XR650R electricity

[XRider]

The number of requests for the DSK schematics has gotten to the point that I've lost track of who I have and have not sent them to. If you haven't recieved your schematics yet (sorry 'bout that) please PM me your email address once again and I'll get them off to you. For those who haven't requested a set yet but would like one, let's do this all at once. For those who would also like the stock XRR schematic, mention it in your PM and you'll recieve it as well. For the inmate who was unsure which version DSK he had, PM me and I'll tell you how to find out.

By the way it's good to see so many people not affraid to dig into thier electrical systems. It realy will all start to make sence after a while.

XR's Forever!

[alexh2k]

I've been watching this thread and have searched many others as I'm about to wire my XR650r and still deciding on several components. I have noticed many threads about BD batteries getting toasted, could this be due to incorrect wiring or wrong reg/rec? I was thinking of going with a battery box available through Wheeling:

http://www.wheelingcyclesupply.com/s...gory&cat_id=72

Scroll down to the EZ Electric Wire Kit, you can buy the whole deal or bits and pieces. It just takes 8 AA batteries, thought that would be good if they went out on the road you could replace at a convenience store, or if the batteries went dead in your flashlight you could rob the bike. So, I was wondering if anybody had any experience with this battery box and their wiring harness, it seems reasonable enough. I have heard many good things from this company. I currently have their Edge tail light/brake light and it works great.

[Stevevh]

Another great info thread on electrics for the 650R. I just totally rewired my bike and built my harness from scratch. I also never really got the "float the ground" issue. I bolted the ground from the rectifier to the bikes frame and we shall see how that works.
I posted this before but it has good info on the electrics for the BRP and seems appropriate to add to this thread.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161729

[XRider]

The NiCad batteries going dead is due to the nature of the charging system and the requirements of the NiCads. To get a long service life from NiCads they need to be completely discharged before being recharged. On the bike they are constantly being topped up without the discharge cycle. This causes the time to discharge to be less and less until they are worthless. I picked up a 1.2 Ah 12 volt lead acid battery that I'm going to stash under the seat. Lead acid batteries are quite tolerant of being topped off without being discharged. I'll let you guys know how it works out.

[XRider]

Originally Posted by ZenMoto

I'm not sure what you mean by a floating ground. The rectifier is grounded to the frame and I've done a continuity check to ensure it was a good ground. Are you saying that the ground isn't supposed to be grounded?

...I'm just not sure I'm following.

Thanks,
D

ZenMoto, I'll bet that if you connect a volt meter (set to measure AC volts) across the 2 wires that connect to your headlight bulb the meter will read 6 volts or less. If you have gotten one of my schematic packs check out the one for connecting lights to a big stator. I know everyone keeps telling you that you have to float the AC ground but nobody has seen fit to tell you what that means so here it is. I won't blather on about the theory I'll just blather on about what you need to do. The two wires from your stator that will be the AC lighting circuit should have one of the AC regulator wires connected to each one. None of the AC stator wires or the reg. wires should be connected to the frame. Also, most lights will have the negative side of the bulb grounded to the housing and therefore the mounting bolts. You will need to isolate the light from the frame or insolate the bulb so it's no longer connected to ground. Basicly your AC circuit needs to be a closed loop, and only the DC system can use the frame as a ground. It's a pain in the ass but that's the deal. BTW if you want you can add a second regulator/rectifier for a pure DC system and then you won't need to sweat the ground isolation. If you do this you could also run two batteries but you don't have to. Hope this helps.

[Irnworker433]

I can see youve been busy. Any luck on finding pics of lights youve done? Im sending the stator down to BD to be rewound this week. Thanks!
irnworker433@aol.com

[ZenMoto]

Originally Posted by XRider

ZenMoto, I'll bet that if you connect a volt meter (set to measure AC volts) across the 2 wires that connect to your headlight bulb the meter will read 6 volts or less. If you have gotten one of my schematic packs check out the one for connecting lights to a big stator. I know everyone keeps telling you that you have to float the AC ground but nobody has seen fit to tell you what that means so here it is. I won't blather on about the theory I'll just blather on about what you need to do. The two wires from your stator that will be the AC lighting circuit should have one of the AC regulator wires connected to each one. None of the AC stator wires or the reg. wires should be connected to the frame. Also, most lights will have the negative side of the bulb grounded to the housing and therefore the mounting bolts. You will need to isolate the light from the frame or insolate the bulb so it's no longer connected to ground. Basicly your AC circuit needs to be a closed loop, and only the DC system can use the frame as a ground. It's a pain in the ass but that's the deal. BTW if you want you can add a second regulator/rectifier for a pure DC system and then you won't need to sweat the ground isolation. If you do this you could also run two batteries but you don't have to. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the input. That makes sense to me; don't really know why I didn't see that earlier (I actually have a background in electronics, albeit in the Marines, and a loooong time ago). ;)

Thanks again for taking the time.

