Thoughts on Rons' oil sight glass observation

[QBS]

On the Electrex thread Ron allowed as how he thought that the stator was not is reality oil cooled because the sight glass shows no oil when the engine is running.  He went on to suggest that the stator was being heated by heat being transfered to the stator from the engine, due to the stator being mounted on the engine.  All this seems quite logical to me.

If one accepts this scenerio, it would seem possible that lowering the oil temp would directly lower the temperature of the stators' mounting point and still accomplish the desired result of lowering the stators' operating temperature.

With all respect to Jason, I am of the opinion that lowering the coolent temp will have only an indirect effect on the oil temp.  And, to acommplish significant oil temp lowering would require lowering the coolent temp to levels that would detremental to the overal operation of the engine.  Cooling the oil directly while leaving the coolent system alone to work as it was designed (cool the heads and cylinders) seems to be a more effecient, direct, and more controllable way to go.

As an indirectly applicable aside, oil coolers are seen more often on, and are much more directly beneficial to air cooled engines.  Air head boxer BMWs', Porches, and Harleys' come to mind.   Cheers

[supervision]

Make a water jacket behind the stator and plumb some water to it.  

[Humber]

Let me add my few cents... don't really think that is a temperature issue... My friends VFR has a stator well above the oil level.... more than in our bike..... no failures... I believe that a lot of bikes work in the same way, it is sth else...

[Walt_M.]

Does the VFR use a fixed magnet like the 'V'? If it has a variable field, it will not have the constant 300+ watt output that is the main contributing factor in our hot stators and R/Rs.

[ArrrGeee]

you know, of all the ideas I've heard and the many things that have been tried even by the manufacturer, supervision's
idea makes about the most amount of sense if you just want to try and control the temperature of the stator.
The thing is, The stator is in a harsh environment. that we know. my opinion is that there really isn't a way to change the temp of the stator in it's present location without possibly creating other problems and\or trashing your engine.
you can cool the oil all you want, but if you are not directly spraying the cooled oil onto the stator, it's a waste of time.
The stator gets some oil splash at best.  Didn't Yamaha come up with a way to spray it with oil on the venture ?
some people have tried doing that mod. but I don't know what the results are.

There are a few other bikes that have a similar arrangement without experiencing the high failure rate that we have and there are also a few that do.
The Suzuki intruders have a high failure rate with the same part as we do. some of the Honda's do not.

I'm more inclined to think that all things considered, if the connections are good ( a major factor ) and everything is working properly, that the reason for failure is more likely that the unit is not heavy duty enough. meaning, the wire, the insulation, is not designed to withstand the use that it is given.  
Just because electrex makes a reman unit for this bike, doesn't mean that the design is right for the application.
why couldn't whats needed be nothing more than a larger wire guage or heavier insulation on the wire ?
possibly there is a flaw in the regulator design or the swtching voltages of the regulator.

I'll say it again, there are are many other bikes with permanent magnet charging systems located inside of the engine, why are they less prone to failure than the vision.

Bikes that use the same stator :
Yamaha Virago
Suzuki Intruder
Honda Shadow 500\600
Honda CBR900RR (Fireblade)
Honda 500 Ascot

I'm thinking that exectrex might have an answer for us in terms of something that could be substituted as a heavier duty replacement for the stator and\or  regulator...

-Ron

[jasonm.]

Guys, I have an '87 Venture. YES, the oiling system sprays oil all over the stator. This did cure the early '83 Ventures from frying the stators. Along with a "better" stator. It is a simple design. But the heat that the stator is getting, is directly from itself. NOT the engine's other heat sources. Yamaha figured this out early. A bad stator due to heat alone on a Venture is rare(less than 2%). Drilling a hole in the flywheel bolt is not the sole cure. There is also a "splash washer". To destribute the oil. Also lowering the overall coolant temp just lowers the max. hp. by 1 or 2 hp. Most engines like oil temps of 180 -200. My thermostats in both vision is a 165 instead of 180. This is an additional acceptable cushion to keep from getting well over 200 degrees. FACT: an engine's oil runs 20 degrees hotter than the coolant when in a 70-80 degree environment. Unless it has an oil cooler. ANd remember a stator has to be above the oil level. Otherwise the flywheel would be spinning in oil. This would be an engineering nightmare to have oil being picked up and slung off the flywheel.

[Humber]

Almost all the bikes have permament magnets... variable field magnets in bikes are really scarce... the only one I know is in Suzuki gsxr...

I am with u Ron. on what u say.. there is more than the temperature...

