Sorry for asking this here but no one over LULZ could give me a reasonable answer.
Can a motorcycle's stator and rectifier possibly be stressed, overheat or fail prematurely with the use of higher wattage bulbs?
I keep hearing that yes they can, but to my dummy understanding you can't try to suck more energy out of the stator and rectifier, as they only generate off the engine's rotation. And the worst that can happen is the bulbs drain faster than they can recharge the battery. Could you enlighten me on this?
I should add that my bike model has a chronic problem with the stator so I don't want to overstress it any bit.
Pic related is the stator, a 3 phase kind, and the rectifier is a diode that converts the excess volts (stator puts out up to 80~100v) into heat and dissipates it, and sends 13~14v to the battery.
I dunno all i know is last time I connected something to a lower rated power supply I was expecting the thing to not turn on but the supply exploded instead
Not science.
Electrics is science
What is it then
But does that apply to a motorcycle since stuff are connected to a battery and not directly from the rectifier and stator
Motorcycles have minimal charging systems and are often relying on battery power at low speeds. You can have a functioning charging system and weak battery and the engine dies from idle when you energize the turn signal. Nta.
My bike can self charge at idle, it charges quite well and I'm sure it can charge for the hotter bulb.
Well it's very common for people to try to go from 35w to 60w and have the wires heat up, smoke, melt and short. I am gonna redo the wiring to avoid that though.
>Excessive loads or not enough load (shorts) can damage the charging system. You will burn out your rectifier/regulator
So there is a chance it can stress the rectifier and stator? And in that case, does better cooling help? (I've relocated the rectifier to get more wind)
>They simply do not draw enough power to matter.
Can I trust that? It's going from 35w to 60w. Ppl on this bike model's forums say it stresses the charging system, but what do they know. And as I said in op the stator is a known faulty design that fails periodically (years, don't want to turn it into months with the bulb change).
Regarding a battery I'm using a 9 amps, the biggest I could fit without relocating, I think it's plenty of amps.
>You can get aftermarket charging and ignitions that keep the stator and rotor you have, but change out the electronics
Dunno what exactly you mean for replacing, the rectifier?
35w to 60w. Leds are forbidden and the law enforcement is severe.
https://wulfmoto.com/what-does-a-stator-do-on-a-motorcycle/
No.
The addition of a bulb is not going to change the electrical load on the bike enough to matter.
Excessive loads or not enough load (shorts) can damage the charging system. You will burn out your rectifier/regulator, or you will damage your battery. This is why you disconnect batteries before you load test them.
However, you can add more lights, or a new radio without worrying. They simply do not draw enough power to matter.
The biggest problem with bikes is that their batteries are not big enough to buffer the varying loads. If you have the room, try replacing the battery with a tractor battery. Then you won't have any intermittent power problems or stalls.
If you have an old bike, and the problem continues, try some of the bike forums. You can get aftermarket charging and ignitions that keep the stator and rotor you have, but change out the electronics
What do you mean by higher wattage bulb?
Replace your incandescent bulbs with LEDs. You can get more brightness with far less power.
>you can't try to suck more energy out of the stator and rectifier, as they only generate off the engine's rotation
This is true, but I think you're misunderstanding "stressed, overheat or fail prematurely".
Let's talk home electric instead.
The power station uses a diesel engine to run a generator to gen power that gets delivered to you.
Now if everyone starts using more power, it will indeed slow down the generator and the station needs to compensate for that adding more rotational power (spin it more forcefully to recover the previous rpms).
You can say this "stresses" the generator mechanically because there's a max force/rpm it can handle and electrically we have a max electrical output the wires in and from the generator can handle until they fail/melt.
So what stress concerns you?
If you short an outlet before the breaker at your house you'll draw massive power and start a fire and so on.
Enough to lower the generator rpm and stress it as the power company runs it harder? Well probably not right?
But enough to burn your wires/electronics that are rated 20A and just got 20000A for a microsecond before they burned up.
So now back to the bike.
What stress do you refer to?
Seems to me it's the current/power rating of the alternator output.
As in if you have it draw too much power, it'll burn/short out wires and or smoke transistors and so on.
So yes, a higher wattage load can do that.
Conceptually, a "short" is in simple terms for you a very high wattage load.
If you have a power supply that can handle 1000v/1000A (1 million watts), so a small power plant, you can short some wire at the output and burn it without affecting the power supply.
If you short wires in your home? Well, your home wiring will probably die.
Do you understand this better now?
So what do you mean precisely by "stress", and yes, overload can kill things.
I'd expect a modern bike to have built in electric overload detection and protection systems, but ymmv. Best of luck
>What stress do you refer to?
