Info Manual

Motorcycle Voltage regulator protects the battery from overcharging by shunting the coil winding, that is why it is an important part of any motorcycle electrical. Replacing a defective unit is a trial and error process if u will be using an aftermarket one and not the OEM replacement.

This post is not against aftermarket but why in the world a friendly motorcycle shop offer a regulator like this. Costumer ask for one, seller gave this part, of course the buyer would not tell the difference between a good and a bad one, i'd say really a BAD one, a FAKE voltage regulator in a well formed housing. (sad).

Out from curiosity, a friend of mine who have a HONDA wave wanting his charging system be converted to full wave system to accommodate the High Intensity Discharge lighting installed. He decided to buy a full wave regulator from his friendly motorcycle part store. I was confused when i test for resistances between pins and only found two pin with resistance. And since i build regulators for motorcycle, i knew there is wrong his unit, that instead of using it, i installed my prebuilt one and enjoy using his HID.
As part of understanding voltage regulator, i opened the regulator. Patience if u want the board intact, hard headed mode if u want it dispose after opening.
Left is the problematic voltage regulator. This regulator will be left destroyed unlike from my previous post here FULL wave regulator that i need the board intact and replicate it. From the very first smash of my flat screwdriver on the aluminum casing, I already know it is FAKE!!! no circuit board.

Moving on, I also noticed bits of sand, What the heck? Sand inside the unit, hmm (at the last of this page i'll tell you the purpose of that sand.)

No circuit board is found on the connector side, All you can see is on the photo.

DIODE. yes only diode soldered on two pin, other two pin not connected, so that is why i  only get one resistance from all the pin available. Too bad. If this unit was place and use on board your motorcycle. Lots of thing may happen, One can overcharge your battery, boil the plates and spill out electrolyte that will cause corrosion on chassis and metal of your bike. Two is overvoltage within your entire electrical system, bust the lights, a defective igniter, and worst, Fried wiring harness.

So as part of educational purposes, Be aware of fake voltage regulators, buy from a reputable store or online products, and do buy a branded one.

CONCLUSION:
The sand was placed inside the fake regulator for one purpose only. WEIGHT. the regulator without any circuit board and just diode will weigh less and may be very noticeable by the buyer. (clever idea huh!) but you cannot fool the ones who know to use the resistance meter. (take that!!!)

RECOMMENDATION
use multimeter and test all possible pin available with the probe, if u get one resistance from all the pin, it is likely to be fake. Just don't plug it in your motorcycle electrical system, test it on the bench.

Installing High Intensity Discharge on a small motorcycle which utilizes the Half Wave charging system will surely have lots of problem when it comes to battery not being charge to the fullest when using HID. This kind of lighting system actually not common to users consume a lot of current from striking the bulb all the way up to where it stabilizes. Even the re-striking from momentarily turning off the HID SYSTEM consumes battery power.

How to compensate for the loss of charge when using HID system?...The answer, by converting the original half wave system into a full wave generator, by altering the winding of the generator inside the crankcase. Looking at the graph of each type below.



By analyzing each of the graph generated by such system, it is very obvious that the full wave 3P when rectified and filtered produces a clean stable dc, that is why many sportsbike and higher displacement machine uses this kind of system. But why do they not used this on smaller bikes like moped and scooters.

Probably because of COST and size of the system. that is why manufacturers, instead relied on the low cost smaller size half wave generator system for carbureted type small machines. We cannot denied the fact, low cost means limited function.

Fuel injected nowadays been incorporated to small bikes like Shogun FI, honda scoopy I, and almost but not all bikes in thailand uses FI uses the three phase system already, so fitting HID system is of no trouble.

But how about to carbureted type?

It can be done, again by changing and converting it to full wave system to generate a more stable dc that will charge the onboard battery and compensate the losses done by the HID system..

FURTHERMORE, never insist the half wave system is enough for hid installation. It is simply not enough even if upgrading to a larger battery capacity.

Disclaimer: I will not held responsible if something goes wrong upon using this conversion without enough knowledge of how the system works, and electrical / technical skills at hand.. BE ADVISED that this modification is not intended for beginner or first time doing it. 

Getting deeper.

Materials needed.

1. full wave rectifier / regulator (known as R / R too many) like this Full wave regulator 5 wire
2. soldering iron at least 50-100watts
3. high temp insulator tube  
4. OPTIONAL : New crankcase cover gasket (when returning the modified stator and placing the cover back to the engine) 
5. A digital or analog multimeter (tester too many)

This stator is from a Suzuki SKYWAVE 125cc, same with shogun FD125XRM and Shogun FL125. There are three wire soldered to its connector base, find the ground by using a mutimeter set to OHMS , connect the black probe to the stator body and red probe to any of the three soldered wires.

