Need Electrical Help

[mkrouse]

Well, my fix of the crispy connectors didn't last but about 75 miles. New connectors melted, My LED voltmeter light signaled a problem. When my friend arrived for our Utah trip, he removed the connectors and soldered the three yellow wires together. Twisted the wires individually, then soldered. The solder didn't flow nicely, but held for the 1500 mile trip. He went back to NC and while he cruised to Cuba, I cut off the solder balls [can't believe they lasted 1500 miles] and rejoined the wires with NSPA butt connectors. They are expensive, crimped, heat shrinkable, with solder integrated at the wire stop. And they are designed to accept the slightly smaller wire size from the stator, and the larger wire size to the FHA012. Seem perfect. I practiced until I had the best technique.

 

They seemed to be working. LED green. Strong connection. BUT the wires are hot. I'm hoping the heat is being generated from the close proximity of the downward exhaust pipe,  not by electrical resistance? The wires are too hot to touch. How hot is too hot? I have a unit that measures temperature. Like a laser pointer. The cylinder head was is 188 F. The pipe is about 188 F. The wires toward the front are 150 F. The wires toward the back [FHA012] are 110 F.

 

Trouble ahead? Yesterday I used about 8 inches of split pipe insulation [polyurethane], wrapped around the exposed wire section. Still awfully hot. Advice?

[KevCarver]

Mine are hot too. Not sure if it’s a normal thing, but they seem ok. Also not sure if they always were hot like that. Just the stator wires. 

Mine is running on a rewound stator from Custom Rewind and an FH020. (Was an FH012)

Sorry, I don’t have any solutions. 

[JZH]

What does your voltmeter say about charging voltage?  Hot wires suggest resistance to me.  Wires that cannot be soldered to also do not sound like good wires.  Were they flexy and copper-colored where you soldered/crimped them?  You may need to cut back and replace a bunch of fried wire to eliminate the resistance.  If you could access both ends of the wires you could measure the resistance with a voltmeter and compare it with a length of new wire of the same gauge.

 

Ciao,

[mkrouse]

I don't have access to both ends of the stator wire. I good idea which I will ponder. When the wires were originally soldered, they were stripped back and did seem flexible and copper colored. The thicker wire to the FAH012 did not take solder well. Maybe they did not get hot enough. This picture shows the butt connector I used after the solder joints were cut out. I added the black heat shrink for extra protection.

 

You can see that the wire to wire soldering could have been much better. I wonder if I should have taken more care to expose more stator wire prior to using the connector. I could do it again, but I'm running out of stator wire, thus access for crimping and heating.

 

How hard is it to access the stator internal end connectors? Maybe I should attempt to totally replace the stator wires?

[KevCarver]

My understanding is that the wires are continuous on the stator. They wrap around the core and come out to the R/R. That is what confused me on your initial posting. I guess the previous owner cut the wires and added the connector to introduce the FH012 R/R. That connector mimics the initial poor design of the OE connector, in that it is exposed to the elements and prone to loosening.

I too have had some difficulties in soldering in the past. I recently bought myself a much better soldering gun and watched some youtube video on the subject. The biggest issue I had in the past was not tinning the tip and cleaning it. I understood flux was the key, but with a dirty poorly tinned tip it wasn't doing much good. Admittedly since buying the new gun (as opposed to a soldering iron) I've had better luck with 16-18-20 gauge. With 12-10ga and thicker they have been less neat, but they seem to be ok in my practice joining. Looking at your pics, I'd suggest stripping more wire, coating in flux, and crossing like an "X" then wrapping the ends flush.

I forget what, if anything, the previous owner did with your stator. Maybe it's time for a new one or a rewind? You can get the connector that fits directly into the FH012 and crimp the pins to the new wires without needing to solder anything. Maybe ask for thicker gauge wire from the stator to keep them cooler? Again, I have no idea why mine get so hot. (They get effing hot!) But with no sign of insulation damage. It worries me somewhat, but I haven't had any insulation failure after swapping stators for a rewound, or R/R for a FH012 then FH020. (My FH012 I bought on ebay used from an R1 did eventually die after a long time. My records only go back 9 years and 40,000 miles, so it was before that. Rewound stator was installed 4 1/2 years and 13k miles ago.)

[Grum]

Hi mkrouse.

Sad to hear of your tail of woe. Just wondering, do you have any electrical accessories added to your bike that could be pulling excessive current?

 

Another important issue that could be causing your problem is the Battery itself. If it has developed a shorted or partially shorted cell. Perhaps a proper load test to determine your battery's health might be worthwhile.

 

As mentioned your burn up can only be caused by two situations, bad contact resistance OR excessive current draw.

The Inline connectors you've used should work well Provided your crimp is solid and tight as well as being sure you have removed the correct length of wire insulation and the crimp is on the copper wire not the insulation.

 

Verifying your charging voltage (approx 14 - 14.5volts) should clear the R/R of any wrong doing. Make sure battery terminals are good and tight as well as major earths/grounds are good.

 

Having your 3 phase alternator wires so hot you can't touch them smells of excessive current draw. Perhaps you could try removing some of the non essential (to engine running) fuses to establish where there may be an excessive current draw.

 

You have also confirmed that there is no resistance to ground on any of the 3 Stator wires??

 

Just a few more ideas for you!

Good Luck.

Cheers.

[exwifeschewtoy]

On 3/30/2018 at 8:36 AM, JZH said:

 

Well, it's plug n play if you have a Triumph!  For the rest of us, we would just snip off the Triumph-side connectors and solder the wires into the VFR's existing wiring.  The advantage is that the Furukawa connectors on the reg/rec side are already wired up.  And those same Furukawa connectors work on all of the modern MOSFET and series reg/recs from Shindengen.  

 

(Joe at CycleTerminal.com is great, but taking his website DOWN for the entire holiday weekend is not good business practice!)

 

Ciao,

Are you aware of a way to direct wire a shenhengen reg/rec to the stator? Not the stator its self but the first plug after it exits.  I see that the shendengen comes in a kit with empty plugs. Do you know of any empty plugs for a 6th gen stator? 

thanks

Joel 

[JZH]

Sorry, I do not have a 6th gen, so I don't know what connector you're talking about.  Cycle Terminal has most OEM connectors, as does Eastern Beaver (in Japan), both have pictures of each type on their website, so you should be able to figure it out.  Personally, I would eliminate all connectors I possibly could, so the stator wires would ideally run straight to one of the plugs on the reg/rec.  Yes, that would make replacing a bad stator a bit more of a chore, but eliminating the weak points in the charging system would compensate for that, IMHO.

 

Ciao,

[Lorne]

1 hour ago, JZH said:

Personally, I would eliminate all connectors I possibly could, so the stator wires would ideally run straight to one of the plugs on the reg/rec.

 

I don't disagree, but would point out that not all are capable of properly crimping or soldering, let alone weatherproofing said connection.

 

Pro tip: only do this with a new stator, or at least pop the cover for a visual.

 

That said, my '09's stator managed to fail without any wiring issues. 

 

Hobby horse: always closely inspect the starter relay, too.