Can a bad battery kill your stator?

[Proteus]

I replaced my stator 3 years and 1000 miles ago with one from Electrex. I also cut the plug and soldered the three white wires. Today I checked voltage to my battery and found that it isn't charging. I then stripped some of the shrink tubing over my soldered joints and sure enough I have continuity between the soldered joints and ground. MY STATOR IS DEAD. Now I have some questions for all you experts out there...

1) Last year my battery died and I spent a couple hours trying to get it started by pushing it down a hill far from home (didn't want to call the wife just yet ;-) I could get it started for a few minutes but it would die again. I just didn't believe my battery was dead so I kept trying. Could this have put undue stress on the stator and fried it?

2) On the Electrosport fault finding chart it says to connect a piece of wire from the battery to the "extra wires coming from the R/R". The only extra wires are the yellow, brown, black, and red wires. Should I connect the spare chunk of wire from the positive post on the battery to the red wire connector and negative post to the black wire? Or, am I supposed to connect to the brown and yellow wires?

3) Since it appears my stator died pretty early in it's useful life, and assuming my dead battery was not the direct cause of it's failure, could it have been the original R/R that is causing this? Should I replace the R/R when I replace the stator? Is Electrosport still the best source?

[h2olawyer]

I'll let someone better with electrics answer your questions.  I just wanted to let you know that I had a Rick's stator last me 1 year & 1,000 miles.  I think there may be a few that come off the line from either maker with a weak spot in the windings.  I replaced both the stator & R/R the first time & still had the stator fry - with a good battery, to boot!

I replaced my Rick's stator with one from Electrosport & it's lasted over a year & several thousand miles so far.  (knocking on wood)  I know others here have had great luck with Rick's products & I won't bad mouth them over one prematurely failed stator in a type of bike known to eat stators with regularity.

Just wanted to let you know that sometimes stators just fry prematurely - even for Visions.  If your R/R passes all the tests, I don't see any dire need to replace it.  However, that is one of the nice parts to have a known working spare so it might be a good idea to get a new one just in case.  You may very well need it later.

H₂O

[supervision]

  I only time for a quick reply, (lucky for you?)  I'm not sure if you check continuity to ground with the leads hooked up to the  r/r.  But if you can run the engine and rev it alittle you can see if it is putting out AC current. use meter on AC volts setting good is maybe ..70 ? volts between any two leads  where you have them exposed.. don't get a shock..  I gotta go to work

[Lucky]

you have to check the stator with the wires unhooked from the R/R. the brown wire is signal current & the yellow is an aux wire some bikes (not ours) use.

re-read the flowchart, i don't think it says anything about a jumper wire (unless they changed it since i looked at it last...)

[Proteus]

So Lucky, you are saying that I need to chop my soldered connections just to check the stator? Seems like there should be an easier way to diagnose a bad stator. I did raise the RPM to 5k and checked the voltage on various combinations of the three stator wires but I'm pretty sure I had the meter set to DC instead of AC. I'll check it again tonight. Since the voltage on the battery is not rising with the RPM's on the bike, it's either the stator or the R/R, right? So that leads me to checking the R/R. Here's where the fault finding chart has me stumped..
"Connect one spare wire to the battery(+) terminal and connect it up to one of the extra wires that are in the block connector, apart from the YELLOW(or WHITE = YAMAHA) wires. Connect a second spare wire between the battery(-) and the other extra wire in the connectorblock."
What extra wire in the block connector are they talking about? Do they mean the white plug connector behind the TCI that comes from the R/R? Which color should I be using? What spare wire? Is this just a jumper wire?

Sorry for the rapid fire questions. Normally I can figure this out but this has me stumped.

[Lucky]

you went the wrong way on the chart, you should be testing for an R\R with 4 or less..

yes, unfortunatly, you need to cut the soldered wires, sucks for us, but it's better than burning the connector & related problems.

make sure your meter has a "diode" setting, in addition to Volts & ohms.

hth, --Lucky

[Superfly]

A stator from Ricks lasted me around 30k miles.  And I do agree w/ H20 about every so often, a lemon could come out of the batch.  Definately take your time going thru the fault finding diagram, and double check the R/R.  As an extra precatution, I added an extra ground wire from where the R/R hooks into the wiring harness to the Neg. terminal of the battery.

[Proteus]

Thanks Lucky and Superfly. I went back through the diagram and saw where I went wrong. Makes a difference ;-)  Diode setting is the same as the continuity setting on my digital multimeter right? Basically giving me an audible beep when I have continuity. So what's the conscensus? If the R/R checks out, should I keep it and save some $$ or is there a chance that the R/R is old and weak and possibly putting extra strain on the stator?

