Wiring a Rectifier/Regulator?

[Stoltzee]

I'm using a 12 volt bridge rectifier, and its wired according to the pictures. Actually after I grounded to the bottle it started to charge the battery better, and those are really bright little lights. I'm going to have to get an amp meter hooked up to see whats really going on. I have a volt, amps, resistance tester, but only 2 hands (alligator clips needed). What the heck! it's therapy.

 

[butterbean]

I made a grounding cable to ground the generator to the frame as well, but it made no difference. I tested my generator and I'm getting up to 16vac, but no dc voltage from the charger box (which is supposed to have a regulator and a rectifier in it). So either they didn't build the circuit properly, or something got fried. Either way, the charger box I'm using (which incidentally looks to be a copy of a universal rectifier off a snowmobile and the like) costs $40 plus shipping (the one I have was given to me), and I don't have the money to replace it. So I ordered a scooter regulator like the one in the OP of this thread. It shipped out of Houston today, and should be here like Thursday. To avoid any damage to my battery or generator, I'm not running the generator until I get the new regulator.

 

[butterbean]

Well if anyone else is still curious, I finally figured out what each pin is for, including the yellow wire. On a typical scooter with a 4 pin regulator such as the type being discussed, there is one incoming current, two outgoing positives and one ground. If you are holding the regulator with the top facing up and looking straight at the 4 pins, here is what each pin is for/does. The bottom left pin is your incoming AC current from your stator or in our case, alternator/generator. The top left pin is outgoing rectified current going to the battery. The top right pin would also be outgoing current (I am unclear if this current is rectified or not) which powers the lighting system (the reason I am unclear is because most scooters have ac lighting systems) but in our case it is unimportant unless we want to run our lights and charge our battery separately. The bottom right pin is ground. In my case, the battery and both lights are connected to a power distributor, so the outgoing rectified current from the top left pin would charge my battery and power my lights at the same time. There is no need for me personally to connect anything to the top right pin. Personally, I can't even figure out a way to separate my lighting wires and my battery in a way that would allow use of the yellow wire for lighting purposes. Not only that, the stator on a scooter engine is always turning when the engine is running, even at idle. The battery is mostly used for electric start, and apparently doesn't power the lights at all. With my setup, my alternator is driven by my tire, so when the bike stops, so does the current. If I were to separate my lights from my battery, the lights would shut off whenever I came to a stop. So anyway, I've got the wiring figured out for my purposes. I see no reason that this shouldn't work when my regulator gets here, and if it doesn't work, then something is wrong in the wiring itself, not in the connections. I will test for dc voltage after connecting everything, and report back with my findings.

 

[butterbean]

The regulator came in the mail today, a day early as it happens. Most likely I won't have time to install it till tomorrow. Got off work early today, but dont feel like messing around with it.

 

[butterbean]

Well, the scooter regulator works. I followed the wiring diagram pictured here and I tested it by hooking up my multimeter to my positive and negative wires from my battery and slightly revving the engine. Without revving the engine very high or for very long, I got a reading of 10vdc. I did find that I had a faulty fuse, and did not get a correct dc voltage reading until after figuring that out and replacing it. I now believe there was nothing wrong with the charger I was using, but its ok because the scooter rectifier is a lot simpler to hook up, and cheaper to replace should anything go wrong with it.

 

[Stoltzee]

Good info butterbean, thanks.
I put a RC Car tire on the bottle generator, and rode to the fuel station. The light still gets bright, but not as quickly, and it seems to be charging the battery slowly, which is a good thing. I ran the light on the way there, and when I returned home it appeared brighter just off the battery. I'll have to buy a battery for the good multi meter I have, because the junky one keeps saying the battery's only at 6 volts, and it's a 12 volt battery.
On the bottle generator I soldered a bead around the back of the rotating part, and filed it even all around, because my first try it went past the head onto the neck, and was a fight to get back off. Then I squeezed the tire on it with a little spay cleaner (Soap), it was a tight fit, but it's holding.

 

[butterbean]

I actually used the entire wheel that came with the r/c car tire, but with the scooter regulator and the r/c car wheel, my battery isn't charging as fast as I'd like. I'm going to take the r/c car tire off and use the drive wheel the generator came with.

 

[butterbean]

To clarify, the scooter regulator's output is proportional to its input. These regulators are designed to output ~14vdc, with an input from a stator that can be as high as 30vac at idle, so the 16vac that my generator is producing with the current drive wheel I'm running may not be enough. I'm going to see if I get a higher output from the regulator by switching to the smaller drive wheel for the generator.

 

[BigBlue]

Most of those cheap scooter rectifiers are half wave and don't put out as much voltage as a full wave rectifier.

Chris
AKA: BigBlue

 

[butterbean]

Either way, increasing the input should help to increase the output. Only one way to find out.......