The saha continues...Chinese eBay R/R

With 9275 posts if Badbilly wants to call them Pesos, then Pesos it is :biggrin:

 

One of the reasons is familiarity. Had the original dudes who discovered us followed up (Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Italians, French and Spanish) we would have in place and in wide use, the metric system. Instead our units of measure are based upon the English system of things like cubits, barleycorns and the length of some dead Kings middle finger.

The US is in transition from the South (not the deep South which has its own units of measure like " thass good" ) that begins with the most familiar unit of measure the monetary system and secondly the unit describing weight.

A visit to SoCal will show that the Peso is legal tender and the conversion of the 16oz pound is now at 12oz.

With all this in mind we may go to driving on the wrong side of the road someday..

My .02 Centavos.

 

Honda's tend to be designed where they drive on the correct side of the road

 

Just curious, is there a Tech Bulletin from Honda on this issue.

 

Yes, the bulletin is between the recall of the R/Rs and the stators on VFRs. It's a little hard to read unless you are fluent in Sanskrit.

 

That made no sense at all but I take it as a no.

 

Yes and no.

 

A year and a half and no problems. Still carrying a spare under the seat tho...

 

Never ever take that spare from under the seat, the second you do you will end up with an R/R failure. Best roadside insurance is to keep it there. Glad you update us on these things, it is helpful to help people decide

 

Darn right Norm! I call it Kenwood's Addendum. Murphy's Law states. "If something can go wrong it will." Kenwood's Addendum adds, :...at the worst possible moment."

 

Same here. Even the box it came in is holding up well...

 

Kenwood - I went the other way. I got one from roadstercycle.com. They cost more. But mine doesn't seem to work any better than yours. I do have a 1982 Nighthawk 450 with 5700 miles. It sat for 30 years or so. It's running really well now. It has the original Shindengen. I'll check the running voltage when it stops freezing here in Arlington, VA. I'm thinking the thing to do is replace the Nighthawk's Shindengen with one of the fancy type that you got.

 

My el cheapo MOSFET R/Rs on both Hondas are still going at two years. They run cool, regulation is good, and connectors aren't hot after a long ride. I did remount both regulators where they are in the breeze and replaced the connectors, and I carry a spare when traveling.

Keeping my fingers crossed...

 

Getting close to two years now & output is still solid. Thinking the massive heat sink I put on it originally makes the difference. That and re-soldering the connectors in the plug. Spare is still resting comfortably under the seat. Got a $6.24 starter solenoid off eBay a year ago to replace my melted original. Spare under the seat as well. Livin' right on the edge...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solenoid-St...ash=item2571cd0aa4:g:6hcAAOSwYaFWb31z&vxp=mtr

 

Thanks for the post Kenwood. I was looking at a 1990 VFR today on Ebay. Very clean. I wanted to read up on this gen's main problems before I looked at the bike. I still may. This is the gen VFR that got me interested in the VFR in the first place and I bought a 1986 in 1994. I finally got her running a few weeks ago after sitting about 15 years. Too many near deadly encounters back then and moving to dirtbike mecca also. When I first fired the bike up, I noticed the RR was running warm. They are stuffed in a bad place like these are with no cooling.

You guys came up with some very good answers like the fan and placing the RR in a cooler place. I did order a modern MOSFET and keep the old on for backup under the seat. I am going through all the connectors also to check for corrosion as SOP. I am doing the same for my RZ350 I am restoring also. Thanks again guys. Nice problem solving.

I just looked at the Electrosport website and see a huge article under this gen VFR but is really about my gen 1986. The article traces the problem to bad/corroded ground wiring and more. It includes up to 2002 I think. Poor guy went through 5 RR's. Good reading.

 

Well... It lasted 2 years and 8 days. Driving along at 40mph and I smelled burnt insulation. Looked behind me and I looked like a Blue Angel when they yell "Smoke on!" Shut it off and coasted to a stop. Black gooey stuff was bubbling out of the bottom of the R/R connector plug. I thought Aha! I have a spare under the seat. Unfortunately the black stuff hardened quickly and effectively glued the connector into the R/R. I couldn't get the connector out with vice-grips. I started the bike & there was no more smoke so I rode it home (a mile). Voltage @ the battery is 13.2 regardless of the RPM. I suspect the bike will run till the battery gets too low. I've ordered a replacement connector as I will probably have to dig the original out with a screwdriver.

Shit, I had high hopes for my Chinese upgrade!

 

I stumbled upon this post. Now I'm nervous. Ordering one now.


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That cost pennies a day!

 

Okay, read through the whole thread, just going to add a few things. Honda uses the oem rr supplier Shindengen, which is made in Japan. I really have no idea why so many people love chancing it with chinese garbage. Having the RR fail twice in 2 years is not what I would consider satisfactory.Nor would I consider a 50% chance of failure with in 5 minutes satisfactory. To add to that 13.1 volts at idle is very low. But, in my opinion all those results are best case scenarios for chinese rr's. Worst case scenario with a chinese rr and you start the bike up, immediately get 18volts and fry your ecu/battery/ect and wish you spent more than $12 on a quality rr.

I have tried a few different rr's and know what I will be sticking with. I bought my 2007 in 2009 with 6,000 miles on it. I made it almost 2 years until I hit 25,000 miles before the original charging system failed. I didn't know any better and went with a generic chinese rr and a Ricks stator, it was immediately over charging around 17 volts. I tried to bullet proof it, but still didn't know any better and went with an oem stator, a compufire series rr, a vfrness and some led/hid bling. It was rock steady at 14.4 volts, but it would spike at over 10,000 rpms and over charge at 17 volts. This set up lasted around 2 years until it failed and left me stranded 200 miles from home. I was broke and still hadn't learned my lesson and went with an Electrosport rr and stator. At start up it showed 18 volts! I immediately sent it back for a refund and finally did it right.

After all the different combos and research I finally did it right. I went with a new oem stator and a FH020 kit from www.roadstercycle.com I soldered the rr directly to the stator and bolted the rr dc terminal directly to the battery (fused). I mounted the rr on the left passenger foot peg or plenty of air flow and the shortest possible stator-rr-battery path distance. Also I installed a voltmeter. The rr makes zero heat and charges 14.2 volts at idle to redline. I have had this combo with zero issues for about 5 years now. In that five years I have only lost 0.1 volts.

Eventually I plan on upgrading to the newest shindengen rr, the SH847, to go back to series, but with more reliability this time around.

 

You're right CandyRed, the R/R didn't prove to be reliable. To it's credit, it produced a steadily 14.2VDC @ 2,000+ RPM throughout it's short lifetime. 13.1 V is low, the point I was making was that the R/R was no longer functioning. I just wanted to test a Chinese unit to see if it was usable. After this trial, I intend to upgrade the whole system.

But I will still keep a Chinese spare under the seat.