TOPIC:

Just to let everyone know what I did: I did as old_kaw suggested.

I attached the 3 white wires to the 3 yellow stator wires, connected the 1 black to the black/yellow (ground), and I connected the 1 red to the red/white (B+). The red/white I believe (I did this on Saturday and am recalling from memory) went thru the starter relay into the B+ terminal.

Thanks everyone for the help and the information on how Regulator/Rectifiers work!

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote: I seem to remember that the brown voltage sense wire will only ramp up voltage if connected.
People who would boil batteries on old looms would disconnect it.

The regulator uses the brown sense wire to sense system voltage. When the voltage goes up, the regulator reduces output to the battery, and vice versa. Disconnecting it causes the regulator to stop doing anything and full power is output to the battery. Obviously that will boil the battery.

Grounding the sense wire will boil the battery, I recall that leaving the the sense wire disconnected would result in the RR output being a pre-set level rather than a maximum power. But without a unit to test, or the circuit diagram, I can't verify that.

I think it was already well known grounding the sense line on the regulator would boil the battery. That is, as long as it's not connected to the rest of the brown wire circuit. Grounding the brown wire circuit would obviously blow a fuse.

Grounding the sense line or disconnecting it will have the same result... the regulator not seeing battery voltage. That is what is needed: the sense wire having a clean path to the battery. This has been well-documented on Kzrider for many years.

I was disputing the incorrect assessment that disconnecting the regulator's sense line would stop a battery from boiling. It would make it worse, not better. We are trying to give owners of Kz's good advice. The implied suggestion of disconnecting the sense line will cause damage to the electrical system.

loudhvx wrote: <snip>

I was disputing the incorrect assessment that disconnecting the regulator's sense line would stop a battery from boiling. It would make it worse, not better. We are trying to give owners of Kz's good advice. The implied suggestion of disconnecting the sense line will cause damage to the electrical system.

I would say that boiling a battery because of a disconnected sense wire is damaging the electrical system, and any other consequences that may occur to a 40 year old wiring harness. Such is the reason I added the diode to make sure that if my relay failed, that it would hold down the output voltage through the original brown wire less the .7 V diode voltage drop.

I think this charge rate voltage will damage something. Electricity is funny, and this would push any marginal components over the edge.

I suspect a lithium battery would have grenaded well before anything like that happened.
Steve

So what are you supposed to do with the now disconnected sense wire? I don't have anything to connect it to at least coming from the R/R.

One could connect a diode to the sense wire, but what does the other end of the diode connect to?

NOTE: I have the red wire from the R/R connected to the B+ voltage thru the starter relay which made sense when looking at the wiring diagram and based on some of the responses.

Cut it off at the plug or tape it so it won't short out.
Steve

dpivas7 wrote: So what are you supposed to do with the now disconnected sense wire? I don't have anything to connect it to at least coming from the R/R.

One could connect a diode to the sense wire, but what does the other end of the diode connect to?

NOTE: I have the red wire from the R/R connected to the B+ voltage thru the starter relay which made sense when looking at the wiring diagram and based on some of the responses.

When converting to a type of regulator that uses the output wire for voltage sensing, you leave the harness side of the sensing wire unconnected. If you have to pull it out of a connector, make sure to tape it off like Swest said. Make sure it does not make contact with ground since that will blow a fuse.

There is no use for a diode in that configuration. The diode was for a different application, as a safety device.

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote: I seem to remember that the brown voltage sense wire will only ramp up voltage if connected.
People who would boil batteries on old looms would disconnect it.

The regulator uses the brown sense wire to sense system voltage. When the voltage goes up, the regulator reduces output to the battery, and vice versa. Disconnecting it causes the regulator to stop doing anything and full power is output to the battery. Obviously that will boil the battery.

Grounding the sense wire will boil the battery, I recall that leaving the the sense wire disconnected would result in the RR output being a pre-set level rather than a maximum power. But without a unit to test, or the circuit diagram, I can't verify that.

