| Author | Message | ||
     Roadrash1 |
Kind of a rhetorical question. I just noticed in the specs of the BMW 1000RR, that it's output is 350 watts. This is a bike that comes with option for heated grips. I like to use a heated jacket liner in the Spring & Fall. What kind of accessory gear limitations were riders with '08 1125R's seeing? Thanks | ||
| Sparky |
Since you're throwing the question out there, I was thinking the same thing. I had a DIY idea for limiting the current of the 532 watt system down to something closer to 400 watts, the approx output of an '08 system. That something could be easily adapted to the stock '09 setup (but without the harness/relay), could use the existing VR and cost less than $100. -- I'm talking about current limiting resistors in each leg of the stator. -- Such current limiting resistors would reduce the current on all 3 legs equally rather than depend on 2 legs at full power all the time with 1 leg on-demand at certain times. -- The only problem is I don't know if it'll help with stator longevity or provide sufficient around town (low to medium rpms) voltage. -- But an initial test of one resistor on one leg of the stator without the harness/relay seemed to work as well as the harness/relay setup without a resistor. | ||
| Reepicheep |
They would have to be monstorous resistors. | ||
| Bartimus |
We don't need such a high output stator. I plugged in all my electric gear, pants, jacket, gloves, turned on my grips, high beam, and brake light, and I was only pulling about 15 amps which is about 180 watts. Plenty of wiggle room for extra accessories! | ||
| Roadrash1 |
Thanks Bart, That gives me confidence that I could add heated grips and run my jacket liner too.(when I convert my '10 to '08 specs) I went riding today, and @ 50 degrees F outside air temp, with heated jacket liner on high, and wearing a Roadcrafter one-piece suit, it is about the limit of what I would call pleasure riding. I have ridden in much colder weather, but only as a "You gotta get home before it snows" kinda deal.  | ||
| Sparky |
If 1.8 ohm wire wound ballast resistors like those on old cars with points ignition can reduce the current by 2 amps per leg and not burn up in the process, then the idea might work. Yeah, they're pretty big. 3 of 'em side by side would be about the size of the VR. And like the VR, they'd need a location with lots of cooling air. | ||
| Reepicheep |
The series regulator (instead of shunt) with a reduced electrical load on the bike (no extra lights or heat) would accomplish the same thing, but better. | ||
| D_adams |
I have an 08 and haven't really seen any problems except for when I have my jacket liner and gloves plugged in and on full power. The charging system cannot keep up with that drain. I have the Gerbing microwire liner and gloves. The only other change that I've done to my bike is a pair of 35 watt HID bulbs for the low circuit. If I start it up and wait to engage the heated gear, I can make it about 1/2 hour before the battery falls below 12.5 volts. It continues to drop at a fairly linear rate from it's starting point of 13.7 volts at the beginning of the ride. It's barely enough to make it home from work, then the battery must go on the tender to recover. I've actually had to turn it (the heated gear) off because the bike started to stutter from low voltage. Not sure if this matters, but the local HD/Buell tech has told me he's seen several 08 charging systems fail. No explanation for it, he just mentioned it in passing. | ||
| Sparky |
Appreciate the comments, Reep. I've been eyeballin' the Cycle Electrics CE 605B series reg kit from Roadstercycles. His comments re it says "Series Regulators unload your stator but the heat has to go somewhere, the regulator is where it ends up!!". This sounds like it would help stator longevity for low load situations like racing or around town cruising but what happens when extra loads are added? If the combined loads required 38 amps would the stator try to output its rated capacity of 520 watts theoretically until it overheats? Unless I'm oversimplifying this, I think it likely would unless there were some means of limiting the current reaching the voltage regulator. | ||
| Crustyxpunk |
This is just my opinion but we are riding a motorcycle. If you need heated grips, jacket liner, speakers, gps, vibrating seat etc. Perhaps it's time to hop in a car or buy a bagger lol. The 1125r is a sport bike meant for hauling ass and should be ridden as such. | ||
| Bartimus |
"The 1125r is a sport bike meant for hauling ass and should be ridden as such" bite your tongue! You sound like a Hardley rep... It's a motorized vehicle licensed for the street, and should be capable of riding on said street in all types of weather, and all types of traffic. I don't consider my bike a "street legal race bike" and don't ride it as such. If I wanted a Bagger, I would go buy one, but I don't, and I didn't. MY bike isn't an 1125R, it's a CR, so I guess it's in a different class... (Just MY opinion) | ||
| Froggy |
I guess you have never ridden in the snow before. It is fun, and thanks to my heated gear, I am warm and safe. Who said anything about not hauling ass? I didn't buy this thing to let it rot away in my garage! | ||
| Crustyxpunk |
Bartimus I agree it should be ridden in all types of weather and on the street. I never said it shouldn't be. With that being said I don't think its right to need to throw on all that junk. People complained that their '08 charging system couldn't handle their add ons and so they put in a different stator. froggy I haven't had the chance to ride in the snow yet but sounds fun! And I'm glad your bikes not just sitting in your garage  | ||
