| Author | Message | ||
     Nickcaro |
Went down to Peter Luger's in Brooklyn for a burger. If you have not been, I highly recommend it. Today is also day two with the Gerbings heated liner. Yesterday I learned my lesson when I could not start without a jump from a friend. Lesson learned, I will now be sure to shutoff the liner way before I stop the bike. Tonight coming back home from the city, I had the liner, the heated grips and the high beams on. All highway with RPM fluxing between 4-6k. A few times I would notice that the heat on the grips was gone, maybe thats warning sign number one. Then the engine light would come on. So at this point I shut down the liner, kill the high beams and raise the RPMs.. Engine light goes away and heated grips get nice and toasty within a few minutes.... So I guess this means I'm hitting the limit on this bike. What can be done to get more juice? How do people run heated liners, pants, gloves, GPS and auxiliary lights all at once? Can I get a higher performance battery? Seems like I have much to learn about the mechanics involved here.... | ||
| Ccryder |
Nick: The short answer is THEY DON'T (ask BaggerMike)! You went to Peter Lugers and had a HAMBURGER??????????  One of the best steaks I ever had was there! Fortunately I had cash with some friends (our bill was over $500, 6 people, and they only take cash). Anyway back on topic, you may need to keep the rpm's higher, so the alternator can produce more. Alternative, cut back on your consumption, like you did. Time2roll Neil S. | ||
| Baggermike |
hey I have been going thru this to the grips are attached to the acc outlet and shuts off when the battery get low so if they did this than I suspect that the bike is not made to handle the gear, I did get in touch with a company that can rewire the stator to put more juice out but no manual so I am not going to do something like this intell I get the manual. I do not know why the rate the charging unit at 7000 rpm the bike just is not going to cruise at that rpm. Anything I find out I will post under batteries. Mike | ||
| Slaughter |
You can have the stator rewound. There are a few folks doing it. A good guy here locally does a lot of stator work for people who convert off-road bikes to run with lights. I'm actually calling him this week to see if he will do my S3 stator because I'm going to be riding 2-up with Gerbings. Also asking about a couple options for MotoST and WERA endurance. Sunny decided to see if her stator can be rewound on her Honda so she can run her Gerbings on her Honda. Neither of our bikes have "off the shelf" higher output stators and rectifiers http://www.electrosport.com Oceanside, CA 760-433-0184 (Message edited by slaughter on February 03, 2008) | ||
| Ratbuell |
Please keep us posted on the progress you make with your S3. I want to up my S2 as well, the PIAAs, heated jacket and gloves, and high beam all conspire to wear 'er down... | ||
| Diablo1 |
I would be careful about having the stator rewound for higher ouput. More output = more heat in the windings and you may fry the stator. It all depends on the physical size of the stator and the power density. | ||
| Slaughter |
Ted - good point there. I wonder if I'm not looking like a trade-off again: more power v. reliability. (kinda like engine mods) I'm going to be calling a couple alternator/generator houses to get the skinny. | ||
| Spiderman |
 | ||
| Baggermike |
I had posted this question on yahoo answers and got some good replies, there was an artical on the jap bikes and they said there are four wires coming out of the voltage regulator and are to small and showed that you strip a 1/2" of insulation off the two red wires and two black wires and take 12 or 10 gage wire and wrap the two red wires together with this wire and solder it wrap it up and run the new wires to the battery and do the same for the two black wires, I did not see this on are bikes but did see two wires on black and one red and do not know were they go but I am not doing anything without the manual, but it made sence to me. I also was told it is a ktm system and that there charging systems are weak, so I got a few more idea's but I need to know everything is working right before doing anything else. My bike is in the shop, I had a bad voltage regulator and was told that can hurt the battery, so when I get the bike back I will try a new battery and see if that makes a difference, but I think that they made the acc outlet to shut off if the battery get low and if you think about it and why they did this, I think it is because the bike does not put out allot of extra juice, now if that is true then the stator needs to br reworked and the above website told me to send them the stator and the magnetic thing, I forgot what it is called but you know what I am talking about? then again I need the workshop manual to do it. I think if the bike is made to run all four lights on at high beam then that is 70 watts extra and the heated grips are 36 watts so the bike is meant to run these, so I think that if I use just my heated jacket liner which is rated at 90 watts but can get a 60 watt one from first gear or 77 watt from gerbing then I am getting heated glove liners which would use the same amount of juice that running the headlights on high with heated grips, but what I do not understand it that my 2002 buell blast heats the jacket and gloves so god I have to shut them off, on the ulysses is not as good either so all the electrical items use allot of juice. I plan on touring with the bike and all I need to get through any weather is a heated jacket liner and heated glove liners or heated gloves, space is at a premium on this bike and having a heated jacket liner cuts down on the layering of clothes you need to bring with you on a trip were the weather can change from a 90 degrees during the day and can drop down to 40 degrees night in the mountians during the normal riding season, and in winter riding maybe heated socks. I think the bike should be able to do this and if not I will try to figure something out. I do think something is wrong with my bike because I rode home from the dealership after them telling me it was good to go, I live a mile off the hyway so I rode home non stop going 70 mph at 4300 rpms wearing just the jacket and gloves and the high beams off and the battery was low and should have been good? Mike | ||