I think it was already well known grounding the sense line on the regulator would boil the battery. That is, as long as it's not connected to the rest of the brown wire circuit. Grounding the brown wire circuit would obviously blow a fuse.

Grounding the sense line or disconnecting it will have the same result... the regulator not seeing battery voltage. That is what is needed: the sense wire having a clean path to the battery. This has been well-documented on Kzrider for many years.

I was disputing the incorrect assessment that disconnecting the regulator's sense line would stop a battery from boiling. It would make it worse, not better. We are trying to give owners of Kz's good advice. The implied suggestion of disconnecting the sense line will cause damage to the electrical system.

Why would a disconnected sense wire drive the output voltage up? It's internally connected to the voltage comparator and the output voltage via a resistor divider network. Do you have some circuits or R/R where a sense wire is the only connection to the comparator? Without the sense wire connected to a harness node with a lower voltage, there is nothing to pull down the resistor network. If you have some Shingengen specs or circuit measurements, can you post them here for verification please.

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote: I seem to remember that the brown voltage sense wire will only ramp up voltage if connected.
People who would boil batteries on old looms would disconnect it.

The regulator uses the brown sense wire to sense system voltage. When the voltage goes up, the regulator reduces output to the battery, and vice versa. Disconnecting it causes the regulator to stop doing anything and full power is output to the battery. Obviously that will boil the battery.

Grounding the sense wire will boil the battery, I recall that leaving the the sense wire disconnected would result in the RR output being a pre-set level rather than a maximum power. But without a unit to test, or the circuit diagram, I can't verify that.

I think it was already well known grounding the sense line on the regulator would boil the battery. That is, as long as it's not connected to the rest of the brown wire circuit. Grounding the brown wire circuit would obviously blow a fuse.

Grounding the sense line or disconnecting it will have the same result... the regulator not seeing battery voltage. That is what is needed: the sense wire having a clean path to the battery. This has been well-documented on Kzrider for many years.

I was disputing the incorrect assessment that disconnecting the regulator's sense line would stop a battery from boiling. It would make it worse, not better. We are trying to give owners of Kz's good advice. The implied suggestion of disconnecting the sense line will cause damage to the electrical system.

Why would a disconnected sense wire drive the output voltage up? It's internally connected to the voltage comparator and the output voltage via a resistor divider network. Do you have some circuits or R/R where a sense wire is the only connection to the comparator? Without the sense wire connected to a harness node with a lower voltage, there is nothing to pull down the resistor network. If you have some Shingengen specs or circuit measurements, can you post them here for verification please.

It's been pretty well documented on this site and probably any other Kz related site that disconnecting the regulator's sense line causes the output voltage of the regulator/rectifier to default to maximum output. old-kaw very kindly verified that in this very thread.

The internal operation of the regulator need not be known. It's a typical black box problem. We make observations of the black box's output relative to the input we give it.

But on top of that, most of the factory service manuals show a pseudo-circuit of the regulator to make it overly pedantic, and obvious to the technician. The sense line powers the regulator. Remove power to the regulator and the regulator is rendered inert... having no affect on the output. The rectifier is then free to output full power to the battery.

I believe Shindengen also published some similar pseudo-circuits to distinguish SCR regulators from mosfet regulators and shunting regulators from series-pass regulators. The standard Kz regulators for permanent-magnet alternators were all SCR shunt. The schematic old_kaw posted is of that type, and illustrates one possible arrangement that works. You can study the comparator on that schematic to see why it works, but I don't know of any full schematics released by Shindengen.

If you notice, the regulator and rectifier are essentially two different, and basically unrelated circuits acting upon the stator output wires. That is why early Kz regs and recs were separate units. They don't need to talk to each other. So what happens if you remove the regulator? All you have left is an unregulated rectifier putting out full power.

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote:

loudhvx wrote:

weeZee wrote: I seem to remember that the brown voltage sense wire will only ramp up voltage if connected.
People who would boil batteries on old looms would disconnect it.

