Headlamp removal

[JimF]

If you need some help planning the wiring I can help if you want me to. I find it best to create a wiring diagram on paper which tells me how many wires total will be in the central sheath, and where each wire gets groken out to connect to something.

Jim

[ftripodi]

Jim,
Your help is much appreciated.

The first thing I need to do is test the alternator. Can you assist by advising
What readings I should be getting from the 3 wires?

Also where I can source a 130mm headlight from or the pieces to make one up?

So far I have the headlight switch, brake light switch,
Taillight and of course the key switch.

Any help is appreciated

Frank

[JimF]

Do you have three wires coming up from the alternator?

The usual configuration is that two of those three wires are really the opposite ends of the same coil. The third wire is one end of a different coil whose other end is connected to the engine which in turn is connected to the frame making the frame the connection to the other end of the coil.

So to recap, you have four electrical connection points you will be using to perform your tests: three wires that come from the alternator and a connection to the engine or frame. Remember that the paint on the frame is an electrical insulator so you have to use some bare metal part of the frame or a bolt on the frame.

I verify which wires are which with an ohmmeter. The two wires that are opposite ends of the same coil will appear shorted together (a short circuit), that is to say the ohmmeter will read almost zero ohms between the two wires. Checking between either of those two wires to the third wire as well as to the frame/engine of the motorcycle will indicate as an open circuit , that it to say as infinite ohms.

Once you have identified the two wires that are on opposite ends of the same coil, the last wire should measure as a short circuit (zero ohms) to the frame with the ohmmeter.

Record the colors of the wires so that you don't forget and have to check them again.

When I say short circuit and zero ohms in the context of measuring across coils of wire, you must keep in mind that the coil windings are so great a length of wire that they may present as an ohm or two (1 to 2 ohms) or so depending on the sensitivity of you meter.

Now you can call this static test complete if you want.

The only other test you do that I know of is what would be a dynamic test. That would require you to have the engine spinning so as to actually generate voltage you could measure on the wires. Spinning the engine (more spin is needed than just jabbing at the kick start lever) is going to be difficult unless you have an electrical system to run the ignition system and thus the engine independent of the alternator, like a total loss battery system. Or you could use an electric starting block that can spin the rear tire at a high rate of speed while the bike is in gear so as to turn the engine.

If the engine were spinning quickly and continuously, you could take a voltmeter set to read AC volts and NOT DC volts and measure across each coil at the wires. The reason that a voltmeter set to DC volts would be ineffective is that the average DC value of the AC sinewave being generated is zero volts.

So you would need two AC volt measurements; one across the wire pair that appears shorted to each other, and a second measurement from the third wire to the frame. In effect you are checking the AC voltage being generated in each of the two coils.

You should read some amount of AC volts in both measurements. The voltage amount would be dependent on how fast the engine is spinning and whether or not your voltmeter is reading peak voltage or RMS voltage. So I would say any voltage reading is enough to verify the coils are working.

I have never tried this, but you could use an incandescent light bulb across the wires rather than a voltmeter. Maybe something like a 50-watt light bulb would work. This would not only verify that you have voltage, but also the ability to deliver power (which is voltage and current combined) under load conditions.

Really though, I suspect you will just make the static ohmmeter check and then move on to wiring the bike from there.

130mm headlight buckets come up a lot more frequently and for a lot less money than 150mm buckets. I will watch eBay and let you know if I see one come up for sale.

Jim

[ftripodi]

I do have 3 wires coming from the alternator.

Black, orange and white

Ok have done the static test and readings as follows in ohms

Black to earth. 0.0
White to earth 0.8
Orange to earth 0.6

Orange to white 0.9
Orange to black 0.0

White to black 0.7

Voltage readings at 1200 rpm

Black 2 volts
White 9-10.1 volts
Orange 4-4.5 volts

Checked the readings 3 times and the figures are almost the same.

Is this correct??