| Littlefield |
The wiring mod going to the battery is a good deal and may help but doesn't really cause the alternator to put our more power or run hotter. I did it on my Triumph. The stock wiring between the regulator and battery on some bikes is small and the routing is not direct. Because of the this there is a bigger than necessary voltage drop in the charging circuit. Grafting the extra wires reduces the voltage drop. Sounds like anything will be a help, it sure can't hurt. If the stock wiring gets warm you know it's wasting power. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The Stator and Regulator, and the wiring in between, ought to be able to be swapped out for higher capacity units with no problem. All three would have to go together though. I'm guessing you could gain significant (like 20%) power by just going to a more sophisticated switching type regulator. I don't know if such a critter exists though. You *might* also be able to get creative and power some of the heated gear off of a ground shunt of the voltage regulator. So when our shunt style VR is bleeding power, which is how it regulates, that bled power is available for heat. When that extra power is not available, the bike is still charging. It would take some engineering and schematic studying to see if that is possible, but it would work in theory. | ||
| Baggermike |
Sounds good Reepicheep, I think we need the manual before doing anything, I was also told something like using three voltage regulators with computer fans on them, but do not know if this would work either, and sounds like what your talking about something that can be run off the wires before it get to the voltage regulator. I hope Buell can help get this issue worked out or offer an upgrade for the electrical system. I seen a nice gauge to hook up to your bike and it shows volts and amps but cost close to 200.00 for it and I have not got the money to buy it, it does a few other things to. I noticed that when the battery was dead and I got the bike running it was showing low running volts like in the low 12s but when the battery was charged up it showed in the 13s my sons bike is in the 14s so I am thinking if the battery is bad it does not show enouph volts going into it at the battery by seeing this? but I could be wrong, I had seen the voltage at the gauge at 14.5 but I bought a volt meter and both the bikes gauge and the volt meter showed less than 14 volts, so the shop has the bike and I want them to see what the problem is if there is one? I miss the bike already and it has only been gone since thursday. Mike | ||
| Reepicheep |
I'm thinking of a replacement for the current shunt voltage regulator. The output of a 1 phase stator is one sine wave that is rectified... so it just goes from 0v to X volts to 0 volts to x volts once per engine revolution. A two phase stator has two of these waves (out of step) overlapping each other but phased differently (one starts later then the other). A three phase stator has three of them... The shunt regulator allows the voltage from the stator to climb until it reaches the voltage where the battery is at at the moment, say 12.8 volts. Now, as the stator is putting out more voltage then that, current is flowing into the battery. Eventually, the voltage being put out by the stator climbs above the "regulation target" voltage, say 13.8 volts. At that point, the voltage regulator pretty much just shorts the output of the stator to ground. Nothing for the battery, nothing for the bike, it just heats up the voltage regulator and stator coils. The peak voltage coming out of the stator is something like 60 volts. So the part between 0 volts and 12.8 volts is just wasted.... no current is flowing anywhere. thats like 1/5th of the total cycle right there, which is where I got my 20% guess from. If we used a switching regulator, which can take a low voltage, extract "power" from it, and then feed that power back out a different place at a higher voltage, then we would not have to leave that 20% of the cycle on the table. A switching regulator can't make more power then it takes in, but it can step up to more voltage (and proportionally less current). A simplistic example of this are those "car 120volt AC adapters" you can buy... they take 13.8 DC from your car system, and step it up to 120 V AC. This "captures" power the bike can never use today. Switching regulators are more expensive and complicated and need a lot more parts though. The other part of the power "on the table" is the shunted power. After the stator output creeps past the regulator voltage, it's just shorted to ground and the power is "thrown away" as heat in the stator and voltage regulator. If you change the regulator to still shunt, but optionally shunt down a different path that includes heated grips or something, then you could take the waste heat going to the VR and Stator and put some of it into the grips. This does not give you any more power out, and if you are starving the system at X rpm today, you will be starving this setup exactly the same way under the same conditions. It does make the system err on the side of making you cold rather then draining your battery though, which may or may not be a step forward. The current being put out by the stator is directly proportional to the number of windings and strength of magnetic field and engine RPM. So re-winding the stator with more turns of wire would make it put out more power. This in turn would require thicker wire to carry that extra power, and a bigger voltage regulator to regulate that extra power. | ||