| Bartimus |
So you now agree it "should" be able to ride in all types of weather. Yet it doesn't need all that "junk". I have no junk attached to my bike, just accessories to make my ride more comfortable, and enjoyable. I also use the same accessories on all my bikes including my DR650 which only has 340 watt output. I do not stop riding just because it's below freezing. FYI, they did not upgrade the stator because people were adding "junk" to their bikes. They upgraded it because the IC was draining the battery when the bike was off, and was part of the "fix" in addition to replacing the IC. | ||
| Crustyxpunk |
I never said it shouldn't be ridden in any type of conditions. I'm saying you don't need heated accessories to ride your motorcycle. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to motorcycles and that's just me. To each his own, but I cringe when people put radios and extra stuff on a bike. So if the IC was draining the battery and they replaced the IC why the need for a higher output stator? | ||
| Zac4mac |
You had to be here when the 1125 first cam out. We had lots of questions and a few answers, periodic insights by anonymous Buell engineers. I "lived here" and still try to read EVERY 1125 post. I put a set of Buell heated grips on Loretta the day I received her, 18DEC07. I use them regularly, not just winter and still have the original charging system complete. A few owners had issues/questions on the charging system even back then. Most common were explained by bad batteries and the IC discharge problem. I did several in-depth electrical tests and put the results here, no problems on my end. One of the owners insisted on loading down with much heated gear - he did not own or drive a cage. Massachusetts winter is harsh. Most certainly because of his complaints and a few others not so vocal, the 09s came out with a higher output charging system. The rest is history... Zack | ||
| Roadrash1 |
It's easy to say you don't need heated accessories to ride your motorcycle when you live in Texas! :-) | ||
| Nattyx1 |
I live in LA and I ride year round. We have mountains here. It freezes. I don't like to freeze. I should be able to plug in my Gerbings stuff and use the high beam for visibility as needed WITHOUT fear... I should be able to commute in our hellish traffic, and roll around downtown LA slowly in 3rd gear on a hot summer night with friends because it's fun to hear my fmf reverberate off the empty buildings... and later get stuck at lights on Sunset blvd to watch the club-crowd kids stumble around... and maybe then go for a mellow ride along PCH in the moonlight with my lady, and the next day go for my best laptimes at a track day at willow springs, and the next day commute again in hot crappy traffic that I BEAT by lane-splitting... etc.. and NONE of it should be imbued with the fear that at any moment the stator might burn to death and leave me stranded. Right? 6400 miles on the bike. Third stator and VR were installed this week. It's deja vu all over again.  | ||
| Nightsky |
Adding resistors to dump heat is an interesting idea, but any resistance value large enough to do any good will also drop you below 14V and prevent charging at lower RPMs. And those resistors will get HOT! Where to put them? The vreg is mounted with heatsink grease to a plate welded to the Buell frame. Sparky is right. Series regulators do run very hot under load. His other point is correct. If you put too many accessories on the bike and overload the stator, you will burn it out - regardless of shunt or series regulator. The problem with shunt regs is they put max load on the stator regardless of your accessories - all the time! | ||
| Bextreme04 |
hmmm interesting... i'm in lancaster and i'm at ~6,000 miles. 1 VR went bad, changed to the FH0012 and no more problems. Charges at 14.3V all the time, no stator failures yet. | ||
| Dennis_c |
If I remember right the 194 bulbs in 1125r are 15w ea. that = 45w. I put in led with more light with about 2w ea. or 6w. that could help with heated gear. | ||
| Nightsky |
Bextreme04, this does not appear any better than the stock shunt regulator. Maybe people mistake it for a series regulator because the P/N box says "FH012 series." But I think they mean "product series", not "series regulator." I get search results of people talking about SH012 having MOSFETs, but that's just a different type of transistor as opposed to bipolar. (Message edited by Nightsky on November 16, 2011) | ||
| Bextreme04 |
like i said in another post... I haven't had any problems with the FH0012.. it is cheaper than the compufire and other "series" regulators and I haven't heard anything bad about it... there are many posts on here right now with people talking about burned up compufires and stators though... none of which are running FH0012's that I have seen  ... people can say that it is inferior because it is a shunt but it works great for me(no burned out stator) and I ride it 40miles a day minimum, year round, through town, usually below 5,000rpm, with HID's, in temps over 100*, and I have never seen below 14V unless Coolant temps are over 200* and I'm stopped so the harness relay kicks off. The main advantage to the FH0012 is that it is a much higher quality part that regulates voltage well and is very reliable compared to stock. If you want