Regarding Charging System Failures

[Stretch]

Hey, OzTiger.  Glad to see you over here.

Thanks for the fan idea, dudes.  And installing the fans has been a long-term permanent fix, with no recurrance?  Just checking.

I'm wondering that a fan may not do much good in this case, when the source of fresh air is the empty space behind the cylinders (under the tank), which is already quite hot.  I'd prefer to have cooller air blow over the RR, but due to it's location, there is no cool air for a fan to draw.

More and more, it's becoming clear that it's the RR location (crammed into a tight, inadequately ventilated space) that may be at the root cause of all these charging system failures.

Ya know, that's just a damned shame.  No doubt, there are people coming in to these forums to investigate the possibiility of buying a Tiger, but are scared off when they read thread after thread about charging system trouble.  All because Triumph wanted to save money by using small-gauge wire, and didn't want an unsightly electric fixture mounted in plain sight.

Well, I for one say to hell with Triumph's design.  I've never regretted overbuilding anything, and I intend to kick this problem square in its ass.

[JasonS]

having worked on PC's for years...

A cooling fan *might* only do so much good for a few reasons... recirculating warm air doesn't help much. There could be a negative pressure zone in there making it hard to actually draw air into the fan....

Consider a remote cooling fin arrangement similar to the tube based ones on PC's?? Liquid cooling would work but it runs too much money.

Is it possible to run a thick wad of copper rod out through the vent hole? Solder it to the heat sink of the rectifier and then solder on an additional finned heat sink in the vent opening??

[JasonS]

Found one!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180327712926&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1123

The above could be adapted to suck heat from the Rec/Reg... :idea:  :idea:

[EvilBetty]

That's what I was thinking reading these posts (also being a PC geek).  Copper heat plate, copper heat tube, routed to a remote heatsink.

[mrazekan]

It's been a month.  Any updates?  You're probably on your trip.  More power to you.   Like may others have said before, THANKS!

_h

[Stretch]

It's been a month.  Any updates?  You're probably on your trip.  More power to you.   Like may others have said before, THANKS!

_h

I'm still tinkering.  

I initially went with the Shindengen FH012AA Regulator / Rectifier from a 2008+ Yamaha YZF-R1 on the recommendation of D'Ecosse from TriumphRat.  He has made a similar R/R swap on a few bikes.  

But I decided to use a different RR than the Yamaha item because I couldn't figure a bomb-proof way to connect it to everything (it has push-on terminals inside a plastic shroud).  It also had a 500-watt rating, which wouldn't match up with the 350-watt rating of the stock Stator.  I want to match the system as much as I can to keep everything on an even keel, so to speak.

I'm now fiddling with a Shindengen FH008EB R/R from a 2008 Honda CBR600.  It uses the same cool-running MOSFET technology as the Yamaha part, but is a 350-watt unit, and has external wires that I can solder in to the Stator and Sasquatch Fix.

MOSFET stands for Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor, and R/R's using this technology are much more efficient and run much cooler than the older shunt-type SCR R/R's found as standard equipment on a Tiger.

I had the Yamaha R/R on my bike for a little over a thousand miles, and even after running for a couple straight hours, the R/R delivered a stable 14.3 volts above 2500 rpm (about 12.8 at idle), and never got more than luke-warm.  I'm not kidding.

The same run with the Triumph R/R would have gotten it so hot that you could barely touch it.

I've read that every 10˚C drop in operating temperature doubles the life of electronic components.  So having a cool-running R/R mounted on a heat-sink, out in the open air, ought to do it.

A link to that thread:  http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,6180

[mrazekan]

I noticed the difficult thing about the R1 regulator is the connector on the regulator body.  So I think the key component is the wires coming off of the honda RR.  The 500W rated RR would be a better choice IMHO.  What the rating means is that the RR can dissipate up to 500 Watts of energy should the bike not need it to run or charge the battery.  

The higher the draw from the bike for charging and running accessories etc., the cooler the RR will be.  It is when the bike does not need power that the RR dumps the energy as heat.  So either the 500W or 350W RR will pass all of the power from the rectifier circuit/stator to the bike if needed, i.e. you run highbeams, heated gear, PIAA lights, toaster, etc.  .  If the power is not needed, then that power will be dumped as heat by the regulator.  Since the stator can only put out ~350W of power, the 500W RR will be more than capable of dissipating that heat.

The burnt stator problem only happens when the RR has a short presented to the stator.   The low resistance increases the current flow and fries the coils.  

RR failures are due to overheating of the RR.  The RR cannot dissipate enough heat/power so it overheats.  This causes the rectifier side to short and burn a stator or the regulator side to fail and under or over charge the battery.

My SV650 suffered an overheating of the RR.  The encapsulant on the back was cracked and there was a dribble of solder seeping out of it. Tin melts at 450F.  YEAH!  Suzuki wanted bocu bucks for an OEM one.  I went to a wrecking yard and pulled one off of a Honda.  Chased that with a 3300 mile trip.  No problems to this day.