| Nickcaro |
wow!! Threads like this remind me how powerful this board really is. I need to read all of this when I get home. BTW; Luger's does make a mean steak but if you want to be in and out with dessert for $50, you have to go with the burger every now and then. | ||
| Baggermike |
I just got back from testing my ulysses and how it heated the jacket and gloves, I got a 1/4 mile away and had to pull the wires on the gloves to hot and the jacket got really warm or hot, so that is a single phase alternator and produces 405 watts at 3000 rpm and the 1125 is a three phase and put out 432 watts at 7000 rpm, so I do not know how these differ and just know the 1125 does not like my heated gear. Mike | ||
| Azxb9r |
For what it is worth, warm-n-safe has a jacket liner called the "calentito" that is made for bikes with smaller charging systems. It is a 60W liner as compared to the 90W-100W that most liners are. Maybe this would be enough to keep the bike happy. | ||
| Nickcaro |
432 watts at 7k... how reasonable is it to run at 7k for extended distances? I'm getting used to higher RPMs but 7k seems high for just cruising... could we get 400 watts at 6k? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Too hot? That would imply too much voltage, which would be a voltage regulator issue. But you said your voltage was in the 13.X range, which would be right. So your gear should be working exactly like it was supposed to work, even if it is drawing off the battery. I don't think we mentioned it in this thread, but it has been brought up in others. Switching to a HID for a low beam might buy you 30 watts of margin, and switching to an LED brake light might buy you another 4 watts. HID extra lights (versus halogens) also means you will get more light for 1/2 the power. | ||
| Baggermike |
I have three bikes and think there is some confusion here, I was talking about my ulysses not the 1125R, the ulysses and blast both heat my gear to the point of having to turn the gloves off, on the 1125R I do not get much heat at all, the 1125R is my problem which is mine, the ulysses is my sons bike, and I do not understand that the ulysses and blast cook me, and the 1125R I am cold, and I think something is wrong with the 1125R and the 1125R is the bike that had the bad voltage regulator, and read it can harm the battery. I also think the bike is not made to cruise at 7000 rpm and do not know the logic of posting this rpm, cruising is around 3500 to 4500 rpm and on the hyway at 70 mph the bike is spinning at 4300 rpms. Mike | ||
| Brad1445 |
+1 Mike on the Ulysses. I wore the full Wider chaps, vest arm chaps and gloves and not even notice a drain. | ||
| Baggermike |
Hey Brad I like both bikes and the ulysses is a really good bike and so is the 1125R, wish I could afford both, it took me two month to decide on buying the 1125R, my son lent me the money so I gave him the ulysses, but I love the new motor on the R and is better than the xb motors. I just have the one glich and that is the bike heating my gear that I just bought while waiting for the bike to hit the showrooms, now I have gear I bought and can not use, but not really a problem if I adjust my gear to the bike, but first I have to be sure it is not a problem, and second is there anything I can do to increase the output of the stator, but without the manual I can not do anything to it, so I will just ride it and wait for the manual and see from there which way to go. Mike | ||
| Reepicheep |
Ahh! Now I get it. Something is probably wrong with the 1125r, or the wiring you are connecting for the heated gear, or something else. Given the great wind protection of the 1125, you should be burning up. Slap a volt meter on it, and measure the volts at idle, 4000 RPM, and 6000 RPM. Preferably with and without the gear hooked up and turned on. That should give us "actionable" data. | ||
| Baggermike |
I did that at the dealership and they said I was good to go, and when got home all hyway at 70 mph at 4300 rpm for 1.5 hours and got home with the battery almost dead and I live one mile from the hyway so it just seems wrong but was told that it is a ktm charging system and they are weak so I do not have the bike right now but when I get it back testing will continue intell I am sure it is either a problem or just a poorly desighned charging system. Mike | ||
| Baggermike |
Reepicheep volts flow but amps burn, I learned this in welding school, now the bikes electrics runs off the battery and all three batteries I have are the same as for cca and amp hours, now I need a good battery that I know works and hook it up to the 1125r and see then if there is a difference. I think I the battery got hurt by the voltage regulator going bad, and will find out as soon when I get my bike back, I can not do anything with out it, but have a new battery waiting for it and will then see how the bike does, I had to unplug my gloves just going a 1/4 mile on the ulysses, that is how hot they got, so if everything runs off the battery this leads me to think that the bad voltage regulator hurt the battery and I need a new one, and the only way I can prove this is by trying a battery that I know heats me gear. Mike | ||
