Rectifier Help/Question

Ok my charging system hadnt been working for my 1980 Kz440 LTD and had determined it was the rectifier. So proceeded to surf around and find the best deal. the Ebay listings looked much worse than the one i had pulled off so i didnt really feel like bidding on those.
i found a great little place called www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/ and purchased the one that was listed for the 440. well what i failed to read was that it was 3 phase, as it has 3 wires coming to it. so now im the proud owner of a 3 phase rectifier. :angry:
Now im looking around for another one. i have several options.
#1 Ebay, again none that look good used.
#2 Brand new $110.
#3 Use a universal 12v single phase. should work i think.
#4 see if theres a 3 phase rotor that can be swapped on the 440. (doubt this is possible, or cheap)and use the rectifier i own.
#5 Build one. (seen some people do some 3phase ones. im pretty handy with a soldering iron)

The only thing im confused on really is one of the wires. theres 5 wires. 2 yellow(power from stator) 1 black(usually ground) 1 white/red stripe (power out to battery) 1 brown( i have no idea, another ground perhaps?)

im leaning toward the universal one, but the brown wire is stumping me and i want to make sure to get the right solution before i buy this time.

Any comments, help, solutions would be much appreciated. Or if your interested in a new kz400 3Phase rectifier let me know.

Phslion wrote:

#5 Build one. (seen some people do some 3phase ones. im pretty handy with a soldering iron))

Not sure about that, it burns a lot of heat and so it must be attached to the heatsink.

I'll see if I can find one.

cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/USED-REGULATOR-R...sh=item260236334015&



cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/kz440-kz-440-ltd...ksid=p3756.m20.l1116



cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/klt200-klt250-kz...ksid=p3756.m20.l1116



cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Kawasaki-KZ440-A...ksid=p3756.m20.l1116

The guy in Oregon is great, I don't see why he won't trade you out for the correct one.

I built my own rectifier and it was fun.

I am going to check the wiring diagram for your bike and come back with the link to it.

BRB.

I did not find your specific bike, but I did find an 80 400 that had a dual phase (I presume) alternator (2 Yellows), a power (R/W), a ground (Black), and a brown that seems to go to power accessories, lamps and such.

kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_docman&...w&gid=134&Itemid=108

Check it out your self.

I bought one from the guy in Oregon also... not installed yet. I'd give him a call or message him and you may be able to recover all or part of the cost and just have to swallow all the shipping. Still not the worse deal. :dry:

Let us know how he responds. A good word or not so good word carries a lot of weight here and will get back to him. Service is what we are looking for too.

Best of success!

The problem is the 1980 440 uses a combo reg/rec designed for a permanent magnet alternator. Oregonmotorcyclesparts does not have that type available the last time I checked.

What you bought was just a rectifier, so it does not have the brown wire. The brown wire feeds battery voltage to the regulator, but only when the bike is turned on. (Some regulator/rectifier combo units don't need a seperate brown wire, some do.)

You can make your own rectifier easily, but not the regulator. The regulator parts end up costing enough that it's not really worth the trouble unless you are into learning about regulators. I have plans for both if you want them.

You should be able to use one from any of several KZ's that use similar reg/rec units. The 78, 79, and 80 KZ650 use a 1-phase reg/rec for permanent magnet alternators. Those don't have the brown wire. The 1980 KZ550's used 1-phase reg/recs with the brown wire. There are probably others I'm unaware of.

If you get one with the brown wire, the brown wire goes to a switched source of battery voltage. You could tap into the ignition circuit to get 12v. The bike mustn't be run with the brown wire disconnected.

Apparently, Kawsaki lists the 1980 (and others) as having one of two regulators. One has one connector with 5 wires (21066-1032), and the other has one connector with 3 wires plus two single wires (21066-1014). You'll have to look at your reg/rec connector to know which one you have.

Here are the bikes using 21066-1032:
KLT200-B1 (KLT200) (1983)
KLT200-C1 (KLT200) (1983)
KLT200-C2 (KLT200) (1984)
KLT250-A1 (KLT250) (1982)
KLT250-A2 (KLT250) (1983)
KLT250-C1 (Prairie) (1983)
KLT250-C2 (Prairie) (1984)
KLT250-C3 (Prairie) (1985)
KLT250-P1 (Police) (1984)
KZ250-W1 (LTD Belt) (1983)
KZ440-A1 (LTD) (1980)
KZ440-A2 (LTD) (1981)
KZ440-A3 (LTD) (1982)
KZ440-A4 (LTD) (1983)
KZ440-D1 (LTD Belt) (1980)
KZ440-D2 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D3 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D4 (LTD Belt) (1982)
KZ440-D5 (LTD Belt) (1983)
KZ750-K1 (LTD Belt) (1983)
KZ750-K2 (Canada Only) (1984)


