Reg/rec pattern part

[Spanner Man]

Good morning.

This old chestnut again!

As far as I'm concerned Honda rec/regs are crap when fitted to Hondas! Although I've heard reports that the CBR600RR unit seems to work well when fitted to other makes of bike.

Honda have a habit of putting extremely powerful alternators in their bikes, which make the RR unit work overtime. There's also the fact that they always put them out of the air stream so they can't cool adequately.
Hondas alternators have a problem with current surging, which overloads the RR. I know Pete at Electrex designs his alternators windings in a different fashion to help prevent this. He also has a theory that electro magnetic spiking occurs, which can cause current to enter the wiring loom at any point, usually finding it's way to the RR. Hence his Honda RR units are fitted with clamp down diodes that detect current coming in the wrong way, & shut it off before it reaches the circuitry.

I have dealt with Electrex for years, & have found their RR units to be excellent. You also get 12 months guarantee with them, which is something you don't get with a secondhand unit.

Cheers.

Cheers Spanners.

So- would making some sort of custom (read bodge) vents with a grille help reliability?

Anyone tried this?

[Spanner Man]

Morning all.

Firstly there's no such thing as bodging (yeah right) See my quote in Yorkies signature for the correct term.

Improving the airflow over the RR should theoretically improve it's chances of survival, as would mounting the blasted thing on a more substantial heat sink. This would allow the heat to dissipate more readily.

A mate of mine down south who's an electronics whizz kid (read geek) mounted a cooling fan from a PC over his RR unit on his ZR600, which was a touch of overkill, as he had already constructed the RR out of components that were rated as being capable of handling about 4 ZZR alternators simultaneously, & mounted it on a heat sink that was about the size of a dinner plate & twice as thick!

Cheers.


P.S. Please post a photo of your bike after you have improved the air flow, as we'd all like to see what an SV looks like with 2 dirty great funnels mounted on the handlebars, with hoover tubes running under the rear bodywork! (now that would be bodging)

[yorkie_chris]

Hey it'll look like a ZXR!

Lol both- yeah it'll look like a Ninja 400 with those enormous bits of frame that 400SS bikes have (often more discreetly) to support the fairing.

I was thinking more of a hole just to the side of the seat with a grille behind it and another similar at the back to allow throughflow of air- I'm sure I'd get plenty of comments at Boxhill of trying to make the SV look like a fireblade rear end!

And I'd have to do one on the other side to match the looks/symetry of airflow.

Hmmm- ram air for yer regulator/rectifier. I can see a patent application coming!!!

Ok, well here's the thing.

Touching every bit of wood around me, I have never had to fit a reg/rec to my Sv's. One had done nearly 50k and this ones done 25k. Both had original batteries too. In the case of my current one,that makes it over 7 years old.

Strange thing is, I don't ride with my lights on unless legally required to, so you would imagine that would shorten the life of the unit, due to extra heat having to be disapated.

So have I just been lucky or is there something in the fact that I'm utilising the unit more?

Wow, i got a suzuki genuine part for about £100

Matt

Originally Posted by petevtwin650

Strange thing is, I don't ride with my lights on unless legally required to, so you would imagine that would shorten the life of the unit, due to extra heat having to be disapated.

I thought it would be the other way around? Lights off = better for reg/rec?

Matt

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero

I thought it would be the other way around? Lights off = better for reg/rec?

Matt

Well I thought the reg/rec is changing any excess current into heat. Hence the heatsink, so if the lights are on less current has to be changed. I'm happy I'm getting such longevity out of it and just wonder why.

[yorkie_chris]

Instead of putting extra cooling fans etc. on it, why not mount the unit further down the subframe?