Good luck and I'll keep posting my updates on this thread:
http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,5224

I chose that one because Andy and I had pretty much the exact same symptoms.  They also appeared to be different from all other problems in that there was a strong engine cold vs. engine warm component.

THANKS!

[Stretch]

Since the stator can only put out ~350W of power, the 500W RR will be more than capable of dissipating that heat.

I was of the same mindset initially, but decided that I ought to match the R/R output with the Stator output.  I don't want to overload the Stator by pulling too much Wattage through the R/R (which the 500-Watt R/R itself could handle without complaint).

Although I do understand your point about a 500-Watt R/R handling the 350-Watt Stator without even breathing hard.  A 500-Watt R/R will indeed run cooler than a 350-Watt R/R under the same conditions.

I also didn't want to rely on push-on spade connectors, as that's about the only way to wire up the 500-watt part...

[Bixxer Bob]

[Tom Herold]

I'm experienceing things with my Tiger I've never encountered before. I can honestly say when the bike is running, it's the best all-around machine I've ever owned and I enjoy it more than any other bike I've ever ridden.  Hands down.  But it's really starting to irritate teh hell out of me. My Sprint ST, two Harleys and the Thunderbird don't give me the grief this thing does!

So as I'm riding to work this morning, I notice my LED voltage meter's reading in the 12v range with the bike running at 3500rpm. Not good.

I replaced the stator and rectifier with a set from Ricks recently and completed the Sasquatch mod with good success (13.3v at idle and 14.5 at 3500 rpm's and above).  Even with my driving lights, heated grips and GPS, I was still doing okay at 13.2 at 3500> rpm.

I figured I'd be okay to at leat ride the bike home since the battery had a full charge before this mornings issues and it's only 10 miles away.

By the time I got home, the voltage meter had started reading in the green again, showing up to 14 volts at 3500> again. When I pulled into my garage, I smelled burnt electrical wires.  I immediately saw the connector from the stator to the rectifier was the culprit. I'm so pissed.

I decided to cut out the burnt connectors and use water proof splices backed up with heat shrink to join the stator and rectifier wires back together.  I was careful to cut back to the end of the burnt wires, which wasn't more than an inch, and I'm getting rid of the led voltage meter for the Datel digital display meter I had delivered today for more precise monitoring of what's going on.

With the wires connected through the splices, I'm back to good voltage and the wires connecting the stator and rectifier aren't feeling hot enough to melt anything again.  Hopefully I avoided damaging the stator and rectifier, things seem okay after a short ride tonight.

I'm thinking about moving the rectifier to the opening in the frame where the powerlet connector's at with the cooling fins facing out. Yes, it puts it closer to the engine, but it's also open to air circulation and not trapped in a small pocket where it can't "breath".

Here are the photos of the connectors:

[AndyM]

I had the same thing happen to me shortly after putting in a Rick's stator. All was good until one day on my way home the voltage dropped, thought I fried another stator. Got home and smelled burnt insulation and had a toasted connector exactly like the one in your picture.
Cut back to clean wire and have been fine for several thousand miles.

[Tom Herold]

Good to know, thanks for the reassurance! I called Ricks yesterday when I noticed the burnt connector, but they haven't returned my message yet. I'm curious if they're using sub-standard connectors since this is getting to be a recurring theme?

I'm wiring in my Datel voltage meter today, I have an uneasy feeling something just isn't right with my bike's charging system and I can't seem to put my finger on it. I might just be acting paranoid because of my experiences with the Tiger so far, who knows.....?

I'm moving the LED meter over to the Harley since I run a lot of accessories off it too. It's never given me a problem, but it certainly deserves monitoring.

[Stretch]

Tom, my bike did the exact same thing about a month ago (also a Rick's Stator and R/R).  The episode was outlined in my 'Man, What a Day' thread...

http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/topic,5602

That turn of events is what inspired me to remove every push-on connector in my charging system and solder every connection.  I'm also working on a better fuse holder for my Sasquatch Fix, since I had a voltage fluctuation due to a crappy connection in my parts-store sourced fuse holder.  Although the part was alleged to have been rated for 30 Amps, that much current overheated the push-on connector in the input side of the fuse holder.

More to come...

[Bixxer Bob]

Burnt connectors look just like the ones on my Blackbird, which is also known to have one or two charging issues.... :roll:

Just wondering... could it be that pushing the plastic connector together until it locks,  we don't really know how snug and tight the metal to metal connection is???  If it's a bit loose and relying on the plastic plug to hold it in place,  that would give enough resistance for this to happen I think??

I'm going to give mine a little tweak withthe pliers during it's service, just in case.....

[swamper650]

Have been following this thread with great interest. My 02 Tiger is creeping up on the 40k mark. I bought it used with 10k and do not know the age of the battery. Keeping it on a tender, it always started and ran fine. The last few weeks noticed that the volt meter was reading lo.............12.9---13.4 while at  hi-way speeds. Installed a new battery and presto .................13.9--14.2 volts.  Possibly the marginal Tiger system can be overstressed and fail trying to maintain a weak battery?