y0himba wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 4:16 pm
77Goldwing wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 3:52 pm
What is a MOSFET regulator and where does one find one? I am struggling with understanding how much more "voltage" is being made by replacing the headlight, tail light, and the console bulbs with LED. My voltimeter does not show any increase and, in fact, seems a little lower. What are the symptoms of a failing R/R? Appreciate any insight you can provide. All I know is that before I replaced these bulbs, if I tried to idle at a stoplight the bike would often stall and at a minimum the headlight would significantly dim. I had to idle it at 1500-1800 to keep it running, and now it idles happily at 1200.
It's not more, it's less draw on the stator. Basically, the stator is now putting out too much because the LEDs draw less from it, which heats up the regulator causing it to fail, as I understand it. See the reply above by "Dirtrack650" on Fri Jul 01, 2022 3:30 pm for a better explanation. I put resistors in my circuit to help with this.
Mine was doing what you described as well, and I ended up putting a new stator in, and getting a new battery. Now happily charging at 14.6.
Dirtrack650 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 2:30 pm
The charging issue is the regulator rectifier. If you're running the stock R/R, it balances out the charging system by shunting excess amps that aren't used to the ground dissipated as heat, hence the need for cooling fins on the R/R. Changing over a vintage bike to LEDs, without updating the regulator to a MOSFET regulator could cause the OEM regulator to overheat and fail.
My 83 is 100% LED except the H4 headlight helping to balance the load.
BTW, any you folk have issue with RF interference from the LEDs?
Thought I'd chime in here about alternators... It's Friday night, had a couple beers tonight, and had fun sitting down and writing about things I know nothing about...
Gonna get in the Jeep tomorrow and go "Rock-Hopping" on Nat'l forest trails tomorrow and appreciate this beautiful country I live in. It is one of the younger countries in this world, but has the oldest living document known as The "Constitution of the United States of America" on the planet. I will fly my flag proudly this weekend! Happy 246th Anniversary1
Probably a TL;DR, but WingAdmin might want to edit and post this to "Reference Info" board - "How do bike alternators work".... or something like that..... I enjoyed spending a couple hrs writing and editing this post..
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"How do 'Wing Alternators work....."
The "permanent magnet" alternators always put out maximum voltage/current, with more RPM the higher the voltage and current. With no load and high RPMs, they can put out on the order of 100 volts.
But the bike needs to run on nominally 14 volts. This to power the bike, lights, charge the battery, etc, So we load that potentially 100 volts from the alternator down to nominally 14 volts by sucking all that power with a demand for current.
So the alternator tries to provide the potentially 100 volts to the demanding circuits, but can't deliver 100 volts because it is loaded with draw from lights and charging the battery and whatever else is connected, each additional load draws more power (watts) which is amps x volts, 4 Cyl Goldwing alternators are designed for 350 Watts. Each additional load sucks the voltage lower and lower. But at standard load at high revs the alternator can still provide maybe 20 volts to all this stuff. That's way too much voltage, and will burn out lightbulbs etc.
So that's where the voltage regulator comes into play. It is connected to the output of the alternator along with the bike's lights etc, and it's job is to waste enough power so that there's only 14 volts left over to run the bike's systems, lights, etc. This is the voltage the bike is designed to run on, so the voltage regulator will "shunt to ground" any extra current necessary to load the alternator down to only 14 volts output.
If engine RPMs are high, the alternator output is correspondingly high and the voltage regulator gets hot from wasting so much power. If RPMs are low, there's not so much output from the alternator, and the regulator doesn't have to waste so much power to keep the voltage at 14 volts.
The designers of the bike figured the current draw of all the bike's lights, ignition system, running the radiator fans and charging the battery and built a corresponding alternator output that could provide all this with some extra power in case the owner decided to add some accessories. More accessory power draw from the charging system means the voltage regulator doesn't have to waste as much power to keep system voltage at 14 volts.
