AC to DC Conversion W/ Floating Ground By Bashan (Read 30,556 times)

[tvnacman]

hmm Rich , put a volt meter on the black wire and the other lead to ground , turn the key on see what you get , then start the scooter, see what you get, it could be a trigger wire when the scooter runs . it could be a feed to energize a relay .

that will be tonight and tomorrow . hehe
John

[noday]

OK, lets take 2 steps back and evaluate the situation.

You swapped a new RR into an old system. If you connect the new RR as suggested by the available information, it does not function properly.

Why ?

There is now a stator RR mismatch.

looking at the old RR internal schematic will not help much ..... the old RR is half wave and designed to regulate both the AC voltage for lights and convert some of that AC to 12 V DC for charging the battery.

the new RR is designed solely to convert all the AC to regulated 12 V DC.

they are designed to do different things.

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if you try connecting the RR black wire to the black key switched 12V(+) wire in your harness, a dead short will be created and you will let all the magic smoke out of the new RR.

if you want to try it ? make sure both the red & black wires from the new RR are fused @5a to save the magic smoke

[Bashan]

Aug 26, 2011 15:36:00 GMT -6 sprocket said:

My head hurts Rich!!!

Well if I can make a man's head hurt that used to build racing engines, then I must be doing something right.

Aug 26, 2011 18:03:42 GMT -6 noday said:

One of the big rubs in exploring the possibles of these components is the near absolute lack of any real documentation for the components.

Man, you got that right, you'd think this was a national security issue or something. I agree that my stator is grounded at the center tap, I just tested it according to the Trail Tech instructions and it has continuity with both the yellow and white through the frame. I'm going to look into this further and possibly redo the ground on my stator and see what happens. I'd like to get some values off of the setup the way it is though so I can compare the difference. Hopefully there won't be too much smoke before I can get some numbers.

Aug 26, 2011 18:17:29 GMT -6 tvnacman said:

hmm Rich , put a volt meter on the black wire and the other lead to ground , turn the key on see what you get , then start the scooter, see what you get, it could be a trigger wire when the scooter runs . it could be a feed to energize a relay. John

Good idea John, I'll try that too when I'm getting some readings before I rewire anything. Rich

Aug 27, 2011 4:43:37 GMT -6 noday said:

If you try connecting the RR black wire to the black key switched 12V(+) wire in your harness, a dead short will be created and you will let all the magic smoke out of the new RR.

[/b][/quote]
Well, this scooter is about as bare naked as you can get, there is no ignition switch. I originally hooked the black lead off of the universal R/R onto the black lead of the battery. That's when I was getting 13v DC at the red wire. When I unhooked it the DC volts went up to 14.5. It had crossed my mind to try the black from the universal R/R on the red but something told me there would be some fireworks. As you said, I think there's a significant grounding issue here. I'm going to try and work up a schematic that would explain this. Rich

[tvnacman]

ok rich , put a fuse , like a 1 or 2 amp fuse on the black wire and connect to switched power . That will provide protection for the secret . Gee did we all forget about the main fuse ? I have heard some chatter about the trail tech , it requires some stator mods .

John

[tvnacman]

if you try connecting the RR black wire to the black key switched 12V(+) wire in your harness, a dead short will be created and you will let all the magic smoke out of the new RR.

if you want to try it ? make sure both the red & black wires from the new RR are fused @5a to save the magic smoke

Read more: scooterdoc.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=150cc&thread=4872&page=2#ixzz1WFpfQbwi

if the black wire has some sort of floating voltage , remember we have no diagram of the new RR , this could be a feedback line to adjust dc output voltage . Please remember this is a mere though that maybe worth exploring .

Rich , do you remember my chart of the resistance readings of the four pin regulator (FLP) . on the regulator you have now the pic you posted I see a green wire (ground) see if there is continuity between the body of the RR and the green wire . also check the black wire to the body of the RR .
John

[tvnacman]

I hope your tinkering , I'm at the edge of my keyboard waiting for the results .

John

[Bashan]

That green wire you see hanging unhooked is actually the black wire off of the universal R/R. I had a green wire with a connector from a previous project so I just crimped it to the R/R. Sorry, that was my bad and confusing, not very polite of me. I went shopping with the wife today so I haven't been able to do anything. I'm going to go downstairs in a minute and do some testing. One thing I thought of while we were out is the stator has a ground wire for the white, yellow, and red/black wires. Then the universal R/R has the black wire which is a ground and possibly other things. Maybe the system being grounded at two points is a problem. As Noday said, the R/R and stator are not ideally suited for each other. However, I'm thinking if I can make this work it would be an inexpensive and easy way for riders to go all DC. It is true that the R/R may not be able harvest all of the available energy from the stator. But if I can get an adequate charge on the battery from this system then I can have all DC components including LED lights, oil pump, fan, and temp sensors. Rich

[Bashan]

Got sidetracked with some yardwork but I did a little testing on the universal R/R. There is no continuity between any of the wires in any combination. There is no continuity between the black wire and the R/R case. I did get two diode values from the yellow wires to the red wire:

That's .467v and .475v, not that it matters. The important thing is that it was OL when I reversed the test leads. I'm pretty sure that indicates a full wave, bridge rectifier in the R/R. I also think that it means a pretty simple circuitry with the yellows feeding each side of the bridge rectifier and some Zener diodes in the mix for 12v regulation. Then the red and black wires are the DC part of the bridge and are designed to hook onto the battery. I think the loss of voltage from 14.5v DC to 13v DC when I hook the black wire to the battery instead of leaving it hanging has something to do with the ground on the stator. I don't think this is an ideal setup for the R/R but I'm thinking I can make it work. I'll do some more testing on Tuesday. I'm wondering what hooking the black on the universal R/R to the battery and leaving the stator ground off would do. Rich

[noday]

"I'm wondering what hooking the black on the universal R/R to the battery and leaving the stator ground off would do."

