R&R food for thought

I've been thinking lately about the R&R problems, that seem to be more prolific in the northern hemisphere.
Here in Australia we ride all year round, winter doesn't really get bellow 15*C (59*F), except for early winter mornings where it might get down to 9*C (48*F).
On top of that, we don't have much rain fall, compared to some other continents.
We never have snow, so there has never been salt used on roads.
Australian design rules also call for motorcycle head lights to be on all the time, we don't even have a light switch, only the high/low rocker switch.

An R&R is used to dump unused power produced by the stator, this is dissipated by turning it into heat.
More power used, less to convert to heat.
Some people switch to LED globes, under the mistaken belief that it will be easier on the R&R, when in fact, thay are actually making the problem worse.
If you use up all power being produced, there is no need to convert excess into heat, so an R&R will have a very easy life.
Of course, you always have to produce more then you need to charge battery when needed, and to allow for this to happen together with blinkers, stop light and high beams all on at the same time.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is a design fault with the VFR wiring & R&R, but this also seems to be a problem with many other bikes, Triumph's in particular have just as many problems with this.

I'm not sure, but I think in the USA/Europe there is no law about head lights being on at all times. This together with salty water, long storage times and very low temperatures, seems to make the design flaws worse.

You guys also seem to have more problems with brearings, corrosion and general wear and tear then we have here.

Which ultimately, must lead everyone to agree, that Australia is a better place to live & ride.


I therefore hereby extend an invitation to all VFRworld members to visit.
Just don't stay too long, or you'll end up on Manus Island under our draconian immigration laws.

 

You've just described most of Texas mate!

 

Except for Texas!!!
...and maybe Florida, and other places.

 

I wonder if there are more problems in the northern states, as opposed to Texas?
Do Texans have head lights on at all times?
Or it could be that I'm full of shit...

 

Congratulations, you have summed up the problem we have identified, but havent solved beacuse our bike make 500w of power but only use 400w. This overhead is for battery charging and extra loads such as the gizmos we add.

Our problem with wear and tear is we ride harder because of the short season.

Besides everything you mentioned, why move to a country where 90% of the worlds most deadly insects and animals happen to live?

 

This is Australia mate, we have a red belly black snake that lives under our porch, if you leave ir alone, it leaves you alone.
I often have to pick deadly spiders from my back, and when we ride close to rivers, we have to beep our horn to scare the crocodiles.
Don't get me started on going swiming with great white sharks, blue ring octopus or deadly stingers.
Drop bears and Bunyips are a constant danger, as is the constant hole in the ozone layer right above Australia.
On top of all that, we have yobbos, Volvo drivers and roads that haven't been upgraded since 40BC.
This is where men are made mate.

 

Also road kill riders

If you want to talk about making a man out of you, come to canada. Ill take you up north to places even the natives wont go. Nothing like -60 plus the wind for a few weeks to make you wish for your spot by the billabong back home. Oh and leave the bear mace at home, no reason to season the bears next meal.

Enough shit and sugar, we all know Australia is the most dangerous place to live animal and insect wise, we gladly give that title. Your environment is just as hard on your bike as ours is on ours. Proper care and maintenance take care of that issue. The r/r isnt that big of a deal until someone makes a change, led and hid lighting as a combo are probably the worst you could do since the extra power must go somewhere. Canada dictates after a certain year all vehicles must have driving lights that come on as part of the normal operation of the vehicle. Meaning we cant turn them off. All we get on the 6th gen is a high low toggle. Now I change out my 55w halogens for 35w hid lights, saving if 20w per bulb or 40w total or about 3A that must go somewhere. I would like to see a better designed regulator that can give us more stable voltage and better conversation ratios but then a r/r would be 1000$ not cool in my opinion. Nobody want a lower rated stator so we dont go that way either. So why are we not doing what every car and truck manufacturer has already done? Use a variable charging system such as an alternator. Right now a magnet passes a stator to make 3 phase ac to be rectified and then regulated. How about making the stator go from inside the magnet to a set of coils out side an armature that has several poles and a single electromagnet. This electromagnet is controlled by the regulator circuit to keep the output voltage down to the correct range for the load. It would also give us room for about 1kilowatt of accessories and still charge the battery. But we get the magnet trick.

wake me when engineering get close to fixing the problem in a way that save us headaches and money.

