More charging info

Triton Thrasher said:
I’m certainly not worried about 12 A across negligible resistance roasting the stator, lights on or lights off.
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Me neither. My worry is only if the system can keep a Shorai happy charged up.

It is doing so far, but I’ve only just tried one. It’s LA battery gave up the ghost so I put the Shorai on from the Norton. It instantly turned it over MUCH faster (e start) and started it much quicker. And it weights 8.5 lbs less to boot!

Being an electric start, with no provision for a kick start, a healthy battery is kinda important !
 
Fast Eddie said:
Really? It can’t have been his T10 pilot. Honestly, at bike night meets this has proven itself brighter than some old boys headlights !

Look here:

IMHO I would only buy Goffs bulbs from Goff. Many of these things look identical… until you switch them on !
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This was a pilot base LED from Paul Goff. It fits in my Vincent headlight, second spot.

Glen
 
Fast Eddie said:
Me neither. My worry is only if the system can keep a Shorai happy charged up.

It is doing so far, but I’ve only just tried one. It’s LA battery gave up the ghost so I put the Shorai on from the Norton. It instantly turned it over MUCH faster (e start) and started it much quicker. And it weights 8.5 lbs less to boot!

Being an electric start, with no provision for a kick start, a healthy battery is kinda important !
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The Shorai seems to be one of the better quality products coming out of China.

Glen
 
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Fast Eddie said:
He covers a lot in the linked article, mind sharing which parts you’re unconvinced by and why?
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I thought it was time to attempt to answer to this, but Mr Tiller has hidden his web page. I’m very very displeased that someone has told him about my flatulence.

From what I could see, the alternator is self-limiting for current. Short-circuited it refused to go over 17 A, over a wide rev range.

Connected to the charging system, it refused to go over 12 A (or maybe 15 A, subject to observer error), whether the 60 W headlight was on or off. It’s accepted that alternator voltage rises with rpm. I think that explains why I didn’t see 12 A until revving well over 3000 rpm.

If I remember right, GTiller said that when you switch the light off, the power then somehow happens in the stator instead of the lamp and the stator gets hotter. I’m saying the current and resistance in the stator don’t change when you switch the lights off, therefore the power in the form of heat in the stator doesn’t change.

For those not offended by rude words, these are GTiller’s current (!) thoughts on Faraday’s equation:

More charging info
 
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I know I'm doing the "sample of one" again but all the electrical oads on my Norton are OEM plus the Alton Estart. I have no LED bulbs anywhere - only the stock-wattage incandescents. The 18AH Shorai has been adequately charged by the Alton 150W alternator/Podtronics and never failed to instantly spin the Alton/start the bike.

Once again, I will point out that per specs for the Shorai battery, it is seldom, if ever fully charged. However, that has made no difference in functional performance over 11 years.
 
Triton Thrasher said:
I thought it was time to attempt to answer to this, but Mr Tiller has hidden his web page. I’m very very displeased that someone has told him about my flatulence.

From what I could see, the alternator is self-limiting for current. Short-circuited it refused to go over 17 A, over a wide rev range.

Connected to the charging system, it refused to go over 12 A (or maybe 15 A, subject to observer error), whether the 60 W headlight was on or off. It’s accepted that alternator voltage rises with rpm. I think that explains why I didn’t see 12 A until revving well over 3000 rpm.

If I remember right, GTiller said that when you switch the light off, the power then somehow happens in the stator instead of the lamp and the stator gets hotter. I’m saying the current and resistance in the stator don’t change when you switch the lights off, therefore the power in the form of heat in the stator doesn’t change.
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His site is still up.

granttiller.com

Choosing a New Alternator for your British Motorcycle

Make an informed decision about what type of stator and rotor to buy for your British Motorcycle
granttiller.com granttiller.com
 
Triton Thrasher said:
I thought it was time to attempt to answer to this, but Mr Tiller has hidden his web page. I’m very very displeased that someone has told him about my flatulence.

From what I could see, the alternator is self-limiting for current. Short-circuited it refused to go over 17 A, over a wide rev range.

Connected to the charging system, it refused to go over 12 A (or maybe 15 A, subject to observer error), whether the 60 W headlight was on or off. It’s accepted that alternator voltage rises with rpm. I think that explains why I didn’t see 12 A until revving well over 3000 rpm.

If I remember right, GTiller said that when you switch the light off, the power then somehow happens in the stator instead of the lamp and the stator gets hotter. I’m saying the current and resistance in the stator don’t change when you switch the lights off, therefore the power in the form of heat in the stator doesn’t change.