| Reepicheep |
With all due respect to the dealership, I am more interested in independent confirmation. To debug your problem, I would have you re-measure it even if *I* did the original measurements. You are exactly right about the amps, but the amount of amps that flow is directly proportional to the voltage across the load. We can't easily measure amps, but if you can tell me what the volts are, I can tell what the amps are doing. If you are getting 13.8 volts with the bike at 3000 RPM, you are NOT overloading your stator, and the problem lies elsewhere. If the voltage is below 13.8 until about 5000 RPM, then you are overloading your stator. If the volts are over 13.9 or so, then your VR is screwed up. If your volts are 12.2 or something, and dropping regardless of heated gear load or RPM, your stator is toast. If all the voltages looks OK, but the bike just doesn't turn over after running for a while, your battery is toast. You are probably right though, if the VR was toast, it is likely to damage your battery. | ||
| Baggermike |
Thanks Reepicheep and from what you have posted I say it is the battery, they had the bike running and was putting out over 13.5 volts and higher after the voltage regulator was put in, they did the test with all me gear hooked up to and it was good and they said I was good to go but got home and the battery was drained and I rode home the whole way at 70 mph and 4300 rpms for 1.5 hours and I live a mile from the hyway. Mike | ||
| Chrisb |
I would ask the service manager to replace the battery. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Was that at idle? At 13.5 volts, you are clearly taxing the charging system, but you should still be charging, so thats good. So I think you are right, sounds like the battery just isn't holding a charge anymore. That doesn't explain why your gear wasn't heating though, so you might want to chase down wiring and switches. My last "mystery" heated grip failure ended up being traced to a "short in the headset". I grabbed power for the polly grip heaters from the old low beam wire (which is not used now as I wired in a HID headlight that is powered from a relay on the battery). I had rotated the engine to replace a sheared engine stud, and when I put it all back together I forgot to re-attach the HID ground wire, so it wasn't working. No big deal, as soon as I saw the light not working, I knew exactly what it was, so I just flipped on the high beam and took the shake down ride to see if I missed anything else before taking it apart. Well, the heated grips weren't working. It took me about 10 miles before I finally figured it out... when the high beams are on, the low beams turn off, so my heated grips aren't heating anymore  I'm calling it a feature, not a bug. | ||
| Benm2 |
Couple things. I've spent way too much time fooling around with air-cooled bike alternators, and here's my 0.02, for what its worth: 1. The open loop (no load) voltage on the alternator doesn't have a direct relationship with the voltage it produces under load. As load is increased, the voltage produced by the alternator drops. If the load is high enough, the voltage drops below battery voltage. 2. The primary purpose of the battery is to start the bike. Other than that, it provides a little bit if ride-through power if engine RPM isn't high enough to handle the load. Running continuously at this level will drain the battery. A higher capacity battery will provide more buffer, but if the load from accessories exceeds the power the alternator is producing, the battery will eventually get run down. 3. The magnets on the air-cooler motors are ferrite, and they lose field strength as they get hotter. So, the system is designed to handle the current that the setup produces cold, but as it gets hot the available power falls off. My regulator typically runs a little over 14V, about 14.1V. I'd start the bike at idle, and measure the voltage across the battery terminals with NO accessories attached. It might be a little lower than 14V at idle, but as you pick up the throttle it should stabilize at some value. Write down the RPM where the voltage stabilizes. Repeat the above test while adding accessory loads. The RPM that the voltage regulator stabilizes at should increase as you add accessories. If you get to a point where the bike is above highway cruising RPM and the voltage hasn't stabilized, you're done. The charging system wont handle that load. By the way, do that test above with the engine at operating temperature. It is probably entirely possible to make an alternator that produces as much power as you want, but you might have to replace the rotor as well as the stator. The output of a given coil on a stator is a function of (1) the number of turns per pole (2) the speed at which the magnetic field crosses the pole (rpm) (3) the strength of the applied magnetic field. For a given amount of space in the engine reserved for "alternator", you COULD get the stock stator rewound with heavier wire to support more amps. The downside of this is that you lose turns per pole. The way to overcome that loss is to increase the strength of the applied magnetic field (stronger magnets) Reep, I thought that if there was no available power to shunt (all being used) then there would be nothing available from the shunt resistor? | ||
| Baggermike |
Reepicheep both high and low beams are suppose to be on when it is on high beam, did you rewire it? I am also going to rewire my lights so I have a choice of running the low beams on high. Mike |