Idk man it's just what people tell me, it kills the stator and rectifier, but idk how. If it can give you a hint, usually stators die when the enamel on the wires melts and the coil(s) short. As for rectifiers, it's usually due to heat because the stator either sends too much volts, or they're placed somewhere they don't get much wind and it also overheats and shorts, but I don't know if it would be the same thing with the overload of a bulb.
>If you have a power supply that can handle 1000v/1000A (1 million watts), so a small power plant, you can short some wire at the output and burn it without affecting the power supply.
From what I've grasped, the stator on my bike generates plenty of energy because it's triphasic
>I'd expect a modern bike to have built in electric overload detection and protection systems, but ymmv.
It's an 125 from the early 80s, all it has is a main fuse.
ok dude this isn't as complicated as you're making things out to be.
>Idk man it's just what people tell me, it kills the stator and rectifier, but idk how. If it can give you a hint, usually stators die when the enamel on the wires melts and the coil(s) short. As for rectifiers, it's usually due to heat because the stator either sends too much volts, or they're placed somewhere they don't get much wind and it also overheats and shorts, but I don't know if it would be the same thing with the overload of a bulb.
>wires melt
From running too much current through them
>rectifier overvoltage
Transistors have maximum voltages, if you fuck with your alternator and say triple the voltage you won't have a good time.
>I don't know if it would be the same thing with the overload of a bulb.
It would burn the alternator and rectifier, yes.
Imagine you add 100 bulbs in parallel, what do you think would happen?
You'd be basically shorting the output, it'll draw a fuck ton of current and fry your shit.
Look I don't know how much of this stuff you get, but the bottom line is
>Can a motorcycle's stator and rectifier possibly be stressed, overheat or fail prematurely with the use of higher wattage bulbs?
Yes, very much so. This isn't really up for debate, theoretical details aside.
Not because the alternator will spin too hard or something; because you're drawing more current. You risk fucking your bike unless you work out the math and limits properly
>From running too much current through them
But can the current really change from an extra load? The stator is a passive thing that generates from the movement of the magnets
>Yes, very much so. This isn't really up for debate, theoretical details aside.
>Not because the alternator will spin too hard or something; because you're drawing more current. You risk fucking your bike unless you work out the math and limits properly
Alright, alright, thanks a lot, that was my question and you answered it broadly.
>But can the current really change from an extra load? The stator is a passive thing that generates from the movement of the magnets
Yes, exactly.
The stator can provide the same voltage, but now imagine instead of a lightbulb you just short the wires.
Far less resistance, far more current, dead system. If it's at the same voltage, an "extra load" means more current, more power output, say 10V*100A = 1000W because of a short or many bulbs instead of 10V*10A =100W the the factory getup.
The semantics of this stuff should be more intuitive really, but it is what it is.
You'll get the hang of it after a while if you read some more and work out a few problems and imagine and compare scenarios in your head.
Best of luck with your bike.
There's benefits to it being an older system you know.
If you can find the power and current rating of your system just make sure your lights don't exceed that minus some safety margin and you're done.
Modern systems with more electronics and LEDs get more complicated with different voltage levels, series vs parallel LEDs and so on.
Best of luck my friend.
>There's benefits to it being an older system you know.
>If you can find the power and current rating of your system just make sure your lights don't exceed that minus some safety margin and you're done.
And friend, this really shouldn't be that much trouble.
You should be able to find that make x model y year z has such and such alternator and rect setup that has a max rated say, 12V 100A = 1200W idk.
Then if the stock lights are 600W and you want to go to 800W that's probably ok right? 1000W not so much, a little close to the max rating = more stress less lifetime.
Of course if your bike doesn't have stock / stock compatible stuff in it anymore it'll make the info harder to find, but still doable by part numbers.
Couldn't find that info, guess I can just measure the amps output of the rectifier?
>didn't know you couldn't do that
Now you know. >>>LULZ is smart enough to do whatever you are attempting. Electricity is one thing but someone they will know variables particular to your situation.
https://procycle.us/how-to/wye-delta-stator-conversion
My stator went bad recently, I tried to rewind it, wrote down the direction of winding and amount of turns, it was the same for all coils but one of them was reversed and I didn't know which of them was it so I gave up and bought a chink stator. Can you help me with that detail?
when mine shit the bed I just went to a local shop and they did it for me. I maybe could reconfigure a working one but I wouldn't try rewinding it myself.
The local rewinders refuse to do anything but stock specs
they have whatever is needed to do it properly, including the epoxy and all that.
maybe get a stock config, ask them which is it (wye/delta), so you know if you can reconfigure as per