Q for Lou or other electrical gurus

Got an over charging issue with my 1980 KZ 750 H I sent another post on what it was doing, but it might have sounded more like jibberish lol. My regulator is not shutting off the juice. The bike is no longer wired as stock so I am thinking I have done something wrong. The reg is only 10 months old and as it revs up (under no load because the head lights were disconnected for testing) it would reach about 14.68 volts so it is staying open all the time. My question multi part. how does the reg know when to shut off? What does the brown wire coming out of the reg do and does it provide power? recieve power? I currently have it hooked to the ignition side of a 3 pos ignition switch (B-I-S). I have the reg ground wire going directly to neg pole of battery with a 14 ga wire and the batt grounded to the engine- would that be too much ground? (as a friend of mine had said) Thanks for any help

I answered the other thread. If you had the regulator hooked up as you say, it should be working. 14.68 is high, but not too high. If it never goes higher than that, it should be ok. Keep an eye on the water level on the battery, especially in the summer.

Your grounding sounds fine, really good actually, but I don't know why the Dyna ignition is acting goofy.

If you could draw your schematic, that would help. I use MSpaint in Windows (comes free with Windows). It's easy, but takes a little time to learn. You could draw it on paper and take a photo or scan it.

Remember to watch out for the image-size limits on KZR.

Like in this thread:
kzrider.com/component/option,com_joomlab...ew/id,40407/catid,4/

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2006/04/24 09:43

14.68V?
What are the specifications for your meters accuracy? Plus or minus 2%, 5%, 10%??/
-Duck

Thanks for the reply guys, i checked it again and this time reved it up higher and I got 15.12v with it reved up high. That was as high as i could get it to go.I am thinking that is too much juice and that is what is frying my dyna unit (just longish-45min runs at highway rpms over a period of time). how does the regulator know when to shut off? Should I put a diode in there and if so what kind and where would I get one? I am thinking that the regulator is fried as well as the dyna. My friend said i should I should restrict the size of ground off the regulator and not run it directly to the batt neg terminal ( I didn't understand the theory behind that, but he said with a smaller ground it would not be telling the reg to keep charging)As far as the wiring diagram I will have to work on that after this weekend. Thanks for the help
Mark

Dont know if this will be much use but I had a similar overcharging issue lat year and traced it to a bad connection in the block coming out of the regulator. Everything looked ok but when I tugged on the individual wires one connection disintegrated. I think it was the brown one but am not really sure. Whichever wire it was the regulator was not getting the info needed to shut off.

Hope your fix is as simple.

Mark, yes 15v is too high. Definitely have a problem, but I don't think 15v should fry the Dyna. Maybe it jumps up from time to time.

Anyway, there can be two causes. Either the brown wire is not getting full voltage to the regulator, or the regulator is bad. When you rev and have 15v to the battery, you need to measure the voltage on the brown wire at the regulator. It should be about the same as the battery (15v). If it's the same, then the regulator is bad (assuming you have a good ground which it seems you do).

If the brown wire has a lower voltage like 14v, then there is a bad connection somewhere. I would start by cleaning or replacing the fuse box. Next would be the key/ignition switch.

If the brown is getting low voltage, you could try to use a bunch of heavy diodes to reduce the output voltage as your friend suggests, but that is sort of just masking the problem which will only get worse and eventually the brown wire will have no connection. Then everything will surely fry.

If the regulator is bad, you should get a new (used) one. I've seen them as low as $10 on Ebay.

Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2006/04/25 02:41

I don't recommend this, but since you asked...

.

Lou,
Thanks for your very clear and specific instructions. My brn wire was wired to the 3 pos ignition switch (on the I pole)directly so it was getting everything that was coming into the switch (up to 15v). The original regulator had melted the wiring harness so what I did is disassemble the harness and put some new wire and connectors on to the new regulator harness. I was trying to be carefull and keep the 3 yellow wires seperate and in the same order/position on the regulator harness. What if anything could happen if I mistakenly switched the yellow wires coming in from the alt? Also where would I find one of those 30 amp diodes? (I was actually thinking of placing a diode betweent the power and the dyna/coils so I could save the ignition )I went to radio shack to get some diodes but could only find 12v diodes with a max of 21 Ma. I called dyna and they said that the unit could take up to 19v spike but long term use of 15+ volts may be too much for it. He suggested I use a 1 ohm resister on the coil power wire and run the dyna off that. He was against the diode use going to the dyna and His theory was that the diode would only allow power from one direction. I would think a resister would only keep the spikes down but a steady higher voltage would still be able to make it through the resister (or am I mistaken?)Still sounds like a diode would be the way to go.
Mark

Your theory on the diode is correct. I believe the Dyna technician is wrong. (I've spoken to them before and while they are very knowledgeable, they lack a little in electrical theory.) The diode would work in either place as you suggest and would drop 1 volt or so.

A 1-ohm resistor, where he suggests, would drop around 5 or 6 volts. The resistor would have to be at least 50 watts.

The resistor will reduce spikes more than the diode, but both won't really do what you need if it is capable of melting wires.

If the regulator is really bad enough to melt wires, it is probably putting out larger spikes than 15 volts. I would strongly suggest a new regulator.

Radio Shack carries diodes (not LED's) that will do the job of reducing the voltage by about 1 volt. You can put several in parallel to handle the current, or you can use a bridge rectifier as a big diode. It has a mount for a heat sink which must be used. The bridge will reduce by about 1.5 to 2 volts, but this won't be much good for a 20v spike.

The yellow wires can be swapped around no problem.

Here's what you need if you don't want to get a new regulator. The "ac" contacts should be connected to each other.



Post edited by: loudhvx, at: 2006/04/26 14:17

Have you load tested that battery?My 1000 did the same thing because the battery was weak.

Thanks for all the help. I am sorry ESPECIALLY TO LOU for taking up so much of your time with my questions. I am assuming that your pic of the bridge rectifier the direction of flow is from neg to pos correct? If so, I would just run power coming into the neg pole and out to what ever I am powering from the + pole correct? I have already replaced the regulator once (about 8 months ago with a new unit) The previous(poss original) regulator was what melted the wiring harness.As far as I can tell now the current reg. has NOT burned any wiring. I just thought I should get more than 8 months out of a reg. The bridge rec. shows to be 50v. does it just reduce incoming voltage (whatever amount it is) by 2 volts up to a maximum of 50 volts? I was thinking a diode if you bought a 12v diode it would not allow more than 12v to get through am I wrong? If radio shack has diodes that would work what am I looking for part # if poss or specs would be helpful.