 

No more bears here, crocodiles ate them.

 

Touché, funny. True and funny. But my point still holds.

 

My theory, formed after i inspected a damaged wiring harness, is that one cause of lectrick problems is due to Honda running the ground of too many different components ( including the r/r) through just one wire within the harness. Remember that about half of R/R problems are due to melted connecting plugs, not the R/R itself, and that a melted plug that allows any 2 yellow wires to short together will kill the stator immediately. :dread: Some r/r setups have an additional green wire (bolted to frame) going to ground so that power doesn't need to go only through the harness to charge the battery.

Also note that Honda started using thinner, weaker wires commencing with gen 4.

 

Well guys, you both could have Harleys and live in Detroit.

 

+1^ on what the squirrel sez, and consider the spade lug terminals as the root of all evil also.

Those rolled copper lugs rely on spring tension of thin knife-edges of the female coils to cut into the male blade. Copper is not known for its spring properties.

That sliding joint is the weak link and it has a resistance associated with it that generates heat as the currents get high, I^2xR. The heating casuses the copper to want to unroll back to its flat shape and this open up the rolled coils, creating arcing and an even higher resistance joint, with even more heat generation, etc. until the plastic connector and wire insulation melts, chars, and burns, stator wires short out, battery quits charging, and the dingo eats your baby.

 

Kenny, you are correct. The spade connectors that are used are horrible and should have been Something more substantial. Since the connector needs to withstand 34amps, they should have used either a barrel connector, like in computers, or a box and wedge connector, such as what you find in high end server power supply connectors. And instead of one pin dedicated to the load, use 3 pins for high current loads. The wire could have been the next guage up just to give it more mechanical strength, the resistance would be negligible but it would prevent breakage.

There is all sorts of things we can do to improve the engineering on this bike. But remember, it all adds to the cost.

 

You got to figure if Honda used two wires on the output of the R/R, and one contact failed, the other would carry full load! Better to have proper gauge and bigger connectors!

 

Thats why I said 3. All my servers use 6 contact for power handling. 3 positive and 3 negative. (My servers are all 12v inside and make the 5, 3 and minor voltages on mainboard, sun (now Oracle) made it very simple).

Have you seen a 40amp connector? For 30v and under they are still huge. Its always better to use many connectors (never 2, must use more incase of failure). If we used 15amp connectors and used 3 of them then the 45 amp capacity is well over the 35amp our r/r can handle.

I still say give us better control over generation and then all this becomes moot as we would only make the power we need and hardly any would go to waste.

 

Good idea, sorry missed the 3 connector post. You right , otherwise we would all using big Hubble connectors!

Check out this connector, now your talkin' (bad part is it's 3" long when coupled):
http://www.parts-express.com/smh-sy50-series-8-awg-50a-breakaway-dc-power-connector--263-110

 

I use the 300a version for my ups system. Nothing like 48hrs of battery power to keep everything running. I have a generator too but most power outages are less than 24hrs, so no need for it unless the batteries get below 30%.

That 50a connector is what connects each ups to the main buss. The 3" thing is the physical connector, now add about an inch on either end for non bend wire. They do make a 30a version but still overkill.

 

I have sold and installed many APC UPS with similar connectors, that's what twigged me, I wasn't really serious, but there must be happy medium (median?).

 

Yup, there is. Get rid of the r/r unit and permanent magnet and build an alternator with a controlable field in the rotor. Same as your car and truck.

 

Any reason why we can't use a srew type terminal block with boot lace ends?
That way it could be easy to replace.