Here are the bikes using 21066-1014:
KLT200-A1 (KLT200) (1981)
KLT200-A2 (KLT200) (1981)
KLT200-A3 (KLT200) (1982)
KLT200-A4 (KLT200) (1983)
KLT200-A4A (Duckster) (1983)
KLT200-B1 (KLT200) (1983)
KLT200-C1 (KLT200) (1983)
KLT200-C2 (KLT200) (1984)
KLT250-A1 (KLT250) (1982)
KLT250-A2 (KLT250) (1983)
KLT250-C1 (Prairie) (1983)
KLT250-C2 (Prairie) (1984)
KLT250-C3 (Prairie) (1985)
KZ250-D1 (KZ250) (1980)
KZ250-D2 (CSR) (1981)
KZ250-L1 (CSR Belt) (1982)
KZ440-A1 (LTD) (1980)
KZ440-A2 (LTD) (1981)
KZ440-A3 (LTD) (1982)
KZ440-A4 (LTD) (1983)
KZ440-B1 (1980)
KZ440-B2 (1981)
KZ440-D1 (LTD Belt) (1980)
KZ440-D2 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D3 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D4 (LTD Belt) (1982)
KZ440-D5 (LTD Belt) (1983)
KZ440-G1 (1982)
KZ650-E1 (LTD) (1980)
KZ650-F1 (1980)
KZ750-G1 (LTD II) (1980)
KZ750-M1 (CSR Twin) (1982)

Wow thanks for the responses.

I have the 21066-1014, 3 wires is the connector and 2 additional wires.

i had already talked to the guy in Oregon about it, he said he doesn't make the one i need. it was indeed marked that it would not work for my bike and i had just failed to notice it. From what i saw he makes a quality product and would recommend people try him out if he carries what they need. I consider the cost a part of learning from my mistakes(which sometimes i make alot of ).

The plans to make them peaks my interest a little. My first year of school was elec. engineering but have switched since then. It was an interest not something i want to do professionally. But yea id be interested i suppose in browsing over them and seeing the difficulty of the project.

you know as much as finding things to fix gets aggravating at times, i do enjoy fixing them.

The regulator/rectifier circuits for a permanent magnet generator are more complicated than the ones for the alternators which use two windings (no magnets). A PM alternator uses SCR's which have their gate "ON" time adjusted by the regulator feedback circuitry. The dual winding alternators just use standard diode rectifiers and control the regulated system voltage by adjusting the current flowing in the rotor winding (which thereby controls the current being produced by the secondary winding and sent to the system and battery). The latter is a lot easier to build a regulator for.

Here is the plan for just the rectifier. Several members have built this one. It is just a rectifier. In your case you would just use two bridges to make it a single phase. It should be good to 20 amps conservatively.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZdiy3phaseRectifier.html

Here is the plan for the regulator portion. I had it working on a bike, but never refined the design to reduce the part count because the SCR's I wanted to use cost so much that the project was not cost-effective. I emailed the guy at Oregon about this design, and he agreed it would not be worth it for him because the component costs would be prohibitive. He's still looking for a cheaper design to start making.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZvRegMagnetField.html

And for those who have the older excited-field type alternators, here is a regulator design I've used on several bikes... but OregonMotorcycleParts sells these cheap so it's academic at this point.
www.geocities.com/loudgpz/GPZvRegExciteField.html

Just a word of caution if you are planning to build your own regulator: there is supposed to be a tempco of approximately -15 mV/ DEG C on the regulated system voltage to match the tempco of a six cell lead acid battery. The circuits shown don't have that, and it typically means the battery will be overcharged at high temps and undercharged at low temps.

The regulator IC's we designed for use in cars always use a six diode string in the ground leg of the reference which causes it to have the necessary negative tempco.

Bike regulators usually don't need too much temp/volt adjustment since they don't really get the wide range of temps that cars get. On the KZ's, the voltage tends to vary more as a result of connection resistance in the wiring. 14.5v is common, but I don't think that the intended voltage was to be that high. I like to shoot for 14.1 to 14.3. Several tenths can easily be lost at the fuse box or ignition switch which leads to the slightly higher voltage at the battery due to regulator compensation. If the battery is maintained regularly (by keeping water levels up) and the wiring is in good condition I don't think there is much harm in a static regulated voltage.

hmm been busy recently still haven't done anything with the bike.

i was browsing ebay and saw this link . has anyone ever tried it? if it fit it should work fine right? i do have the regulator/rectifier for it already.