Electrical/stator Question.

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morganid
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Electrical/stator Question.

Post by morganid »

As I've said in other posts, I'm trying to get my bike plated. I printed out, and followed Slick_Nick's thread about rewinding the stator. I think I got it done correctly. My concern is that the lights dim greatly at idle much more than the stock wound stator. Is this normal? I measured the volts a/c an at idle I'm only getting about 7. It's not until 1/4 throttle (ish) when it jumps up to the 11-12 volt range. (I measured it from the wires that go to the headlight. The headlight was not on the bike, but the tail light was.) If it is normal is there anything I can do to help level out the lights?
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diymirage
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by diymirage »

set the bike to idle higher :lol:

I think what you are seeing is normal
these bikes were not meant to be street legal and the lighting coil is right in between pointless and usefull

I have a rewound stator on mine and it acts the same way
short of installing a battery pack your best option is to lower the draw wherever you can by installing LEDs instead of incandescent lightbulbs
newbbewb wrote:DIYmirage has it right.


-1996 KDX 200 woods weapon (converted to 99 green body)
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TheJackRabbit
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by TheJackRabbit »

when I rewound my stator to slick nicks instructions I found the same that the lights were greatly dimmer at idle, but can handle a brighter bulb and produce more power at higher rpms. I plan on doing a DC conversion and adding a battery that gets charged off the stator and rewire the lights/horn/speedo to run off the battery.
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bufftester
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by bufftester »

Because of the way the stator/lighting coil works this will always be the case with the KDX. As noted above, the rewound coil lets you run higher wattage bulbs, but to minimize dimming you need to install dc conversion (battery,rectifier). Some good discussion here->http://www.kdxrider.net/forums/viewtopi ... ry#p143330
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Jaguar
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by Jaguar »

you can either add windings till the coil is so fat it is almost touching,
or you can rewind it with a smaller diameter wire. That will result in more voltage at low RPM but less peak current at high RPM.
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Slick_Nick
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by Slick_Nick »

All correct. I used 18GA wire, but that's because for my application it was warranted. If you want less current capacity, but higher voltage at a lower RPM, you may want to consider using a thinner wire. Say 22GA or so.
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morganid
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by morganid »

Thanks for all of your comments! This site/community is awesome! My reason for upgrading the stator is that I want the horn accessable to me at any time when I'm out on the road. If I'm in a tight situation I don't want to worry about needing the bike at a certain RPM in order for it to work. I already have the motor back together, so I think I'll just see if I can live with it for now. Slick_Nick, I thought you said in your write-up that you used 17 guage wire. I did the same since I'm installing an HID headlight. (The link to the headlight I'm installing is at the bottom of this post.) It only has a 35 watt hi/low bulb, but I want to upgrade it to 55 watt or so. I also want a Trail Tech Vapor and maybe some other toys I find along the way.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/White-H4-P43T-1 ... 6e&vxp=mtr
morganid
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Re: Electrical/stator Question.

Post by morganid »

diymirage wrote:set the bike to idle higher :lol:

I think what you are seeing is normal
these bikes were not meant to be street legal and the lighting coil is right in between pointless and usefull

I have a rewound stator on mine and it acts the same way
short of installing a battery pack your best option is to lower the draw wherever you can by installing LEDs instead of incandescent lightbulbs

I don't think my draw is the problem. I started the bike with out the headlight. Only the rear running light was on. I noticed the light being very dim at idle and brightening significantly with more RPM. When I hooked my 35 watt HID light up, it did the same exact thing. No more or less dim. I'm getting enough wattage to power what I need, it just fluctuates MUCH more than I anticipated.
TheJackRabbit wrote:when I rewound my stator to slick nicks instructions I found the same that the lights were greatly dimmer at idle, but can handle a brighter bulb and produce more power at higher rpms. I plan on doing a DC conversion and adding a battery that gets charged off the stator and rewire the lights/horn/speedo to run off the battery.
I've really tried to steer clear of introducing a battery into the system because I didn't want to charge it each ride. In an ideal world, I wan't this lighting system to be self-contained, maintenance free. I hadn't thought of using the bike to charge it. Is it possible to do with out greatly over charging it when the lights are off? What about some sort of capacitor? Anyone ever played with that?
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