The regulator uses the brown sense wire to sense system voltage. When the voltage goes up, the regulator reduces output to the battery, and vice versa. Disconnecting it causes the regulator to stop doing anything and full power is output to the battery. Obviously that will boil the battery.

Grounding the sense wire will boil the battery, I recall that leaving the the sense wire disconnected would result in the RR output being a pre-set level rather than a maximum power. But without a unit to test, or the circuit diagram, I can't verify that.

I think it was already well known grounding the sense line on the regulator would boil the battery. That is, as long as it's not connected to the rest of the brown wire circuit. Grounding the brown wire circuit would obviously blow a fuse.

Grounding the sense line or disconnecting it will have the same result... the regulator not seeing battery voltage. That is what is needed: the sense wire having a clean path to the battery. This has been well-documented on Kzrider for many years.

I was disputing the incorrect assessment that disconnecting the regulator's sense line would stop a battery from boiling. It would make it worse, not better. We are trying to give owners of Kz's good advice. The implied suggestion of disconnecting the sense line will cause damage to the electrical system.

Why would a disconnected sense wire drive the output voltage up? It's internally connected to the voltage comparator and the output voltage via a resistor divider network. Do you have some circuits or R/R where a sense wire is the only connection to the comparator? Without the sense wire connected to a harness node with a lower voltage, there is nothing to pull down the resistor network. If you have some Shingengen specs or circuit measurements, can you post them here for verification please.

It's been pretty well documented on this site and probably any other Kz related site that disconnecting the regulator's sense line causes the output voltage of the regulator/rectifier to default to maximum output. old-kaw very kindly verified that in this very thread.

The internal operation of the regulator is irrelevant to the external observations. It's a typical black box problem. We make observations of the black box's output relative to the input we give it.

But on top of that, most of the factory service manuals show a pseudo-circuit of the regulator to make it overly pedantic, and obvious to the technician. The sense line powers the regulator. Remove power to the regulator and the regulator is rendered inert... having no affect on the output. The rectifier is then free to output full power to the battery.

I believe Shindengen also published some similar pseudo-circuits to distinguish SCR regulators from mosfet regulators and shunting regulators from series-pass regulators. The standard Kz regulators for permanent-magnet alternators were all SCR shunt. The schematic old_kaw posted is of that type, and illustrates one possible arrangement that works. You can study the comparator on that schematic to see why it works, but I don't know of any full schematics released by Shindengen.

If you notice, the regulator and rectifier are essentially two different, and basically unrelated circuits acting upon the stator output wires. That is why early Kz regs and recs were separate units. They don't need to talk to each other. So what happens if you remove the regulator? All you have left is an unregulated rectifier putting out full power.

You've put forward a theory, but you don't support it with data. An integrated R/R with a sense wire is connected to both the sense wire and the regulator output, there's normally also a zener which doubles as a temperature compensator, a filter network of capacitors paralleled with a resistor in a positive feedback arrangement. This is the contemporary tech used at the time and I attach a Lucas circuit for illustration (though it controls a field coil rather than a SCR bank). If you have better information, or measurements, I respectfully request you to post it here. .

It's not a theory. It is the report of observations... observations seen in this very thread. And really, it's long established fact.

Your posting is completely irrelevant to permanent-magnet charging systems on Kz's, which is what this thread is about.

If you want to change the subject completely, to excited-field alternators, then your post would be entirely relevant and your original speculation about what would happen when the sense line is removed would be correct. But permanent magnet is a different system regulated in a fundamentally different way.

There are 20 years of posts on Kzrider establishing the operations of both systems. They are very different from each other.

Sorry, but I'm referring to the sense wires on Shindengen RR units, specifically the circuit used to compensate for voltage drop in the loom.
Now if you have some results of the output battery voltage going over a 14.3v preset when the sense wire is floating, that would be informative.
There is no good engineering design reason to have an independent sense circuit in a regulator.
You're making an unsubstantiated assertion, and I find that it's easier to deal with data than egos.