Frank

[JimF]

This does not make sense - but let me think about it for a while. Maybe Dew-Cat-I Bob will chime in too.

When you provided the voltage readings, where they all with reference to frame ground?

In the meantime, it could be that the previous owner implemented the constant loss ignition system in order to sidestep an alternator problem.

[ftripodi]

Jim,
Yes the. Voltage readings were tested to the sAme ground point on the body.

I have sent an email to the previous owner and Jim Bruton, who had the
Alternator tested to see if the alternator has issue.

Jim Bruton advised that he did have the alternator tested and he
Was asked to get the bike running, which leads me to believe that
It does have an issue and the easiest solution was to run a total loss
System.

I will try to send Jim another email to confirm if he has the results of
The testing done.

[JimF]

Something that is odd here is that if the previous owner had the alternator tested he would have had the alternator out of the engine at that time. If it tested bad he would most likely not have re-installed it. And between you and me I think if either of us went to the effort to pull it out we would only put a known good one back in.

When you checked the wires for resistance, did you have the wires disconnected from the rest of the motorcycle? None of it makes any sense to me unless you did not disconnect the wires which means you were reading the static resistance of not only the coil windings but also other circuits which are in parallel or in series with the coils when the coils are connected to the motorcycle's wiring harness.


Jim

[ftripodi]

Jim,
The wiring on the bike is non existent it terminates under the seat. The only wiring that the bike has is from the 12 volt battery.

My thoughts are that the only test that was performed by the previous owner was exactly that a static test and when the readings came out funny, the total loss system was implemented as he may have only used the bike for display.

I have spoken to Phil at Road and Race as I wasn't convinced that the alternator was good, so he has quoted me a couple of hundred dollars to install his 6 volt upgrade system and re wire the total bike or a bit more to convert to 12 volt and electronic ignition and give back all the spares.

Will run the tests again to be 100% sure of the readings and also describe the exact points that I am grounding too, this way you can be sure that the test results were correct.

It's a little frustrating to have the bike in this position but getting it correct is a priority for me as I don't want to have problems when riding the bike.

[JimF]

eBay headlight: 370542969636

As for the voltage measurements I failed to explain it fully. If you have two coils you simply want to measure the voltage across each coil, not in reference to the frame ground.

So if we could identify which two wires went to opposite ends of one coil and which two wires went to oppossite ends of the other coil, we would simply measure voltage across the coil wire pairs and not from the wires to the frame. Does that make sense?

The confusing part is that one coil is generally tied to the frame, so that one coil's voltage test is done between two wires and the second coil's voltage test is from the third wire to the frame. Don't think of the frame as a earth ground reference, think of it as the other end of the second coil.

My problem in trying to help you is that I can't figure out from your resistance readings which two wires are opposite end of one coil and which wire along with the frane are the two opposite end connections of the other coil.

You see on my three wire system, two wires have a low ohmic reading to each other and absolutely no connection to the frame (infinite resistance.) That pair is the first coil.

The third wire shows infinite resistance to the other two wires, and a very low ohmic value to the frame. The thrid wire and the frame are the two ends of the second coil.

I like your white wire to frame ohmic value : It's what I would expect the resistance of the coil to be. And when you measure voltage between the white wire and the frame you see a healthy 10 volts.

That would mean the other two wires are the other coil and you should measure from wire-to-wire and not to the frame. However these wires should have not given you anything but infinite resistance when checked to the frame.

Maybe you have a different type of setup where there are three coils, all referenced to the frame. That would go a long way toward explaining why every ohmic measurement gets a reading. But your voltage test is reavealing very low readings on these other two wires with respect to ground so that's confusing.

[ftripodi]

Jim,

I did get the 2 coil concept and you did explain it perfectly.

The weekend is here so I will be getting stuck into the testing.

Thanks for you patience, if you have any specific test that you would like me to perform on the wiring please let me know so I can give you the feedback and results.

Thansk for the ebay item.

Frank