The one with the lowest reading of the three is the wire connected directly to ground, with the highest being the end of the winding that will be used later, the last winding will not be used since it is the lighting coil output and will be disregarded all through out the procedure.

Remove the soldered wire to the stator body to FLOAT all windings...(all windings must not touch the body of the stator, full wave will have its own ground via the BRIDGE rectifier of the FULL wave regulator.)

With the ground wire desoldered from its original position, insert the high temperature tube and solder the wire removed from the lighting coil..

FOR SHOGUN its the yellow wire with white strip.

For other brand..please follow your wiring diagram.


what we trying to do here is getting the two end of the stator winding and removing the GROUND from the stator body as shown on the illustration.


when done, first is first..check for continuity and resistance of the whole winding before returning back the cover to ensure everything done is OK!!

Getting ready to wire the regulator from the modified generator



It is very difficult to know if the purchased R/R is a half wave or full wave if check only by appearance although manufacturers uses color coded wire like the photo shown, perhaps by using a diode tester (multimeters) and check every wire, we might be able to distinguished them. As i had told you, there are 4 pin and 5pin full wave available out in the market. If in a way you find such like as shown then probability is they are the same.



By following the color of the wires

1. Green -- ground
2. Red    -- to battery positive line
3. Yellow -- to charging coil (any of the two winding out from the stator)
4. Pink --- to charging coil (interchangeable with yellow)
5. Black --- To after ignition key switch

To be sure and safe, for this test use appropriate FUSE  within the positive line going to the battery. its the last line of defense when it comes to possible wrong connection.

Disconnect all loads from the battery, if you have access to another way of supplying your CD ignition then do so..because we have to start the engine to perform TEST. with the help of the multimeter set to DC voltage. tap it to the battery that is connected to the regulator..

GREEN to black probe
RED to red probe

check voltage....you are reading the battery voltage, on the ignition key and take a look at value, after turning on the key engine OFF, the voltage must not be dropping and stay close to the initial reading.

kick the KICK starter, and stay it at idle, monitor the voltage. READING must now be moving up possible to 13 volts or 14 volts..(depends on the condition of the battery)..

SLOWLY REV the engine while monitoring the voltage reading of the tester.....

as you are revving the engine..voltage must stay close to 15 volts not over 16 volts (overcharging threshold of lead acid battery)..

if all test performed are ok with regulator not to temperature....PUT a load on the battery such as your HID installed...then start the SAME TEST again...

at first when you turn on the High intensity discharge system..at IDLE the voltage must not be dropping and will stay close to 12-13 volts..

if it is, then the system is already working..By looking at the graph above..FULL wave due to the better DC filtering, at idle or low rpm still charging the battery unlike the HALF wave where in the dc is fluctuating.

Full wave also has a better shunting than half wave to the configuration of the rectifying diodes.


NOW u can enjoy your HID system, just make sure you are responsible enough to stoop down the beam for others. happy motoring.



NOTE: since the lighting coil is disconnected and no longer used, all that was connected before will be redirected to the battery being battery operated.

UPDATED

For the full schematic diagram of the regulator on this article, you can visit this link

FULL WAVE REGULATOR SCHEMATIC

VIDEO of this conversion. (many thanks to Thiago Ken Fuzita)

Before attempting to use all circuits here regarding voltage regulator for motorcycles, let us first differentiate the two system. Not all machine are the same especially with the design of the voltage regulator. There are single phase system that uses half and full wave charging system, and three phase system that uses half wave system..By looking at this block diagrams, you will be able to determine what system your bike uses by following the connection. FJPGVS6ZRZW7


First and foremost, the single phase, the picture above illustrates a single system half wave regulation, you can see that the one end of the stator is connected to ground, via earth ground, the coil has also a center tap on the winding for your headlight and the output will also be regulated by the voltage regulator..this kind of regulator is a single phase half wave system, if the end of the winding is no where connected to ground then the system will be a full wave.

Here is another voltage regulator for motorcycle design to be used on single phase stator.
This is the simplest full wave design commonly used on almost all commuter bikes  with 4 pin connector. Do not be mistaken with the half wave versions, for this one cannot be used on half wave stator design to which the other end of the windings is directly connected to ground. Again this is for a  FULL WAVE converted stator design and modifications.
By looking at the schematic, and comparing it to my previous post of voltage regulators, it is almost identical, with the design, and only component values are different. C1, R1, Q1, D1, and R3 compromising the sensing and regulating circuit, whereas D2,D3, Q2 and Q3 are the shunting components of the stator winding.


