More help required with my fireblade charging system please.

I have just fried my second regulator in 200 miles. The first was the standard Blade one and it was allowing 17v @ 3000 revs
The second one came from a CX500 and was apparently ok. It has a black wire extra over the standard Fireblade one, providing 12v. Maybe foolishly I connected the red/white and the black to the live feed to the starter relay (red/white) The voltage was 13.6v under all loads.
All was fine and dandy until we tested the fuel capacity of the tank and the battery drained trying to start it. We bumped it and it went happily on its' way. However 70 miles later (with the lights on), the battery had insufficient charge to restart the car, again it bumped fine. I charged the battery overnight (14.5 volts static) and the car starts fine, showing 13v, dropping to 12.5 with the lights on. I disconnected the black wire from the red/white connection and now it makes 19v at @3000 and 14.6 at tickover.
So
Have I fired the regulator by connecting both wires together?
Should the alternator be making 19v anyway
Am i missing something obvious?
If I shouldn't be connecting the red/white and the black, what should I be doing with the black wire? Will taping it up be ok?
I have the 3 whites from the alternator connected to the Yellows and the green to earth
I have a spare regulator but I'm reticent to connect it up if it is going to be a trilogy of fried regulators.
Cheer
Dave

[Edited on 30/10/07 by macdave69]

Did you bump start it or jump start it? Jump starting bike engines can be bad..

Have you got the Haynes wiring diagram? Randomly disconnecting wires is not good for regulators!! It definately shouldn't be making 19v but it fundamentally depends on what the disconnected wires are!!!

Get the wiring diagram. Check all the connections, recheck all the wiring (you may have assumed you've done something but in fact done something very different) and plug in the spare regulator.

A regulator should control the voltage across the battery to around 14.5volts...

Bear in mind though it also depends what revs you're doing. The st1100 alternator is puny and below 1500k you're actually losing battery charge...

It was bumped
The disconnected wire is a 12v supply intended for auxilliary circuits, these are fed from a fused supply on the starter relay on the fireblade.
To be honest I have never had a problem jump starting bikes, in fact there was no way on earth to bump a Triumph Speed Triple, that always had "issues" and the R1 certainly wouldn't even consider bumping either, However that's not the issue. I have hecked the wiring diagrams on the blade and the regulator donors and the only difference is the black wire, which I disconnected. however was having it spiced into the red/white the cause of the failure?
cheers
Dave

how/where have you got your reg mounted ? As it got plenty of "heat sink" underneath it, i know some have even put little fans on them, I have had no trouble with mine since I put it on a piece of ally on the lower chassis rails, gets plenty of cool air flow when on the move.

blown reg rec's are the curse of older honda cbrs. My cbr400rr went through 2 whilst I had it.

I'm guessing its a 94-98 ish? i'd trawl the blade forums to find advise.

It's mounted in the transmission tunnel, so in pretty good airflow. i'll have a look on the blade forum now
Cheers
Dave

The tranmission tunnel? Really? Mine gets seriously toasty.
When it's cold I warm my hands on it!!! Lots of trapped hot air....

my trans tunnel was well hot, the hole by the gear shifter was like a hot air blower!

quote:

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Originally posted by JoelP
my trans tunnel was well hot, the hole by the gear shifter was like a hot air blower!

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Sounds knackered to me, I have had a few, some gave no charge which is a pain, one gave 19v and fried the battery so I would not chance it.

Any three phase rectifier will do so just look on Ebay for cheap ones that look hefty, the one I have no is from a ducati for £5 as i blanket bid a few quid on everything until one sold...... All you need look for is the three yellow wires, a red and black.

nb/ mines up front under the rad, the coller the better.

Sounds knackered to me, I have had a few, some gave no charge which is a pain, one gave 19v and fried the battery so I would not chance it.

Any three phase rectifier will do so just look on Ebay for cheap ones that look hefty, the one I have now is from a ducati for £5 as I blanket bid a few quid on everything until one sold...... All you need look for is the three yellow wires, a red and black.

nb/ mines up front under the rad, the cooler the better.


[Edited on 29/10/07 by mark chandler]

The first one was inside the car and blew within 15 miles, the second is in the underside of the transmission tunnel and has lasted @ 200,
Can't really think of anywhere else to put it really. I could extend the wires and put it in the engine bay but it'll probably be hotter nearer the engine

Ok then,
I'll move it up front tomorrow. I still need to work out what to do with the spare 12v feed (black) do I leave it unconnected, or do I disconnect the switched feed from the starter relay and replace it with the one from the reg rectifier

Has it got and heat sink on it, I blew 2 before I added a heat sink and no trouble since. Mines in the engine bay directly behing the engine so lots of heat in there and not a lot of airflow but a good ali heatsink and plenty of surface to radiate.
Its a central machined block of aluminium with 6 FET cooling finns attached.


heatsink

sorry for the size and quality of the pic

The alternator will make a variable AC voltage that rises as the revs go up. The reg/rec converts this to DC and cuts it down to 14.4 volts which is what causes it to get hot.

Yours sounds the same as the superdream rectifier (which is what I and many others have used as an alternative to the blade original. It is finned to aid cooling and also has the extra black wire which indeed needs to be connected to a 12v switched supply in order to regulate the voltage (think I connected to a spare feed under the dash.)
I've mounted mine low, toward the front offside of engine bay in order to get a cooler airflow over it.
Do a search for 'superdream rectifier' under member's username 'shortie' as he has a wiring diag. for it. (sorry, can't do links)

HTH
Andy

Thanks for the posts guys, I'm off to Maplins to buy some heat sinks, which I will attach to some 8mm ally plate. I reckon I can attach it to the engine cradle low down. The wiring diagram is exactly what I needed. Do you reckon a pc fan will help although it would need to be waterproof

quote:

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Originally posted by macdave69
Thanks for the posts guys, I'm off to Maplins to buy some heat sinks, which I will attach to some 8mm ally plate. I reckon I can attach it to the engine cradle low down. The wiring diagram is exactly what I needed. Do you reckon a pc fan will help although it would need to be waterproof

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more stuff for my Maplins shopping list

Well I did everything I was advised and I still have 19volts

Is the black wire supposed to receive switched live or give it out. There was no output from the black with the motor running so now, with a beer in my hand I'm wondering if it should take the 12v feed.
Any ideas, I am 2 days away from taking the car to Towcester for a rolling road session, and I could do with bottoming this problem
Cheers guys

dunno this reg,

but often there are some that need connected to the battery to actually know what they are doing.

than you have the main positive wich is the feed to the battery.

then you have the yellow ones that are the coils from the dynamo.

the difference between an alternator and a dynamo is that a dynamo uses a magnet and a alternator uses another coil of wire.

my car (BEC) can run with the battery disconnected this is because it can run from the energy wich is generated in time

Tks

The black wire should receive an ignition fed live. Another tip I've found is to run with the lights on, less work for the rectifier to do as some of the extra voltage is being used up.

[Edited on 6/11/07 by Peteff]

just to add my 2p
I went through 2 reg rec in as many months and to be fair it always got really hot.
I bought one of these Rectifier
and also and was much better (still warm but no way near as hot as standard.
Then I mounted a PC fan above it and it doesn't even get warm now which is fantastic. (Mine mounted in engine bay BTW)
Hope this helps
Cheers
Eddie