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luhbo

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Posts posted by luhbo

  1. 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.

  2. 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).

  3. As Guzzi3Go says

    If the regulator thinks the battery is at 13 Volts when in fact it's much higher it will just keep pumping the Amps to 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.

  4. It is correct that current through a diode grows exponentially with applied tension. ...

    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.

  5. Suppose you have a battery half charged.

    If you apply a Voltage and ramp it slowly up the current will remain at zero until the Voltage reaches 13 or so Volts

    13.5 might cause 1 amp to flow but 14 Volts will cause a lot more than 2

    14.5 will cause several times the current than 13.5, that's what I meant by exponential.

    My terminology might not be scientifically correct but then I'm not a scientist I'm a humble journeyman with only 50 years of gathered experience.

    Sorry

    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?

  6. 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).

  7. I just got done installing a series type voltage regulator. It's the Shindengen SH775, intended for a 3 phase, 3 wire stator but it works fine with the full wave, 2 wire stator on the V11. It is rated at 35 amps, more than enough for our bikes.

     

    ....

    ....

    The series regulator makes the stator produce only as much power as the system needs at the time. The regulator and stator will run much cooler and a small amount of horsepower is freed up. 

     

    ...

     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?

  8. ...

     

    The Shindengen probably uses MOSFET transistors which can be turned from full On to Full Off off mid cycle like the switch mode regulator in a computer

     

    ...

    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.

  9. ....

     

    The usual fault is one of the diodes overheats and the wire melts off. I think this is a result of the flakey Voltage reference. If you increase the Voltage to a battery the current goes up exponentially.

    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'.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

    • Like 1
  13. 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?

  14. The Non-R plugs are easy to get. So why do you not change the plugs? Too easy or what?

    I too wouldn't want two resistors.

    But instead of trying to get answers by applying Ohm's law to such a highly capacitiv, sorry - must be inductive, and highly dynamic problem I'd suggest to compare Osci pics of the resulting sparks. I havent seen this equipment since years, but normally any good car shop still should have it.

  15. Wayne Orwig had a nice collection of schematics for electronical gadgets on his now sadly defunct website. I picked myself one for a voltage indication bi-colour LED, going from red over orange to green. Assuming the regulator is a quite digital unit, say it either works or not, the light should be red engine off and light orange/green engine running. Bright green indicates above 15V, cooking the battery, staying red indicates no charge, draining the battery. Nice gadget and enhancement to my speedo scale

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