[ArrrGeee]

heh heh, Jason, you're my hero. ;D
I'd completly forgotten about the simple fact that the flywheel needs to be out of the oil. ?I don't think the manufacturer would even take cooling the stator into the design unless as an afterthought. it's clear that as designed, the vision stator does not hold up long term.
what we need to do is find a better quality unit as a replacement. ?I would like to hear from the people who have had failures as to what actually failed. is the insulation melted?
are they mostly shorting out or going open ?

there are some guys on the board here that have rewound their stators, some data from those experiments would be also be really helpful in building a better stator...
which should probably be the title of the next subject.

here is some interesting reading on the electrex site:
http://www.electrexusa.com/Images/VFR_TECHNICAL_DETAIL.pdf


-Ron

[jasonm.]

When looking for my first Vision. I was aware of the stator failures. In fact 2 bikes I looked at both had the stators shorted to ground. This is due to the insulation melting or wearing against the field posts the wires a wound around. Simply put...insulate the posts better from the windings and failures would go down 50%. Better wire would reduce failures further.

[Lucky]

Ritzo at electrex is aware of our stator failures, and plans for an heavy duty part are in the works.  i have had several phone discussions with him and we have sent him a set of failed parts.  we are waiting on Rick to get ups accurate oil temps, as soon as his weather clears.  Ritzo has one or 2 other bikes with a similar problem and is commited to a cure.

On the oil cooler, this is an experiment, i am having parts made, I am footing the bill (sure donations are welcome) and I will test it on MY engine.

I am willing to take the risk. I'm not looking for massive tempuratire reductions, the piping for the cooler will probably be kept short.  as for pressure loss and ID tubing diameter, i'll be taking pressure readings before & after the cooler, and in the stock location, and experimenting with different set ups.

No, I do not think cooling the oil is the cure-all for our failing stators.  I do believe it is a contributing factor.  (Ritzo agrees) if oil is not is not even reaching the top of the stator in sufficent quantities, then this is something else to consider. Previously accepted mods should still be performed: soldering the connections on BOTH sides of the R/R, moving the R/R to a cooler location, cleaning & tightening ALL the connections on the bike. (what percentage of you have actually taken the time to do ALL of them, really?) etc, etc, etc.

It may turn out that a stator with lower output is the answer, as has been suggested here, anbd also discussed with Electrex. this is an area beyond my field of knowlage, and I defer to the experts...

I think dissing even the discussion of an oil cooler is a mistake.  I may find that it was a bad idea. I may find that it helps, I don't know yet.  But to say that's it's not the way to go, before all the info is in, is not what this Forum is about..
i'm looking for assitance and expertize here.  if you think my attemps at this are foolish then so be it.

--Lucky

[Bruce]

Lucky, I still think you are on to something. Since there is evidence that the engine was plumbed for a cooler in the first place, I would argue the engineers were thinking it may be necessary. Then they skipped it due to cost and they felt that the bike was running in spec. But, of course, they did not plan on a bunch of nuts still riding these bikes 20 years later, lol..

I, for one wil be interested in the end result.

Bruce

[Lucky]

I don't belive the plugs are there for an oil cooler, probably from drilling the passages during the machining process

[Rick G]

I think your right about the passage ways.  If eletrex  can come up with higher grade componants , I'm all for it.  My reason for investigating  an oil cooler  was to  move excess heat from the stator , if  the heat can be prevented  from occuring so much the better.  Its obvious that Yamaha dropped the ball.

[Riche]

Lucky
Consider this. The oil in your cooler may drain back to the crankcase. That much oil volume would need to be pumped before pressure/supply reached your bearings. A spring loaded check valve could be used to keep oil in the cooler loop if that was a problem.

[QBS]

If the cooler oil lines enter and exit the cooler from the coolers' top side the cooler can't drain down, only the lines themselves will drain.  cheers.

[Rick G]

I've been thinking about the necessety of check valves. That's why I want to talk with someone who has successfuly added an oil cooler to a Vision, I'd  rather build on their  success than my failure.
I wish we could find out  the temprature tollerance of the epoxy used in the OEM stators and the at used by Eletrex . the best I can find is a 650 deg.F   epoxy, but I don't know how this compares with what's used  buy  others.
 Perhaps a teflon coated wire would work ?  

[JaBey]

I think I'm really on the side of the team who think there is just something basically WRONG with the design. I didn't finish my engineering degree...but I took enough to know that if the intial design was flawed, usually all the controlled environment in the world wouldn't make it work right. In this case, I would see the temp of the oil to be negligable personally. The part that kind of boggles me is...it's been 22 years...there are no better and more durable materials to build these things out of yet? If heat is the enemy...ceramics have come a LONG way. There should be some kind of way to insulate it.