Cheers,
Dale

[ZenMoto]

Ok, I'm back. I've rectified some electrical issues (my Vector computer lost power due to the teeeny-tiny 22g. wire they use getting rubbed to pieces). I've also mapped out my electrical system as shown below:



You can see that the headlight ground is currently tied to the frame. This is the thing I believe I need to fix. The plan is to remove the headlight ground from the frame, along with the ground from the AC Regulator, and tie them together (floating ground?).

Obviously, the bikes general systems are all run from the DC side, post battery, I just didn't feel like including all that wiring in my diagram. The AC circuit consists only of what is shown; it is a very simple circuit.

Also, the way I have the drawing laid out shows, approximately, the correct relative lengths for each wire run.

Anyone have other thoughts?

I'm hoping to get my wheel back from Buchanan's today so I can fire up the bike and test the wiring out. ...it's really hard to kick start the pig with no rear wheel it turns out!

[XRider]

Remove the frame ground from the AC circuit and everything should work fine. I'm not sure what style of headlight you've got but make sure the negative side of the bulb isn't connected to the housing and therefore grounded to the frame. One last thing, all AC regulators have only 2 wires comming out of them, your drawing shows the AC reg with 4 wires (2 from the stator and 2 going to the light). If your regulator has 4 wires than it's a DC regulator. A typical DC regulator will have 2 yellow wires and 1 black and 1 red wire and a typical AC reg will have one brown and one yellow wire only. Or is this just a typo in the drawing so to speak?

[ZenMoto]

Thanks for chiming in XRider. The drawing was correct, sort of. ...I forgot (and glad I remembered) that Baja Designs sent me the wrong thing; I ordered an AC regulator, but they sent a reg/rec, so that was how I had the light wired, as a DC system (shown in the diagram). I now have an AC Reg wired in.

According to what I could find, the AC Reg simply gets wired in parallel with the AC circuit from the stator? ...basically I have the green and white from the stator going to the AC Reg, at the point where the white ties into the yellow of the AC Reg, I also have the Positive feed to the headlight (via the handlebar switch) wired in, and I have the negative feed to the headlight wired in at the same point the as the Brown & Green rom the AC Reg & Stator respectively.

...does this sound correct to you?

I'm going to fire the pig up later today and see if it works! :)

Thanks again,
D

[XRider]

Zenmoto, your discription gets a little confusing but you've got it right, the AC reg gets wired in parallel with the light. If it's working properly the headlight will stop getting brighter at about 4000 rpm.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by ZenMoto

Thanks for chiming in XRider. The drawing was correct, sort of. ...I forgot (and glad I remembered) that Baja Designs sent me the wrong thing; I ordered an AC regulator, but they sent a reg/rec, so that was how I had the light wired, as a DC system (shown in the diagram). I now have an AC Reg wired in.

According to what I could find, the AC Reg simply gets wired in parallel with the AC circuit from the stator? ...basically I have the green and white from the stator going to the AC Reg, at the point where the white ties into the yellow of the AC Reg, I also have the Positive feed to the headlight (via the handlebar switch) wired in, and I have the negative feed to the headlight wired in at the same point the as the Brown & Green rom the AC Reg & Stator respectively.

...does this sound correct to you?

I'm going to fire the pig up later today and see if it works! :)

Thanks again,
D

That'll do it. A DC regulator/rectifier won't work properly without some sort of energy storage on the DC side- either a battery or capacitor. It will output a series of narrow +12V pulses instead of a steady voltage, so the average voltage will be way too low. A good sign of this happening is that the voltage is higher at idle than at high rpm.

[ZenMoto]

Thanks again guys. Just got out of the garage and I'm a happy camper (mostly). ...I forgot that the computer is still wired into the AC side, but has a frame ground still, so (maybe this is the reason) it's still not getting power from the bike. I don't care enough to tear it apart again right now. I'll deal with it next oil change. :)

The light, however, works like a charm! Nice, bright, steady light!

With the exception of the light on the one AC side, the rest of the system is very un-taxed, despite the fact that I'm running everything else on the bike from the DC side, including heated grips. Switching to LED turn signals and for the brake/tail light pays off big time both in power consumption, and durability on the trail.

Thanks again for the help and feedback. I'm going to head up to Gorman tomorrow morning for a shakedown run if any of you LA locals want to come out and kick knobbies!

Thanks again, Cheers!!!

Dale

[XRider]

Good job Zenmoto, I love it when a plan comes together. If the mood strikes you, post a pic of the pig.

[ZenMoto]

I took some photos of it clean, after getting the wiring done and buttoning her back up. ...and got some more today while out riding, so the pig is good and coated in dirt & mud (as pigs seem to enjoy). :)

I've decided to name the beast BBQ (the pictures will make the reason clear).

I'll try to get the pics posted tomorrow, and I'll dump them into a new thread. :)

Thanks again for all the help. The shakedown proved out that the light is working fine!