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[Norm]

Some months ago I fitted a 4 wire stator and a Boyer powerbox to a Super Meteor, the charging didn't seem right and I suspected the powerbox to be a problem but Boyer assured me it was fine. I found out last night that it isn't charging and I won't be forking out for another powerbox, this is the second one I have had problems with, so what I'm thinking of doing is using the 2 purple wires from the stator and feeding them into an Indian rec/reg and likewise with the orange/yellow then combine the red and black wires going to the battery. Anybody have any thoughts?

[Scalyback]

Are you getting much power out of the power plant (not sure what a Super Meteor has)



Only, a point is that after 50-60 years, the magnetism will have diminished. All magnets before the recent Neodymium type are not that permanent.



The older 'alinco' type loose their magnetism over years, OR if you remove them from their frame (Break the magnetic circuit), that will decrease their power immediately , by up to 25 % or more.



I have some old three rail Hornby Dublo locos from the fifties, and had them demagnetised. they went from sluggish and power hungry overheating things, to very powerful indeed. The point here is that although there are many problems with rectifiers and regulators and other things, nobody seems to draw attention to the fact that many an old stator will improve dramatically if re magnetised.



This may not be Norm's problem, but still something to bear in mind if your charging is less than specifications.



An associate of mine who collects electric master clocks, remarked that his Magneta generator did not seem to work very well. I mentioned recharging the magnets, and he did the typical bang of the palm of the hand on his forehead. Perfectly logical, but something that even the very knowledgeable often overlook.



Hopefully somebody with more knowledge of magnets and rotors/stators, could add more useful information below? I only have a general knowledge.

[Scalyback]

Sorry "Had my locos i>re-magnetised[/i] not 'demagnetised'

bugger

[another Allan]

Re-magnetise a stator? A rotor, surely....

[PeteF]

I had a Villers flywheel mag. re-magnetised and it was a dramatic improvement. Not the same I know but the same idea.

[Dennis C]

Hi Norm

I have read with interest in the past threads relating to converting the Indian Enfields with AC lighting to full DC and combining the two sets of coils. This was never going to be a good idea, as far as I can acertain the two sets of coils have different output levels, therefore when comined/paralleled to some degree they will fight each other and the resulting output is very unlikely to be a clean sine wave which will in many cases give the powerbox or whatever other reg/rec used problems.

I guess the four wire alternator fitted is one of this type, the method you propose using two reg/recs is a better idea, but then you have to consider that one reg/rec may give a slightly higher DC voltage than the other meaning that is the one which will bear the greatest part of the load possibly leading to it failing.

In short the ideal thing would be to fit the correct stator to the bike, or if the bike does not have a high current demand, constant riding with headlight etcetera then possibly you could just use the one set of coils with the higher output, as the Indian reg/recs are so cheap, it is probably worth giving it a try you may even get two well matched ones.

[Norm]

Hi Dennis, this bike has a new Indian 4 wire stator and rotor. I had a problem with it from start up, it just put out a constant 14 volts from idle either way I wired it, voltage didn't increase with revs. In the end I decided to only use 2 wires and although the 14 volt output remained constant from idle, I decided that by running the bike with the lights on all the time I could get the volts to drop back to just under 13 volts at idle and still not increase with revs. I knew this was not going to be a long term fix and it is the second Boyer I have had a problem with, but then again I'm also dealing with Indian stators and that is always so hit and miss because I never seem able to get similar A/C readings from any of them. I think the 2 rec/reg is probably a better idea even if one works harder than the other, I just hadn't thought of it till yesterday

[Dennis C]

Hi Norm

I have been thinking about this idea of two reg/rec's, and on further thought I can't see any problem, assuming that the pair do not match and one cuts off at 14v and the other 14.5v as an example, then when the battery voltage is below 14v both units will be giving a charge, once the battery reaches 14v one will cut off and the other will continue to give approx half the charge to keep it topped up, on reflection it looks like you have found the answer.

[Norm]

Dennis, there is still the possibility that I will only get 12.5 volts out of each set of coils so then even though I'm using a 4 wire stator it will still only max out at 12.5 volts

[Dennis C]

Norm, I don't have any personal experience of these four wire coils so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I thought that one set of (3) coils was to convert to DC and charge the battery and the other set was fed through an AC regulator to feed the headlight. This being the case then you should have sufficient voltage available to charge the battery, if you do find that you are only getting 12.5v DC then surely the alternator must be faulty or unsuitable.

When running the alternator without load on these units what AC voltage do you get on the coils designed for the lights, I suppose that it is quite possible that they are designed to give a lower voltage but higher current than the battery charging coils.

As the lights are 12v then it is quite possible that the lighting coils only generate around 14v AC which is no use at all for battery charging