D4 to D7 are your rectifiers that converts the AC coming from the stator to DC for charging your battery. With the values as shown, the output of this regulator is 14.4 at 5000rpm. You can modify this circuit for your intended application, to output 15 volts rather than 14.4 for quick charging of your battery when there are too much load on your system, by altering D1, to 13 volts rather than 12.6 volts..
This system is Stator dependent...meaning, this can't output more power on what your stator can give, all charging system power rely on your stator max output...

Part list


R1= 3.3k ohms
R2= 1 k ohms
R3= 1.5k ohms
R4= 100 ohms
Q1= 2n5401
C1= 10uf / 25volts
D1= 12.6 volts zener / 1 watt
D2 /D3= 1n4007
SCR1 /SCR2= bt151-500 or bt151-600
D4-D7= bridge rated 100v 10A

This circuit was modified by a friend (Tom ) for his 6 volt honda vintage bike CT90 that was needing a voltage regulator. He derived this from my previous post of 12 volt single phase motorcycle voltage regulator FULL WAVE. With only minimal changes with the values created the hard to find regulator for 6 volt charging system.





CIRCUIT CHANGES and description


Use:6 volt Regulator Rectifier for 1976 Honda CT90 (permanent magnet alternator)
Base circuit:"full wave regulator" single phase  12 volts regulator
Circuit mods:Results were collected with the following modifications to accommodate a 6 volt systems:

R2 & R4 values = 470 ohms
C1 = 22uF 50v
SCR's = S6025L 25amp 600 volt Heat sinks a must even with short testing
Bridge rectifier = purchased 35 amp 600 volt AC, 1000 volt DC


Zener diodes as shown below
R3 values as shown below

Regulation output as shown:No load & Headlight on

With zener 1N4733 (5.1v)various RPM's

R3 2.7K ohms 6.6v stable    5.9v +/- .25v load.
R3 3.3K ohms 6.9v stable    6.3v +/- .25v load
R3 3.6K ohms 7.1v stable    6.4 +/- .25v load

With zener 1N4734 (5.6v)various RPM's

R3 2.7K ohms7.3v stable   6.6v +/- .25v load*
R3 3.3K ohms7.6v stable   6.9v +/- .25v load
R3 3.6K ohms7.8v stable   7.1v +/- .25v load

Thanks to Sir Tom, cheers mate.

Picture borrowed from Sir TOM who actually made the 6 volt system

Many enthusiast and motorcycle rider ride their bike, using electric starter to start the engine undoubtly knowing the battery gone flat, charging system might have gone down but no visual indicator that the system indeed is not charging or have problems...so in the first place why not build one to visualize you anything bout  battery voltage on board the bike.

Using pic microcontroller and little components, you can create one like as shown.

A full wave regulator is a type of regulator mostly found on small motorcycle that can enhance the charging system of motorcycle battery. It can be bought in a four pin or in a five pin configuration as shown on the left. It is also being used widely by enthusiast that convert their single phase half wave generator onto a full wave by altering the stator windings.

Wondering what is inside this kind of regulator and how it differs from those commonly used HALF wave regulator, you are in luck for i have the time and resources to open up this donor regulator. it took me hours of heating up, scraping the coating to expose the main board and parts.

Here it is.

with the help of a portable blow torch, soldering iron, a small flat screwdriver, and a bit of patience, I carefully removed the top coating of this regulator exposing the bottom of the PCB. and noticed the smd (surface mount devices). Seeing that makes me more careful of not scrapping them from their location.

Patience is the key when doing this kind of hobby.




















HOURS later,


Have to desolder first all components to pull out the pcb.














 The bridge rectifier that needs to be heatsinked.
 the epoxy residue..(too tough to scrape)
 top view
 side view

back view
















And the schematic of this board


By comparing this to my previous post

Single Phase Shunt Regulator (full wave)

They are almost identical, but as i have said, the regulator above is a five wire type, the schematic shown on left is a four pin type. The difference, the circuit within the link is always connected to the battery thus leakage is present. while as this regulator has a wire (BLACK) that is connected after the ignition switch and not directly to the battery.

It was used for one reason:

1. when ignition off, monitoring circuit of the schematic is disabled, no current will be taken from the battery when stored, or park.

We have a saying " its better to have more than to have enough" This particular five wire regulators can be used on four wire type. just connect the black and red together..

