Battery won't charge By bumpa (Read 12,509 times)

[bumpa]

I have 2 2008 lifan scooters. Both were jumped by running verhicles.Replaced both stators. Bought new regulator.One has 24 miles other has 7,000 miles. Output from both are the same,not charging batteries. Stator output at yellow and pink wires are 25 volts AC unplugged from regulator.Plugged in yellow and pink are 3 voltsDC positive. Red wire is battery reading while bike is running. Does anyone have any idea what I can do to get the battery to charge while running the scooter??Thanks

[sprocket]

Are you certain you bought the correct regulator /rectifier? Get the batteries load tested. The charging from a running vehicle could have fried them.

What do you get between the red wire and ground when the bike is running but the battery is not connected?

If this is below ~13.5 volts, then the R/Rs are defective or the wrong type.

I have a 2010 Lifan and it took me 3 tries to get a R/R that worked. Even then the charging is very marginal. The only way to solve the problem has been to run with no headlights in the day time. I uses a number of LEDs as running lights and converted the rest of the electrical system, dash, etc to LEDs as well...now it charges fine...

[montanaborn]

I chased headlight, battery charging issues for all of 2008 on my 06 Tank. Went through 3 different regulators thinking that was the issue. My problem ended up being a defective fuse. One of the metal ends of the fuse was bad and only made intermittent contact. Replaced the fuse and all electrical problems stopped.

[Bashan]

Good advice from Sprocket and Montanaborn (my brother lives in Corvalis). If I can add something, I'm all about functionality. By that I mean wire colors and arrangement vary widely but the AC stators work pretty much the same. If you understand what the wires are trying to do you can determine if they're doing it right after you figure out where they're going. My Peace 150s are a generic type of scooter. They have an eight coil AC stator that has a three wire harness and two seperate wires that run to the CDI. My thanks to Rapid Jim who walked me through this so long ago I'm sure he doesn't remember. He taught electronics in the Navy and I'm sure this is kindergarten to him as it may be to a lot of you.

Jim informed me that you can safely test the stator unhooked from the rectifier/regulator (R/R). You probably have a blue/maybe something else wire and a red/black(varies) wire running to the CDI, they'll should give you about .5v+ AC and 50v+ AC. These are not our concern right now though since you want your battery charged up. What we want to look at is the harness that comes off of your stator. Often, this has three wires in it if you have a six or eight coil stator: a white, yellow, and green.

The yellow wire on my Peaces will test around 15v+ AC while the white comes in at 20+ AC. The green is ground and will give you zilch. These voltages are somewhat different between these two scooters and RPMs will obviously affect them. These are AC voltages, not DC, make sure your multimeter is set correctly. If your voltages are in the ballpark with these you know your stator is doing its job............functionality wise.

Now here's the weird part, once you hook your wires up to the R/R the yellow and white should test 12v AC anywhere along these wires. Since it's alternating current the electrons are shuttling back and forth along the entire course of the wire. On my Peaces the yellow supplies juice to the headlights and anything AC. This would mean you could ground your multimeter and touch the red probe on the yellow as it exits the stator, or enters the headlights, and you'd still get 12v AC. This makes my brain hurt..... . The white is a different animal, it terminates in the R/R and is converted (rectified) to 12v DC to charge your battery with the red wire. However, the white still tests 12v AC all the way back to the stator once hooked up to the R/R. The DC also powers a few things like my taillights and solenoid actuator.

So what does this mean for you Bumpa (and anybody else listening)? Unhook your stator and test the wires that run to the R/R. If your system is AC powered, you should be getting some AC voltages well over 12v AC regardless of your wire colors and configurations. Then, hook things up to your R/R and test the red by grounding your multi and touch the red probe on the positive terminal of the battery. You should get around 13v DC or a tad more (15+ is a faulty R/R). I know, I know, it's rectified/regulated to 12v DC so why should it be higher than 12? Well voltage is an electromotive force so you need a bit more than 12 to get the electrons.....OW! My brain hurts! Rich

[Kaveman]

If anyone would like a copy of the above info in pdf format PM me please ! I took the above explanation by Bashan and created a pdf file of it for future reference !!
Bill C.