But at idle RPM, the alternator system puts out far less power than at cruising RPM. When you add all the demand for power from the alternator, the total load might reduce the total alternator output to only 13 volts or so, still enough power to keep everything happy.
Since the voltage is less than the 14 volts the regulator is designed for, the regulator does not have to "waste" any excess power, the system voltage is already less than the regulator needs to deal with.
So when you are sitting at a stop light, rev the engine a little bit and notice the lights brightening up a little, you are seeing the alternator output increase up until the regulator kicks in and starts "wasting" enough extra current to keep the system voltage at 14 volts nominal.
If you are changing your headlight bulb from standard (5 amp load) to LED (maybe 1.5 amp load) that means the voltage regulator has to shunt an extra 3.5 amps to ground at RPMs, making up for the 3.5 amps that the headlight is no longer using, voltage regulator has to work harder and gets hotter.
These comments apply to the 4 cylinder 'Wings with permanent-magnet rotor/stator - type alternators. Actually, this applies to most bikes on the road.
Recently, there are other types of aftermarket voltage regulators (also found on the newer permanent-magnet alternator bikes of many makes) that can be installed on the 4 cyl 'Wings which function differently. These are called "series" regulators, They will "pass" enough current from the alternator into the bike's systems, varying the amount of current passed into the bike depending on the momentary load to maintain the nominal 14 volts. Instead of "wasting" excess current to ground on an "always full output" alternator like the OEM regulators do, a "series" type regulator passes power "on demand", allowing the just the right amount of current so that the voltage on bike system is maintained at the 14 volts. Doesn't load the alternator to full-output all the time like the "shunt" regulator does. There might still be 30-40 volts measured within the alternator due to not being loaded to "full output".
In this case, at idle RPM, the alternator still doesn't generate all that much current, and if the "series" regulator sees less than the 14 volts on the bike's electrical system, will still pass the full output of the alternator to the bike.
The 6 cylinder GoldWings use an automobile-type alternator, adapted to fit the 'Wing engine. These still have a stationary "Stator" within the housing, and whirling magnets within on a rotor, but instead of using "permanent" high energy magnets made of rare-earth materials on the rotor, they use electro magnets, wire coils on an iron core. If the coils on the whirling iron cores are not energized, they are not magnetic, and the rotor can whirl all it wants within the stator and the stator will generate no power at all. But there is also a voltage regulator within this alternator, it is measuring system voltage on the bike, and if it detect the system voltage is less than the nominal 14 volts desired, it will supply some voltage thru the brushes on the rotor shaft to the electromagnet coils on the rotor. Now we have a rotating magnet inside the stator, and we can generate some current. If the current generated is not enough to reach the desired 14 volts, the regulator will send more power to the rotor, making it a stronger electromagnet, and the alternator will generate enough "watts" to maintain the 14 volts.
Not like the permanent rare-earth magnets in the rotors in the 4 cyl 'Wings which are full-output all the time and either need excess current "wasted" or blocked, the voltage regulator built into the alternators will vary the current provided to the rotor, varying the strength of the whirling electromagnet, and thus varying the output of the alternator to be exactly the amount of current the bike needs.
On the 6 cyl 'Wings, many people have installed 90 amp alternators (1200 watts!) to replace the standard 40amp (500 watt) units. The voltage regulators will never allow the full 1200 watts to be pushed to the bike, the voltage at that level would fry everything electrical on the bike. These bikes consume on the order of 250 watts stock, say 20 amps. But the stock alternator is Max 500 watts at full revs, max output is far less than that at idle revs, and insufficient for full load of the bike even at full output idling. So the high-output alternators make up the difference, more than sufficient output to power the bike and any added accessories even at idle rpm.
These alternators will never see full output, unless you are trying to start a Diesel Semi truck with jumper cables from your bike!
Happy 4th July!
~Mark
I ride the posted speeds, why settle for 1977 lighting tech when you can upgrade and at least feel safer.
