Switched to MOSFET R1 R/R - Keep blowing up R/R units

***** 10/15/2019 UPDATE *****

THIS ISSUE IS RESOLVED. JUMP TO POST #16-18 FOR FIX

***** ******

My 2000 won't charge its battery. I've read about the issue for several hours on a few different Honda forums and decided to upgrade to a MOSFET unit providing power direct to the battery.

I installed a new stator at the same time with a harness that goes directly to a MOSFET R/R unit for an 03 Yamaha R1

I provided a single fused 12 gauge positive and negative wire directly from the R/R to the battery.


https://i.imgur.com/cRn3JEj.jpg

To get power from the battery in to the main harness I have two 12 gauge positive wires and two 12 gauge ground wires coming from the battery terminals going in to the original plug that the old factory Honda R/R unit used to plug in to.

The first time I put this together I melted a 20a fuse in about 10 minutes of riding. I replaced it with a 40a fuse to get home. After about 10 minutes of riding the battery stopped charging again - 40a fuse still in tact.

I replaced the R/R with another new unit. This one charged for about 60 seconds at idle. I rev'd the bike slowly to a steady 5k rpm and it stopped charging all together.

Am I missing something obvious?

 

Have you heard of, or installed a VFRNess?

I installed my first VFRNess to a 4th-gen back in 2008 that I was having the classic charging issues with, and never had a charging problem after that, which was about 20,000 miles. I installed the VFRNess + his beefcake regulator (from Ricks Motorsports) + new battery at once, same day.

Fast forward to my 5th gen, and I did the same thing on the first day of ownership as a preventative option, including buying a spare regulator and keeping it under the seat, and have not had an issue in 10,000 miles of riding.

VFRNess
https://www.wiremybike.com/product_info.php?products_id=272

Ricks Motorsports Regulator
https://www.wiremybike.com/product_info.php?products_id=329

Good luck, and keep us informed of your progress.

 

Hmm

I am no expert on R1 RRs, so did you check if the R1 regulator pin outs adopt the same orientation as the stock Honda RR?

If so, the wire connected furthest from the three stator feeds should be the "Live feed" but your photo shows that is routed to earth. Are you sure?

If you are actually feeding a reverse polarity to your battery I guess when the engine is running the RR will manfully try and compensate for the ever lower voltage by ever increasing its output to vast amperage which of course will simply increase the rate of discharge of the battery and very quickly blow fuses and probably end in tears.

Please check your wiring and then monitor the voltage and polarity of everything on your charging circuit.

Section 16 of the 5th Gen service manual shows how the Honda RR and charging system should look.





SkiMad

 

No its wired the correct way

Earth to frame and live to battery with an in-line fuse before battery.

 

I have the ground wire out of the rectifier going to my battery negative terminal.

Is this a mistake?

 

I have the same setup on my RVF. Stator 3 wires to RR in 3 wires, RR ground out to harness ground (Green), RR positive out to main fuse (Red) then to battery, via OEM harness.

RR with 50 Amp capable Delphi Connector - Male



Wire replaced in main harness with 50 amp capable Delphi connector - Female to MOSFET RR



Stator 3 wires connected at Harness



3 stator wires in - (Black or Yellow depending on supplier and OEM moto harness), and two wires out Green (ground) and Red (positive) to harness upgraded wires with Delphi 50 amp capable connectors



3 pin 50 amp Delphi connector between harness and RR In, 2 pin 50 amp Delphi connector from RR wiring out to harness wires In



It is not connected directly to the battery.

 

Did the same with mine.

 

Thanks. Sick pics and setup. I will re-wire mine with thicker output cables and re-route it the old way (R/R output to harness plug and not direct to battery) and see what I end up with. Can't afford another parking ticket for a busted VFR. This city is already criminal on insurance rates.

 

Thanks for the tips. I should have used 10gauge, but I am at least using 12 gauge. I will try eliminating some elements and see what happens. I agree on the VFRNESS. If it comes down to it I might try that, but I should be able to wire this as many others have.

 

Let me know if this image in the link below makes any sense. Basically what I did was splice in to the connector that the old rectifier used to plug in to. I cut the output plug off the old rectifier and spliced in my wires there - then just plugged that back in to the harness without the monitor wire.

https://imgur.com/KVpiN03

 

I had a bad experience with R1 R/R Mosfet. It run for 1 year and starts melting, eventually leading to short/grounding, effectively blowing all big fuses - I have vfrnes as well. Initially I blamed the heat grips but I should have checked the charging before anything else. I suggest you try get your hands on a R/R big enough for VFR. I have a 6th gen and run 4 hid lights.
Good luck!

 

Basically the 2 green (earth wires) from the RR are joined together in the harness and go to earth. The red wires are also joined together and then join main harness. The main harness comes from the battery via 30amp main fuse and goes to the fusebox.

 

I finally paid off the parking tickets from my breakdown and was able to bring it back to Brooklyn. Going to do the drill tonight and see what components are still ok, then uncomplicate what I've done wiring wise.

From what I understand I can ignore the factory R/R connector all together and just run a 10gauge wire straight from the R/R to my battery and I'm done. The battery will provide power to the harness and that should be that.

Fingers crossed I haven't burned up a new stator in 20 miles by doing it wrong.

 

Finally did the drill correctly.

18-20v at idle on the stator, 50-60v at 5k rpm. I let it warm up over 210 - same result.

I found one of my stator plugs backed out. The connector tolerance must have been pretty tight, or maybe I didn't seat the wire fully.

R1 knockoff rectifier has one failed diode on the original one that worked for 20-30 minutes.

The second rectifier tests ok on the negative terminal, but when I forward bias the positive terminal I only get .01-.03 volts. I don't know if there's other circuitry that I can't measure on the postitive terminal of this rectifer or the positive diodes are dead.

***** UPDATE THIS KNOCK-OFF R/R UNIT WAS DEAD AS WELL ******

I also removed all of the weird extra harness I had in place and ran the bike off of the fully charged battery to test the stator and the bike ran perfectly, so obviously this extra wiring I had wasn't needed and hopefully that and the stator plug popping out on my second R/R install are the end of another R/R thread that ends with:

JUST DO THE DRILL and keep it simple, stupid.

 

Glad you got it sorted out, and thanks for taking the trouble to let us all know what proved to be the problem.

Too often on forums, people start posts and after being sent a heap of advice we basically never hear back from them. Presumably as soon as they get their bike running OK, they just decide to jump on the bike and go for a very long ride. Which is understandable with a VFR but unfortunately it means a lot of threads have no clear conclusion.

So thanks for the feedback now go ride


SkiMad

 

I got a third new $20 R/R from Amazon tonight (that I ordered at 9a this morning, love NYC) and I can confirm 13.3 - 13.4 Volts at idle to the battery.

Looks like my issue was cheap connector letting my middle stator spade back off and me over-complicating my wiring harness.

These $20 knock-off R/R unit seems to not actually be MOSFET, but 60's tech designed to plug-in to an R1's mosfet circuit.

These knock-offs get waaaay too hot. They have silicone instead of stainless steel back-plates. As far as I can tell as soon as I replace my $20 amazon/ebay rectifier with a real $120 MOSFET unit I'll finally have my motorcycle back for more than few blocks.

I'll post a final update once I get the permanent R/R unit.


I'm so relieved to finally hear that V4 running on a properly charged system. She sounded sickly on 11.9-11.4V. The staintune was finally singing to steady beat tonight.