This might be kind of a whacky idea...BUT...has anyone ever tried looking up any members of the original design team? There is just so much conjecture on these things...it seems talking to a project head from Yamaha who over saw it in 82-83 could put 95% of the debate to bed. I have a strong hunch someone told him his design failed miserably, and if I know engineers...he spent a lot of his free time thinking about it....if he didn't already know why it failed.

I don't speak Japanesse, but just a suggestion:)

[ArrrGeee]

well, The vision is no different than a hundred other bikes with a permanant magnet setup. Yes it's a huge design booboo, but it has to be a huge compromise due to space constraints.

I wasn't all that sure before, but it's my opinion and I've seen much to back it up, that virtually all permanant magnet setups like the vision have longevity problems. ?Just do a search on ebay with the word stator and you'll see like 400-500 of them... The funny\sad thing is that bike makers are still using this arrangement on newer bikes.
between the heat, the vibration, the chemicals in the oil attacking the thing and the connectors self destructing, it's a wonder it lasts as long as it does.
Honestly, if it was a lot cheaper and more serviceable, you wouldn't mind slapping a new one in every season...
sort of like a set of plugs <large_Grin>

I don't think that there is a cure-all for this, From what I've seen here on the net, most stators hold up for about 5 to 10 thousand miles.
Honda Goldwings, interceptors, magnas, suzuki's, the list goes on. the bikes that don't have stator problems are the ones with a dry alternator\field coil type.

I don't think we should give up on finding ways to make it hold up better, some of the ideas that I've seen around here are brilliant. ?Also, I'm not trying to bash anybody or any of the ideas. Some of them I suspect will help and and some will not.

JaBey has some good points that I'll echo and maybe throw some ideas out. for example why can't the stator armature(if thats what it's called) be coated with ceramic?
if the most common problem is a short to the unit, coating it with ceramic would be one way of preventing the short.
also, where these stators probably were a low bid kind of thing, using newer technology materials would have to make a difference. I haven't had one apart yet and may be changing my tune once I do

here are some interesting tidbits:

for example Honda sells a rectifier repair kit which is basically a repair of the "melted connector" syndrome that we've seen.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=35594&item=2464404968

heck, we could use that on our bike, but I wouldn't recommend it ;)

speaking of heat.....
<quote>
There are several new alternator designs out there - General Motors has gone to water-cooled alternators (yes, there are 5/8" hose nipples on the back of the alternator) to keep the diodes cool on the newer model 4.6L Northstar V8s
</quote>
I believe those babys put out something like 150 amps !!

here is a company that make permanent magnet alternators and has specs to prove that it's superior to traditional field coil alternators;
http://www.polarpowerinc.com/products/alternator/3500&6200alternator.htm
 However they are not sitting inside a vision engine ;)

alright, here is an off the wall idea for you guys to ponder on.
ok, some bikes have ignition exciters as part of the stator
if you rummage around the electrex site, you'll see what I mean. if I understand the principal correctly they trigger a cdi unit. based on that ( and this is purely a theory) if you were to substitue a stator with the ignition triggers for the vision stator, figure out the timing sequence and run it to a cdi unit, and just for good measure say that the output from this stator was lower by lets say 5 amps, you could in theory solve 2 problems at once. The net result is you have a stator possibly running cooler and cdi ignition which should yield a better spark... ? ? ?how about that? heh heh.


I believe that my stator is also fried and will be running the usual tests once the weather warms up a bit. I will say that owning 2 visions over the course of almost 16 years and have never (until now that is) had a stator go. I'm curious as to what actually is bad and may try rewinding it myself or possibly building one from an boneyard unit so that I have a spare.... What the heck, I carry around a spare tci

-Ron

here is another tale....   it's not just a vision malady.
http://cx500.gobinet.se/wwwboard/turbo/messages/2561.html

[Humber]

Some guy I am talking to on my local messanger has had his stator rewound with a liquid glass insulation. I told Rick and Lucky about it, I don't know the details... maybe that's what u mentioning - ceramic insulation and coating, he made pictures of it for me but I haven't received them yet, by the way... the man who rewound the thing gave him 2 years of warranty and said he was sure that he wouldn't see him anymore....

quite interesting.. will try to post this picturees

[ArrrGeee]

Humber you're a genius!
check this out.

http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Aug02/LEW17164.html


http://www.ceramawire.com/olddef.htm

I've put in a call to these guys to get a quote.
if it works out, this could be the permanant solution.
the sales rep is out till monday, so I've no idea what
the cost is.


-Ron