to bullet proof your stator buy the EBR upgrade with the cooling oil jet because I haven't seen any VR that has kept them from burning. Plenty of armchair engineers on this site that like to point their fingers at the shunt VR as the reason for the stator failures but it just hasn't proved to be the case. The compufire is incapable of handling the output of the stator or is just plain unreliable and no-one else seems to make a good series one(wonder why that is if it is the best way to do it). Probably the best argument out there for why it isn't the VR causing these failures is the fact that the EBR fix doesn't give you a new VR, it adequately cools the stator. Bottom line, if your VR fails... replace it with a reliable alternative, if your stator fails replace it with the reliable EBR upgrade with the cooling jet. Until then just ride it!  | ||
| Reepicheep |
A series regulator requires the ability to dissipate far more power (don't confuse with current) than a shunt regulator does. So it is a better solution, but a harder and more expensive one. | ||
| Bextreme04 |
seems to me it is a far more efficient and elegant solution... on paper. In reality it seems the only ones available are either huge(cycle electrics) or melt(compufire) and neither of them seem to save the stator anyways. The real solution seems to be better cooling but it's $900 unless you feel like taking some liberties with a drill press(not suggested) or you can get your HD dealer to spring for it under the warranty. | ||
| Timebandit |
I take a different view of the situation. I am grateful that there are so many "armchair engineers" on the forum who have shared their expertise to allow us to recognize the multiple-faceted nature of the problem. The facts are that multiple design compromises were necessary to make the bike as wonderful a performer as it is. These same design compromises which make the bike such a great performer also adversely impact it's reliability. OF course, these types of trade-offs are made all the time in racing. They aren't news to anyone. Like it or not, the bike is what it is, with all it's strengths and weaknesses. Those are the facts that we have to deal with. Over the years we've seen that BMC/H-D isn't stepping up to the plate to fix the problem, and that Rotax is quietly avoiding responsibility because they are a supplier, not the manufacturer. EBR has developed a solution that addresses one aspect of the problem but doesn't address the others. H-D isn't working to solve the problem, so our only hope of an aftermarket solution is to hope that enough intelligent people with engineering backgrounds will take interest in our problem, and invest their time and effort in finding solutions that attack the problem from every possible angle. All real-world solutions start on paper as ideas. Instead of mocking the engineers who are trying to work on the problem, I think we should be thanking them. (Message edited by timebandit on November 17, 2011) | ||
| Sportster_mann |
I wonder what regulator is being fitted to the 1190RS ? Anybody know ? | ||
| Blake |
>>> Over the years we've seen that BMC/H-D isn't stepping up to the plate to fix the problem. You unfairly and inaccurately included BMC in that accusation, and it just isn't true. If BMC were still alive, I'm confident that this problem would have been solved and the solution implemented for all long ago. The issue just didn't become clearly evident until BMC had been killed off. They certainly had no time to respond to it with a solution. I'm also not clear on why you think the EBR option is not a complete solution. I believe that it is. If it solves the stator overheating problem as seen in the 2008 model bikes, then what else is there? | ||
| Bextreme04 |
I was not trying to mock the engineers trying to work on the problem. I was simply pointing out that the problem has been addressed and a fix found by the ACTUAL engineers of the bike. The other problem with the charging system is an unreliable VR. There are many possible solutions out there for VR's and 99% of them are shunt regulators just like the stock one. Like you said trade-offs and compromises have to be made and it's my guess that the reason most motorcycle regulators are shunt style is because the gains from a series or switching regulator don't outweigh the cons like weight, simplicity, and reliability. | ||
| Black |
Timebandit, I remember an armchair engineer trying to convince my old gray haired mother that she should use 30 weight oil in her car instead of the 5 W 20 the manufacturer recommended. He was sincere and adamant that he was right. Fortunately, she called me. I am not a fan of armchair engineers. But help a brother out....what are those engineering compromises that you spoke of....and why were they done? If HD has told you that they are not going to fix the problem....what was their explanation for that decision? | ||
| Roadrash1 |
"I'm also not clear on why you think the EBR option is not a complete solution. I believe that it is. If it solves the stator overheating problem as seen in the 2008 model bikes, then what else is there?" Exactly. If the fact that it costs $900 is the deal breaker, than good luck waiting for something else. I see it as a very good value. How many people here knew about the stator issue when they bought the bike for $7K? (I'm raising my hand.) The FH0012 is also a very good piece. For what? Under $200 with wiring that is so easy a caveman could do it... The folks at EBR have given us "The Cure". |