[/b]

it will make it work

[Bashan]

I thought I should update this thread just in case anybody runs into it and thinks about spending $40.00 on the universal R/R. It's toast, it no longer regulates voltage. I'm not sure with what wiring configuration it blew because I'm not exactly organized with my experiments. I THINK it went when I had the R/R hooked up red/red, black to ground, and unhooked the ground on the stator, but I'm not sure. In any event, I have to give it to Noday, I was using a part in a way it wasn't designed for and it fizzed. No big explosions or anything catching on fire (darn!) but it did fry a few diodes. So I'm back to old indestructible OEM Bashan FLP R/R:

As you can see I have to mark the wire colors on the R/R because I CAN'T REMEMBER A DAMN THING! Ahem, OK, all calmed down now. The big disappointment is that if the universal R/R would have worked I could have just hooked everything up DC to the battery and used some inexpensive, but cool, LED headlights I bought at Auto Weinie. Now I'm back to hooking up some lights to the AC yellow wire to balance the white wire load on the R/R. Here's the OEM R/R over the DC Carter fuel/I'm using in an application it's not designed for: oil pump.

The reason I posted this picture is because I took it, thought it was cool, and I paid a chunk of change for the pump. Well, I blew a R/R but I learned a little. I might try that universal R/R again after I blow this OEM R/R up....er..ahem..I mean in a month or so. I did have that universal working at a little over 12.5v DC on the battery with the red to red, and the black wire on the ground. Maybe I should have stuck with that. Rich

[noday]

Thank you for the update.

I am really sorry to hear that.

As you would probably guess from my other thread, I have been foolin around with this for a while, but on a 50/72cc scoot, 6 pole.

In threads on Dawg and Totalruckus others also blew the RR.& I never could quite figure out what they did wrong. the threads are several yrs old & the posters no longer around/active.

part of the problem is that there are at least 2 and probably 3 different 8 pole stators for the GY6 150. By rumor, some of the Taiwan scoots use a 2 trigger pole version with full wave. have never had a chance to look at one live to see the details.

I have seen threads where several people have purchased new 150 engines and the 8 pole stators required different RRs. The lack of documentation for both Stators and RRs makes for a crap shoot much of the time.

there are also some full wave mixed AC DC RRs for sport bikes but they are only rated for about 6 to 7amps DC

All in all, most confusing.

I think the best way to trouble shoot is probably to fuse all RR wires around 5amps or so while testing

It would be nice to have an old crank & crankcase with the crank turned by an electric motor to test different configurations before connecting to the scooter wiring harness.

good luck with the project. I look forward to future updates.

[tvnacman]

well you got it rich R/R roasted regulator

John

[Bashan]

HAR! Good one John. I found some pics on a web site that are helping me understand this whole thing better. This is the stock GY6 stator with the yellow wire "center tapped" as the author on this page put it. This really struck a chord with me as I think I could trace this down in the stator. The yellow is actually "tapped" to the center of the winding that runs in series around all the poles except the CDI dedicated pole:

This makes sense as to why the universal R/R didn't work out since the yellow and white are carrying unequal amounts of power. Noday is probably pulling his hair out right now thinking "this is what I've been saying!". The guy provided a second drawing that shows where he cuts connections to hookup a full wave rectifier:

What I'm getting from this is there is no more yellow or white wire, it's one continuous, ungrounded AC winding feeding the R/R. In this case you'd have to use a universal R/R that has the two wire hookup. I think the stator itself would have to still have a ground for the CDI power feed. Any thoughts before I burn up a R/R AND a stator? Rich

[noday]

I think that the first diagram is probably wrong..... the center tap should be grounded rather than one end.

a center tap is used to provide a "neutral" point in a coil (or transformer) for comparing the 2 ends or to get different voltage outputs depending on the coil/winding count ratios

in that diagram were true, the yellow connection to the coil would be ground and you would only see voltage on white.

we know that is not the case.

scooter 6 and 8 pole stators have odd numbers of charging poles, 5 and 7, and you can not substitute white for yellow or visa versa. The "other" pole triggers the CDI.

so stator output is not "balanced" on white and yellow compared to ground. the output of white v yellow is 2v3 or 3v4 because of the odd number of poles

yellow powers the AC lights and auto enricher as well as the RR

full wave "floating" stator output is more or less comparable to 240 V AC residential power and is balanced

if you measure voltage from either wire, measured to ground, you get half the voltage compared to measuring wire to wire.

the CDI feed is from a circuit separate from the charging circuit, so a ground in that circuit would have no effect on the charging circuit.

yes, no more yellow and white, just 2 yellows

[Bashan]

Very interesting Noday, that makes sense. I did read through all of the links you posted earlier and picked up quite a bit from them too. You're right, there is just no documentation on any of this. You just can't find definative information. I'm putting my oil cooler project on hold and I'm going to pull my stator today and see if I can trace through the wiring. I did read through the Trail Tech turorial on redoing the center tap but I thought their pictures were confusing. Some of the confusion may be attributable to them dealing in dirt bikes and not scooters. I don't think they sell for GY6; or do they? I'll see if I can get some decent pics today and post them.