[Superfly]

The Continuity check is in Ohms, and the Diode test is in volts. 
(Electrosport has changed the fault finding chart, added a few more steps)

A "quick test" of the stator is the continuity test.  All 3 readings sould be between 0.5 - 2.0 Ohms.  If not, typically the stator is shot, but to be completely sure of what is going on in your charging system, it is best to run thru the whole chart.  I keep a digital volt meter hooked up via the ingition switch wiring so I always know what my charging system is doing.

[George R. Young]

A stator lasts about 5 years or 25000 km, then its insulation fails due to overheating, and it shorts to ground. I replaced the melted stator connector (which did not cause a stator failure, by the way) with automotive spade connectors. More than enough current carrying capacity and makes diagnosis of the next failure easier.

Never needed to change or move the regulator/rectifier.

If you carry a spare stator,  you can replace on the road without even draining the oil, just lean the bike against a convenient tree.

[Lucky]

as i understand it:

the difference between a ohm or voltage setting on the meter, and the diode setting, is that in the diode setting, the meter induces a small amount of current, which is passed thru the diode, and the meter displays the current drop thru the diode, very different than reading continuity.

--Lucky

[Proteus]

My multimeter's diode setting is also the audible continuity setting so I guess it covers everything. Tonight I cut the soldered connections to my stator and found that the stator is fine but the R/R is shot. Fails all of the Electrosport tests. In fact when I inspected it closely, the epoxy on the back was cracked and there are little beads of solder wedged in the crack. Definitely a blown R/R. Good for me, it's cheaper, easier to replace, and it's not the stator that I just replaced not even 1000 miles ago. Thanks as always for all the great advice.

[Lucky]

i'd say that's a win!  :D

[motoracer8]

In a way yes, a low battery stresses the regulator, it is passing a lot of curent to charge the battery, and it gets quite hot, that's not engine heat. The regulator fails, generaly a diode shorts to ground the stator over heats and thats it. So if you are shure you have a stator failure, replace the regulator, it's probbly caused the stator failure to start with. I have replaced several vision stators with ones from a  early four cylinder Honda Gold wing they are a bolt in, you are going to have to cut the wires anyway so you will have to do alittle soldering. Use a Honda CX500 regulator. I have a friend that has 50'000 miles on a 83 Vision with this setup and no probblems. He also uses a good quality battery, and uses a battery tender. I bought a Vision in 1987 with a bad charging system, I replaced the stator and regulator with oe Yamaha parts, and I installed a headlamp switch that I got from England, oe Yamaha, The machine has 46,000 miles on it and no failures. I live in California, you don't have to run your headlamp all the time here. If you run your headlamp all the time the honda stator/regulator seams to put up with the extra load better than the Yamaha parts. And are available from a Honda dealer. Buy a good quality battery, charge it all the way up before you put it in service, and charge it every two weeks if you don't ride, and you will have less battery/charging probblems.

Ken---

[George R. Young]

Some things about the Vision charging setup are counter-intuitive.

The Vision permanent magnet alternator is a constant output device. It puts out around 20 amps, some runs the ignition and lamps, some charges the battery, and some heats up the regulator.

If you reduce the lamp load, more current flows into the regulator, and it gets hotter.

Because it's essentially a constant current device, low battery voltage (e.g. if a cell is shorted) does not harm anything. In fact, if the battery voltage is low, more current flows into the (defective) battery, less into the regulator, and it runs cooler.

[Cdnlouie]

I would add my experience of having a bad battery that coincided with the burning of my connectors.  The connectors were toasted about a month before my failing battery finally just would not start the bike or hold a charge.  This may have been coincidence or it may not.  The stator was about 2 years old then, and it finished its short, but glorious life just recently, 2 additional years later and within 15000 km.  It seems like the bad battery put an extra load on the stator which overtaxed the connector capacity.

My observations,

Louie  :(

[Mutt]

as i understand it:

the difference between a ohm or voltage setting on the meter, and the diode setting, is that in the diode setting, the meter induces a small amount of current, which is passed thru the diode, and the meter displays the current drop thru the diode, very different than reading continuity.

--Lucky

Late response to your post I know but.....yes the diode checker produces a smaller voltage and current than that of the OHM testing. Even the smallest setting on the OHM setting could cause a bad diode to appear good. The typical diode has a break down voltage (current flow) of .6 volts. If it doesn't break down with in the tolerance level say + or - 10% it is usually bad. A low setting on the OHM setting could be introducing up to 10 times what is required for the breakdown voltage to occur which will look like the diode is good when in fact it is bad. However, most of the time a diode will completely open. Rarely does it short.

Always use the diode tester for accuracy.

Mutt

[jasonm.]

one word answer...............YES