For those not offended by rude words, these are GTiller’s current (!) thoughts on Faraday’s equation:

More charging info
Click to expand...

TT, please do not re ignite this pathetic name calling nonsense. None of us are interested and it does NOTHING for the debate / quest for understanding.

Now, back to the topic, Tiller said that with a short type regulator, (this is important, he only said this applies to short type regulators, defined as the type that short out the stator coils when the load requirement has been exceeded) his hypothesis is that with this type of regulator, heat increases in the alternator if / when the current it produces is not being used, and the ‘shorting’ ciciuts are kicked in. This was also supported by the paper mentioned in post #e33 by HRD.

Tiller also said that if you have a 10amp alternator, and traditional bulbs, this would likely not happen often and would not cause an issue even when it did. He said it’s only an issue for the (growing number of) people who are fitting 14.5 or 16amp stators AND running low draw EIs AND LED bulbs. In these cases the load imbalance is greatly increased, so, with a shorting type regulator, the heat created within the stator is also increased.

So, in summary, his hypothesis is that it’s only an issue if you have a bike with a much lower draw than stock AND a much greater generating power than stock.

Its also important to remember that Tiller is talking about encapsulated Lucas style stators mounted inside the primary. As far as I know he has never discussed externally mounted Alton types that no doubt run cooler due to being in an alloy housing in the outside air.

As a basic premise, do you agree with the above? If not, why not?

The open questions as I see it are 1) exactly how much heat is generated? and 2) is it a problem?

I don’t think we’ve seen anything from anyone yet that answers these questions (understandably given the knowledge, kit and time to do it). Which is why I said back in post #95 that it would be great to see something such.
 
gortnipper said:
Well,.you did harass him a bit call him an enthusiastic amateur. Which, BTW is what we all are.
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Yes I probably was quite annoying, but I wanted clear answers that made sense, or were authoritative.

Mr Chong-Zhi Liaw’s article linked previously does look authoritative, but a lot of it baffles this enthusiastic amateur.

I was reluctant to accept that a regulator or Zener shorting the AC or the DC overheats these alternators, necessitating big expensive series regulators. I’m now even further from accepting it.
 
Triton Thrasher said:
Yes I probably was quite annoying, but I wanted clear answers that made sense, or were authoritative.

Mr Chong-Zhi Liaw’s article linked previously does look authoritative, but a lot of it baffles this enthusiastic amateur.

I was reluctant to accept that a regulator or Zener shorting the AC or the DC overheats these alternators, necessitating big expensive series regulators. I’m now even further from accepting it.
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I do not believe he ever said that zeners did that! He agreed with you that the zener set up kept the alternator always working at 100% “as it was designed to do”.

He only ever said that short type regulators did.
 
The alternator is “always working at 100%” in that it is producing full current.

If that current doesn’t go through significant resistance, such as a big headlight, then the alternator isn’t doing much work.
 
Triton Thrasher said:
The alternator is “always working at 100%” in that it is producing full current.

If that current doesn’t go through significant resistance, such as a big headlight, then the alternator isn’t doing much work.
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The first statement is actually in support of your zener argument !

I guess in the second statement you’re referring to the overheated stator question when using a short type regulator? “Isn’t doing much work“ is kind the same as my own questions “how much heat?” and “is it a problem?”

As far as I can find, no one seems to know !
 
And there is more to it than the resistance of the wires in the stator coils. There is electromagnetic impedance. I don’t know if that causes heat or slows the engine down or even makes growling noises come from the cam drive.
 
As Glen reminded us earlier, Comnoz saw dyno proof of a power gain (1.5bhp IIRC) when trying the open type regulator. That clearly indicates that some ‘work’ is taking place otherwise. 1.5bhp worth of work.

With the short type regulator, any heat generated by that ‘work’ has nowhere to go and therefore has to remain within the stator.
 
Fast Eddie said:
As Glen reminded us earlier, Comnoz saw dyno proof of a power gain (1.5bhp IIRC) when trying the open type regulator. That clearly indicates that some ‘work’ is taking place otherwise. 1.5bhp worth of work.

With the short type regulator, any heat generated by that ‘work’ has nowhere to go and therefore has to remain within the stator.
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1.5 BHP is 1,119 W.
 
Jim's bike has a 480 watt alternator. Alternators seem to be about 50% efficient. So his 480 watt alternator should take about 960 watts from the engine. This is 1.3 HP. Pretty close to Jim's dyno finding.
We will only see a half horsepower gain (rm23, rm24 high output)with the series reg. in open mode, still a nice free gain.
Most importantly though, as Nigel pointed out, this means that once the battery is charged, gasoline is not being converted into electrical system heat.

Glen
 
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