Can a battery eliminator be use on 77' kz650?

I want to get rid of the battery. Can i use a battery eliminator on this model?

Yes, but be carefull and make sure you have a correct setup (large capacitance), as the battery not only acts as a well of power, but also a buffer and spike control.

exc3456 wrote:

I want to get rid of the battery. Can i use a battery eliminator on this model?

No, that's the one KZ650 that cannot use a battery eliminator as it came from the factory. It uses an excited-field alternator. You need a permanent-magnet alternator to use a battery eliminator.

In order to do it, you have to convert to a 78 or later charging sytem. Everything must be swapped: Stator, rotor, alternator cover, regulator, rectifier, and some harness wiring.

loudhvx wrote:

exc3456 wrote:

I want to get rid of the battery. Can i use a battery eliminator on this model?

No, that's the one KZ650 that cannot use a battery eliminator as it came from the factory. It uses an excited-field alternator. You need a permanent-magnet alternator to use a battery eliminator.

In order to do it, you have to convert to a 78 or later charging sytem. Everything must be swapped: Stator, rotor, alternator cover, regulator, rectifier, and some harness wiring.

Bwah! :silly: Do what this man says... he know da #$%&! :laugh:

Lou... can a custom voltage regulator setup be used prior to a bettery-less system instead? Or is this the only alternative?

TeK9iNe wrote:

Lou... can a custom voltage regulator setup be used prior to a bettery-less system instead? Or is this the only alternative?

ahh, very very good question. I've been waiting for some one to ask this for years. Yes. You can make a different style regulator to eliminate a battery and not use a capacitor. It is called a clipper, because it doesn't shunt the excess power to ground like our shunt regulators do on most KZ's (not on 77 650). It clips the voltage at a pre-set level. Unfortunately, it is a bad idea for our KZ's.

Here is the one I made for a Honda dirtbike:
home.comcast.net/~loudgpz/GPZweb/RegRec/GPZacRegulator.html
It's for a 6v system, but would be easy to convert to 12v.

This, however is very inefficient and will waste a lot of crankshaft horsepower unnecessarily on a KZ. It would only even be viable on 3-phase systems. Single-phase systems drop down near zero v, so a cap would be a must on those.

There is only one place you would want it... in a totally AC system. The clipper can work on AC or DC systems, but you would not want to actually use it on a KZ, or most DC systems. Some scooters and dirt bikes run everything on AC. They usually don't have a regulator (or rectifier), so when going fast on a road, they can start blowing bulbs with too much voltage. For these bikes a clipper is necessary because you can't use a normal shunt regulator with a capacitor. These systems have to change polarity every cycle, so a cap is useless (as a battery would also be un-useable). There are other ways to do it, but the clipper is simplest.


While it is clipping, it burns away a lot of power so it would be a bad idea on most street bikes. It's only a good idea on a bike that was designed to have a weak alternator...one which did not have a lot of excess power (that's why scooters and dirtbikes have dim headlights at idle). That way the clipper is only used during the brief times that the bike is at high RPMs and putting out max power.

Instead of going batteryless the capacitor way. Can I use a "Close" or "Non spillable" rechargable 12v battery?

Yes, AGM or Gel battery, but others will have more info on those. I would start a new thread on "AGM or Gel", or try a search, it's been debated many times.

Wealth of info as usual...