Voltage regulator testing

pommie john · Nov 21, 2013

OK, I'll put my hand to having done something really stupid. I'm turning my race bike into my road bike and I'm building a wiring loom. I was having some headlight hassles that I thought might be down to an LED high beam warning light not liking positive earth, so I thought " I'll swap the battery terminals around and see if that fixes it" I thought to disconnect the ignition, but didn't think about the sparx regulator/rectifier.

So it got connected the wrong way round and instantly popped the 25 amp fuse in the black wire. Is there a way of testing the VR with out running the bike? It's going to be weeks before I can get it running and I'd prefer to know whether to buy a new VR before then

Thanks

Yours in stupidity
John

DogT · Nov 22, 2013

I'm supposing it's a single phase unit rectifier/regulator combo? Could you find a maybe a 20V P-P AC wall wart and feed that into the VR and see what you get out of it. Make sure you fuse everything appropriately.

Dave

JimC · Nov 22, 2013

pommie john said:
OK, I'll put my hand to having done something really stupid. I'm turning my race bike into my road bike and I'm building a wiring loom. I was having some headlight hassles that I thought might be down to an LED high beam warning light not liking positive earth, so I thought " I'll swap the battery terminals around and see if that fixes it" I thought to disconnect the ignition, but didn't think about the sparx regulator/rectifier.

So it got connected the wrong way round and instantly popped the 25 amp fuse in the black wire. Is there a way of testing the VR with out running the bike? It's going to be weeks before I can get it running and I'd prefer to know whether to buy a new VR before then

Thanks

Yours in stupidity
John

I have no idea about Australia, but here in the U.S. step down AC transformers transformers are used for doorbells. 120 volt AC input around 20 volt AC output.

pete.v · Nov 22, 2013

DogT said:
I'm supposing it's a single phase unit rectifier/regulator combo? Could you find a maybe a 20V P-P AC wall wart and feed that into the VR and see what you get out of it. Make sure you fuse everything appropriately.

Dave

Hey, Dave, that's not bad. Still some good cells up aye?

DogT · Nov 22, 2013

A few cells but not many. Yeah, a doorbell transformer will work, but don't put a big load on the VR, those transformers don't put out much in the way of amps.

pommie john · Nov 22, 2013

Thanks for the replies. It's a 3 phase sparx.

I connected my multimeter to the battery and kicked the bike over without plugs. The voltage was 12.23v and when I kicked it over it stayed exactly the same. I'm guessing that even when kicking you should get a slight charge from the alternator.

I spoke to the vendor who said that these units hate reverse polarity and the chances are it's fried.

Oh well. You live and learn.

pete.v · Nov 22, 2013

pommie john said:
Thanks for the replies. It's a 3 phase sparx.

I'm guessing that even when kicking you should get a slight charge from the alternator.

Only if you can kick it at 2000 rpm. Video of this please.

pommie john · Nov 22, 2013

pete.v said:
pommie john said:

Thanks for the replies. It's a 3 phase sparx.

I'm guessing that even when kicking you should get a slight charge from the alternator.

Click to expand...

Only if you can kick it at 2000 rpm. Video of this please.

Of course! My mate's got a set of roller starters. Why didn't I think of that before?

Voltage regulator testing

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