By looking at the schematic, and comparing it to my previous post of voltage regulators, it is almost identical, with the design, and only component values are different. C1, R1, Q1, D1, and R3 compromising the sensing and regulating circuit, whereas D2,D3, Q2 and Q3 are the shunting components of the stator winding.


D4 to D7 are your rectifiers that converts the AC coming from the stator to DC for charging your battery. With the values as shown, the output of this regulator is 14.4 at 5000rpm. You can modify this circuit for your intended application, to output 15 volts rather than 14.4 for quick charging of your battery when there are too much load on your system, by altering D1, to 13 volts rather than 12.6 volts..
This system is Stator dependent...meaning, this can't output more power on what your stator can give, all charging system power rely on your stator max output...

Note: further again..the generator to be used here do not touch the ground or not connected to any ground. 

This is a circuit for regulating the output voltage on small engines. This circuit will work on engines that were originally equipped with a shunt type of voltage regulator. It is common on motorcycles, skidoos, ATVs and other recreational vehicles. This circuit was tested out on a Suzuki GS400E motorcycle and seems to function fairly well.



The above picture in comparison with the other voltage regulator posted here SCR regulator was, this one uses differential amplifier to detect battery voltage and control SCR .This has a number of advantages over using a zener diode to directly trip the gate of the
SCR.

 These are:
1)If the battery voltage is forced above 13.5V, the circuit limits the current into the gate of the SCR 
preventing damage to the regulator when changing the battery 
2)The circuit is more stable over temperature. 

The main drawback is that the circuit is leaky. The differential pair should be connected after the ignition
switch to prevent the battery from draining when the engine is not used for a long period of time. This
connection is shown as MONITOR in the schematic. The output of the bridge rectifier ties to the battery at
the BATTERY connection.

With the differential pair, the base input for Q2 is connected to a voltage reference consisting of D1 and
R9. The base input for Q1 is connected to a voltage divider that monitors the battery voltage. When the
voltage on the base of Q2 is higher than the voltage on the base of Q1, Q1 will turn on shunting all of the
current from R5 to ground. When the voltage on the base of Q2 is lower than the voltage on the base of
Q1, then Q2 will turn on. This will shunt the current of R5 through the limiting resistors to the gates of the
SCR. The SCR will turn on and short out the phase. Since the stator voltages are AC, the SCR will reset at
the end of the cycle when the voltage reaches 0.

Not all motorcycle regulator are created equal. This article will tell you how a fake regulator looks like if dismantled. From the housing you will never tell, but what is inside shall tell the difference between a good and a really bad one. From the time it was handed over to me by a friend to look at it. Even i was not sure it was faked. From this post Voltage regulator you wont see the difference externally, they are almost identical, the weight and the appearance, but.....

Bad regulator

Good working regulator

If they are taken side by side, they are identical. Now let us tear down this fake regulator and compare it to the one i posted before and let us see what was inside.
More photo of the said fake regulator properly filled with epoxy resin. Nice job.. It is time to dismantle you. Using my handy dandy mini blow torch and flat screwdriver,
I stripped an area to get down the bottom of it, but to my surprise, the flat screw driver gets punched down easily and here is what happened. White Sand comes down pouring out of the hole made by the screwdriver.
Another photo of this BEACH filled regulator.

From here, I know already what was inside this fake regulator, I already posted one here fake regulator 4 pin

Digging down what was started

After minutes of heating up the epoxy resin and stripping with the screw driver. Here is what inside. A DIODE, yes a rectifier diode

the half of the diode is left inside, take a closer look

A good working motorcycle regulator must have a board and other components aside from a diode.

There are four wires coming out from this regulator and all wires must not have a continuity if test by a multimeter. The green wire and the pink wire on this fake regulator are connected with each other, to which in a good regulator, are separated to other circuitry.

Closer look. So I advice to take precautionary measure of dealing with such kind by using continuity tester. If not familiar with it then bring someone with you when buying motorcycle part like this from your friendly store..(are they really friendly or just taking away your money).

Shogun FL125 charging system is actually the same as shogun FD125XRM. This article will show you how to test your electrical preferably the CHARGING and lighting system.













CHARGING and LIGHTING wiring diagram



Here i'll be giving you where and what to check if you are having problems with battery charging and lighting problems. You'll be needing a multi meter a digital with a diode test to perform troubleshooting your own bike.

LOCATION of SHOGUN FL125 Regulator 


The regulator is located in front when you take off front cover, shown in number 2 with part number SH672, remove the connector shown in number 1, set your multimeter to diode test and follow the next picture for the right data.

