35 Watt X2 vs. 55 watt X1

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Richardrwg wrote:

OK, I'm not a big guru when it comes to wattages, amps, and such so how about a little clarification here.

Click to expand...

Below information I have copied from two of my previous post:
November 2007:
GL 1100A with sidecar. Running everything, the battery would slowly drop below ten volts. The sidecar had three tail/brake lights and one front clearance light. That's not much more wattageload on the bike, I tell my son. PO had installed three driving lights, two on the bike and one under the front of the sidecar, and, duh, connected them to the accessory fuse:gunhead:. We rewired the driving lights (they got brighter) direct to battery, fusedto relay. I tell my son that we maybe can run two driving lights. Wrong again, still get voltage drop!:?
Manual says that the stator starts to charge at 1800 rpm with a fully charged battery, outputis 300 Watts at 5000 rpm.
One 1157 Tail/brake light bulb: 8 watts-tail, 23 watts-brake. Doesn't seem like much, does it?
Ifigured the main light bulb load, (tail, brake,turn signals, clearance)not counting Headlight, intercom/radio/CB, dash lights 15 w, power for engine and whatever else uses power.
1983 GL 1100A:
Normal driving: 32 watts.--sidecar added: 72 watts
With brakes and turn signal on: 124 watts.--sidecar added: 233 watts
Now add to the above the Headlight on bright, 60 watts, or on dim, 55 watts.
I can now understand that the GL 1100 battery and charging system is designed to just supply power for its ownoriginal electrical systemand not extra add-on lights. Just driving around slowly in town the battery is slowly discharging since it is supplying thewattage for running everything.
I have just finished changing all bulbsto LEDs. Again, best I can figure,my total lighting (less headlight) load on the charging system is now 9.816 watts instead of the 233 watts listed above. Haven't checked it yet, but we should be able to run two of the driving lights (deer country here & no deer alerts, ummm,did Imention deer alerts here?) without discharging the battery on the highway, but still not while driving slowly around town.
By the way, the replacement turn signal flasher unit mentioned on this forum:clapper:, Tridon Stant EP 28,does work with LED lights.

February 2008:
I have installed LEDs in all the main GL 1100A bulbs, the H4 ST 60/55 watt Silverstar headlight bulb, and three H3 35 watt (70 watt output) driving light bulbs. I can run all this at 2000 RPM and the battery voltmeterholds at13.5 volts. Honda Service Manual says that the stator starts to charge at 1800 RPM. The Silverstar headlight and the three driving lights put out a lot more light than before with less wattage draw. The H3 driving light bulb, 35 watt draw, 70 watt light output, are pricey little things but are worth it to me for the extra light.

This is the only place I have been able to locate the H3 35w, output 70w, bulbs.4th item down on the page if you are interested.bikerhiway-35w to70w Driving Light Bulb

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Hey Paul...want your opinion on summin. Let's say that on an 1100 insterstate, a person has installed a brand new after market stator with "higher output than stock", they have two 35 watt driving lights, they have converted the rear turn signals so that they have 1157 bulbs front and rear to have running lights, they've installed an automotive stereo in a cyclesound, they've replaced both brake/tail light 1157's with LED bulbs. They have a couple of small bulbs on light stick on the rear.

Ok at normal drving speeds their voltmeter reads just under to just above 16 volts. With the two 35 watt driving lamps switched on it reads at a rock steady 14 volts. With the cooling fan on it drops to just over 12.

Now with it reading out at over 16 obviously the regulator is starting to fail. Now lets say they add a trailer and with the trailer lighting attached it runs at about 14.5 volts without the 35 watt driving lights or the fan.

What I'm wondering is what you think of continuing to use the failing regulator in order to have the available power to run all the extras but keepin enough things on to use up the excess power keeping it around 14 volts? Now obviously this regulator is eventually going to fail all together leaving the rider in a pickle...but is it likely to damage anything in the mean time.

For the record yes I'm talking about my Wing and yes I've already replaced the regulator with another used one. My voltage readings are still a tad high but I have not confirmed the readings with a multimeter either before or after the swap.

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If your stator has a significantly higher power output than the OEM it's likely you're going to experience continuing regulator/rectifier failures unless you load it down. The problem is the regulation is a shunt system that dumps the excess current to ground. That's why the regulator isnormally hot. The more load you put on it the less it has to dump to ground and the cooler it runs. Sixteen volts is too high and can damage electronics and lead to premature lamp failure. Sixteen volts is a bit much to apply to your battery too for that matter. One thing you could do would be to apply a permanent electrical load that will keep the voltage down to a maximum of 14.5V. Either driving lights that are always on or something else that would be on all the time. The best solution would be to find a voltage regulator/rectifier that was designed to handle the higher power stator.

You situation is much like the older cars of the 30s and 40s, on a long drive they often had their headlights on to prevent overcharging their batteries because of inadequate voltageregulation.