport_fault_finding.html

 

DIY

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/joerg...mot/voltreg.htm

 

shunt type reg

http://www.takisnet.org/~abayko/vreg.pdf

 

Harper Moto Guzzi

"The RR51 replaces the famously weak Ducati brand charging system regulator/rectifier. Fits:  Daytona, 1100 Sport and all other units with Ducati systems.

RR45

  For Bosch replacement  

 $189.00

RR51

  For Ducati replacement

 $189.00

[Guest Gary Cheek]

Before blaming the individual components, from what you have posted they seem ok. Since this is an intermittent issue the connections are a high order suspect. The plain, straight pin connectors Duacti has chosen are really pretty poor at best. In order to acheive maximum contact area it seems the designer opted to do away with any detent action. The plating on the connectors appears to be a Tin plate. In time the combination of oxidation and mechanical relaxation combine to make the electrical connection less than desireable. Even the two light duty pins that carry the warning light signal and the power for the regulator SCR power can and do cause peoblems. I have seen the original wire bundle melt together and take out regulators and stators when the heat build up is high enough to displace the insulation.

 

The fix is to clean and retighten the original connectors and a little CONDUCTIVE grease or even metallic Anti-Sieze sparingly applied to the metal surfaces (only) of the connectors. A better connector is another option. The Anderson Powerpole* connector is available in a 30 amp version. It is up to the task on both the AC input side and the DC output side. If you are so inclined a bare barrell connector can be crimped and soldered then a double layer of heat shrink applied. Yep it will slow down replacement but what the hey? It isn't something often done at the roadside anyhow and it may well make replacement less likely.

 

If , you still have trouble the regulator would be the likely culprit. Usually stators just go away and stay away. Don't forget that if your battery is on it's way out, it too can make for some silly symptoms. You can fully charge the battery, leave it sitting for a few hors and check the open circuit voltage. If it is less than 12.2 volts sulphate could be setting in. Not a definitive test but a pretty good one for the battery's general state of health, assuming the battery is otherwise functional.

 

 

This guy has all the parts IN STOCK, unlike MGNA and good prices. Usually ships FREE .

 

http://www.euromotoelectrics.com/EDLMG.html

 

 

Good luck and keep us posted,

Gary in Michigan

[big J]

Hoooookayy.It's dark and raining now,but I got some more figures.How much difference they make I have no idea.

First of all,reading between the2 yellow wires and earth on the reg/rec mount gives two different readings-2.2 and 1.8 ohms

Then reading between the wires and battery earth shows 2.6 and 2.3 ohms.

I took the earth wire off the reg/rec and extended it to the battery earth.The readings are now both 1.3 ohms.

Obviuosly less resistance,but is this good or bad?

Reading between the yellow wires stays at 0.9 ohms.The meter is set at 200m on the ohms scale,the only one I can get a reading on.I stuck a bit of masking tape on to show.

 

Jason,how do I check for continuity?Battery voltage is 12.5 at idle,12.9 at 4000rpm.

 

BFG,that old mechanical reg looks a lot like the MCR2 that used to be on a lot of the old brit clunkers I had.Them were the days,life women and petrol were cheap,20,000 miles on a tyre was normal,the bottom of all my jeans had oil stains,every day was sunny..................drifts off staring into the middle distance...........

 

That troubleshooting guide looks good.I'll have a proper read in a bit.

 

Gary,the connectors were tight with copaslip on already.No visible corrosion.Anderson powerpole connectors,heatshrink tubing? Sad to say,this is Ireland.Have you ever seen a cow chewing the cud,looking over a wall?That's the look you get when you ask for stuff like that in the motor factors. Down in Kerry,they only discovered the wheel about 12 years ago.It took me 3 weeks to find plug leads for a car I was restoring.At the moment,the only option I have is to join the wires with crimp connectors.My soldering iron is 100 miles away at a mates.

The battery is a Hawker Odyssey and is good.

The link didnt work,but I'll try to find them on the net.

 

Thanks guys.

[big J]

No pics,try again

 

Hmmm cant upload pics,says they're too big but they're less than 1mb.I've cleared all the others I put up.

 

Doing well,arent I.

[Guest Gary Cheek]

OK ,

 

Sounds like you have the connector end handled. I reworked the link:http://www.euromotoelectrics.com/

 

Try a search on Anderson Powerpole. They are used a lot by the RC electric airplane crowd.

http://www.flyrc.com/articles/using_powerpole_1.shtml

 

I will try to ge a chance to check the readings on a good regulator unless someone else gets around to it before I can. I do know inside the regulators each of the two yellow wires are connected to A: the anode of a silicon diode and B: the cathode of an SCR or Thyristor. The cathodes of the two diodes are the output, usually two red wires that supply the positive charging current to the battery, So each of those two should test as a diode IE high resistance in one direction and low resistance when the leads to the meter are reversed. (Yellow to Red and yellow to red)

The SCRs Anodes are connected to ground so the same situation should prevail when the SCRs have no voltage on their gates the yellow to ground should show a high in one direction and a low in the other.

There may be production differences and internal glitches that make the above moot but it is a good place to start.

 

What happens is the yellow wires are across a full wave bridge, The diodes allow the positve side to conduct whaile the SCRs have a voltage applied to their internal gate terminal as the voltage drops which allows them to conduct and furnish the negative path. As the voltage rises the gate voltage is removed, the SCRs no longer conduct and the voltage is limited.

 

When running the AC voltage varies with engine speed and electrical demand. Low speeds and high electrical loads will hold the voltage down, High speeds and lighter loads allow the AC voltage to rise.

Input voltages around 50 volts are probably within limits for high speed at light load.

 

With this type system , a series type regulator more demand means the regulator does more work producing more heat.

As opposed to the SHUNT type regulator(Lucas, not really all that bad.) used on the late sixties Brit bikes where a big old Zener diode strted to conduct when the voltage approached 13.8 volts. It simply converted the surplus energy to heat. The alternator was always putting out all it could. With the Zener system any demand from the bikes' electrical needs actually releved the Zener from its heat producing duty.

 

I think the link abovemay have some theory and schematics that you may find helpful. Also the owner is quite knowledgeable and email or phone calls to him could indeed prove helpful.

 

He sources his parts from Europe and may well be able to drop-ship to you. Give him a try if you can.

Eoromotoelectrics

[big J]

Thanks,Gary.I'm going to be working down the country over the weekend,but I'll be back monday-ish.

[big J]

Today,I followed the directions in the troubleshooting guide shown by BFG above.

 

According to the findings,my stator is shot.I expected it to be the regulator.

 

Wanna bet I buy a stator and the reg/rec is bolloxed too?

[Guest Gary Cheek]

Today,I followed the directions in the troubleshooting guide shown by BFG above.

 

According to the findings,my stator is shot.I expected it to be the regulator.

 

Wanna bet I buy a stator and the reg/rec is bolloxed too?

 

It sure sounds like you have plenty output on the AC side. I would really hate to see you buy a regulator and find out BFG was right. Maybe safer to play it by the book eh?

 

What would the cows do???

[big J]

Milk it for all it's worth?Cream all the fun off the job?I'm in the parlour now,I'm not going outside,it's fresian and I dont have a jersey.Oh dear,you've herd nonsense like this before,eh.Sorry for the bull,but I cant resist a cheesy comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll get my coat.

[belfastguzzi]

So what do you want electricity for anyway? I run mine on petrol and that's that.

Electricity is dangerous and should be kept in television sets.