You dont need to turn your ignition, this is to test the leakage on your Regulator.







The reading of all the test must be close to what is written above, if there is a short or almost 0 on the digital read out then the Regulator is defective.

If all test of the regulator is OK!! we then proceed with the generator system and lighting coils resistance and voltage.

GENERATOR Resistance and Voltage check

Set the digital multimeter in resistance range.


Disconnect the  black connector as shown to perform resistance and voltage check, this is the connector of the generator, other is for the pick-up coil and ground.














for lighting coil resistance, connect the multimeter probe to Y/W (yellow with white strip wire) and to ground..

The reading must be
0.4 - 1.0 ohms

and for the charging coil, connect probe to W/R (white wire with red strip) and ground.

The value must be
0.6 - 1.2 ohms


VOLTAGE CHECK

NOTE: 
This check must be taken with safety because we are talking about AC voltages here. No wires from the generator must not touch any metal on the chassis. Youll be needing to crank the engine and rev to 5000 rpm to test the generator output.



Multimeter is set to AC voltage range. connect probes as shown, AC do not have polarity so either way..

W/R and ground rev at 5000 rpm must read
50 volts AC or more but no more than 100 volts

Y/W and ground rev at 5000 rpm should read
40 volts AC or more but not more than 80 volts

readings not close or lower than the specified value means there are problems with the generator windings, either there are short due to exposed wires inside and or the skin coating of the enamel wires of the windings are already exposed to the oil.

GOODLUCK with the test.

UPDATED

Full schematic wiring diagram of this bike can be found here

SHOGUN COMPLETE WIRING DIAGRAM

This is another voltage regulator for motorcycles that uses Field Effect Transistor for better charging efficiency of the system, although still using half wave bridge system on charging the battery, the control to which the system monitors the battery condition. What makes it better is that is a MOSFET controlled device rather than the crude SCR shunt type that is on most bikes until recently and also is a 50A rated device.
MUCH better voltage regulation and runs cooler too due to more efficient devices and control circuitry.The SCR shunt type consumes more energy in the Regulator itself than the bike is using and dumps a ton of current into the heatsink (feel yours & just see how hot those things run!!!! - don't touch it - you'll burn yourself - seriously!) The problem is exacerbated because their efficiency goes even lower when they get HOT so it's a vicious circle. Heat is the number 1 killer of these devices.
Incidentally its a misconception that shunt type work harder with increased load i.e. higher-wattage lights, etc - actually, the higher the load on the output, the less work the shunt regulator does in dumping that excess energy and will actually run cooler!!

The FET has extremely low resistance in conducting state and this results in a lower dissipated power from the device while conducting load current, as opposed to the SCR which shunts the maximum current across a significant volt drop, resulting in a higher dissipated power - and resulting temperature, much more so than the FET device. 

CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION

The circuit is straight forward, It is not a shunt regulator, but a SERIES type of voltage regulator. D1 to D6 comprises the RECTIFIER diode which converts the AC generated by the 3 phase stator, Q1, Q2 and Q3 as the switch that controls the flow of voltage and current to charge the battery, Q1 and Q2 must be heatsink, since this type of regulator is in series mode, and no shunting will happen on all the windings, thus LOAD is particulary important on this kind of regulator.
IC2 inverting input has a two resistor in a differential way thus R4 and R5 is very critical on this design so the value must be at least 2% tolerance. When the IC2 input sense a high voltage, it switches ON Q4 and immediately allow it to control those power transistor flow via Q3, the circuit in RED is like a faucet that controls the flow of water. The circuit in GREEN are the voltage sense circuitry, and The Blue box is the source voltages with the rectifying diodes.

Motorcycle voltage regulator commonly uses shunt type in order to control the output of the generator. Shunting the winding to ground is easier than controlling the output of the regulator by those series type.

Circuit on the left is still a shunt regulator controlling the windings, with parts easily obtainable from your local electronic supply stores.



CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION:

D2 and D1 are the SCR that will control the voltage output of the generator, as the rpm of the engine rises D4 and D5 will convert the AC to DC and shall charge the battery, as the battery is being charged, it is been monitored by Q1, R1, D3 and R4 that comprises the voltage threshold of the entire unit and must be adjusted to 14.4 volts cut off. When the sense circuit seen the voltage rises, Q1 will be turned ON and current will then flow towards the gate of the two SCR turning them on thus shunting the windings not to generate more than needed, protecting the battery from overcharging.

NOTE that this circuit do not have a HEADLIGHT controlling device and or headlight regulator, its for charging battery only on motorcycles with stator.