Bad stator?

Yup, that looks fried, just like mine I just replaced:

RJ2112 said:

Do you see these bikes come in with OEM electrics, or do they have modifications of some sort?

Click to expand...

of the few I see that failed each year, and overwhelming number have added electrics

heated grips--plug ins for their heated vest and power ports for phone chargers and GPS etc.... ( I won't even take in shit with leds and halos and a bunch of fucking half assed installed bullshit--but those likely would skew the numbers even more in the ........ add electrical draw that the bike is not designed to accommodate and your wiring and charging system will fail faster)

Even further skewing..........bikes which are designed to be minimalistic (ie sportbikes) have even higher failure rates than bikes designed with some electrical draw in mind (ie touring and cruiser and even to some extent sport touring bikes)

stock, maybe 1 or 2 of the bikes every few years are stock... so yes usually they have add on shit

way back in the day, just changing bulbs from 55/60 to a 55/100 and then using that 100 frequently would cook the battery but not the stator or RR.......but batteries have gotten so much better- now the wiring connections melt and the components fail before the battery gives it up.

If you look at most sportbikes they have 8a and maybe 135 CCA batteries and minimal charging system output to maintain that. compared to most cruiser/touring bikes with 14a-20a batteries with 200-310CCA and a charging system putting out almost double what the sportbikes do..... (this is generalized, but fairly accurate representation of what is going on)

This is the reason I am looking to LED replacement headlight bulbs, rather than HID.

The charging system simply does not have the capacity to support HID, IMHO. The charging system has to replenish the battery, after it is drawn down by the starter... it has enough output to support that function and run all of the stuff needed to make the bike legal for road operation.

When a sport bike is built to be competitive, EVERY component that can be made as light as possible, is. Alternators are heavy. Batteries are heavy. Just enough to do the job. Putting additional load on these parts is a bad idea. All power generated by the alternator MUST pass through the regulator/rectifier..... which is also sized to be as light as possible to save weight.

LED headlight units will draw slightly less Watts than the incandescant bulbs they replace... that's a good thing. More light for less power is a win-win. HID need more power than either of these to start up (3-5 times their typical power consumption). That power MUST come from the charging system. Even if it has to take it from the battery in the short term, the alternator is the only thing that generates electricity -- it has to produce the power to put in the battery at some point. If you ask for more power, that generates more heat.

OEM? One 55W bulb that always pulls the same amount of power.

HID? times two? 55 W? That's a steady state draw of 110 W -- this is already right at the maximum output the alternator can provide (when you factor in the consumption of the ECU, and ignition.... ABS modules can only make this more significant). Better hope you don't have a weak battery, or it's cold out, or you forget to turn off the lights....

But what happens when you start those 2 55 W HID? Remember the 3 to 5 times as much power bit, earlier? That's 330 to 550 Watts...... which is very nearly the maximum rated alternator output to RUN THE ENTIRE BIKE.

Fuses will protect your charging system from sudden load changes. If the electrical engineer responsible for protecting your bike's systems set the headlight fuse at a certain value -- does it REALLY make sense to replace it with a fuse that blows at a higher power level? This is playing with fire.... evidence of that is the burnt stators seen on bikes that have HIDs, and heating elements.

HIDs are cheap.... Stators are not. HIDs are simple to install....Stators are not.

LEDs will not damage a stator, like a HID system will.

If you HAVE to run HID:

1) Run a single 35W unit on the low beam side. Make sure you buy a 'smart' ballast so the ballast is limited on how much current it can draw at one time --- this only spreads out the time that the alternator has to work harder than it is meant to; the power requirement doesn't go away.

2) Reduce electrical consumption anywhere else that you can. If you go to very low Wattage LED turn signals, integrated tail lights, L/P lights, LED marker bulbs, you will reduce the demand on your alternator. Wattage adds up as straight math. What you 'save', you can 'consume' elsewhere.

3) LED turnsignals only save you power if you use a 'smart' blinker. If you have to add resistors to make the blink rate stay where it is supposed to, the Wattage that used to be consumed by the bulb, is being consumed by the resistor.