converting a 6 volt bike to 12 volts.

[Rick G]

I have some questions from  those of you with an electrical/electronics back ground.

My XL350 Honda , has a 6 volt electrical system. It charges the battery , which supplies power for the horn, tail light, turn signals and brake light. The head light is run right off of the lighting coil (think stator) There are three coils , one supplies power for the ignition , one supplies  power for the battery  and the third supplies power for the head light . The head light voltage is unregulated, the resistance of the bulb filament IS the regulator . The head light receives 45 to 50 volts AC . this results in a crappy head light at low speed and  Honda gets 70.00 for the damn seal beam.

Now , I'm preparing to convert it to 12 volts . I have a 12volt, single phase regulator / rectifier, that I'm going to feed the 50 volts to, in order to  power all the lights off of the battery. It will require a little rewiring but nothing elaborate.
My question is , can I piggy back the connection to the RR with the output from the  coil ,that charged the battery, with the 50 volt connection  and use both to charge the 12 volt battery, through the 12 volt single phase RR? Or must I abandon that coil . I'd like to have all I can get to charge the battery.

[Coil Coyle]

Rick,
          My opinion is that you need to hook the two coils together on one side and connect that to one of the 3phase regulator's stator leads, then connect the other side of each coil individually to the other two R/R leads.

         You will have two phases charging and one missing phase. Think of it this way; the two coils are a "V", one lead to each of the two legs of the "V" and one to the point.

         Test run it near the house ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

$0.02
;)
Coil

[Rick G]

I have 3 phase regulators , but I felt I needed a single phase reg. for this project and I looked for months to find one.  I figured since I have only one at 45/50 volts the smaller one would be redundant . I think I'll try a Vision RR with 2 phases connected and see what I get. Some where I have an Ohm's law pie chart somewhere. I have 45 volts  at 60 watts for the   head light so I'll try to figure the amps.

[Coil Coyle]

Rick,
        The two coils output will be out of phase, you will need the 3 legs of the R/R rectifier to catch two phases.
The other choice would be two single phase R/R with both of their outputs feeding the Battery. That would also take care of the phasing problem from the coils output.

        Here's a PIE chart that should download OK on your phone line.
http://www.the12volt.com/ohm/ohmslaw.asp

$0.02
;)
Coil

This might be faster http://hvacwebtech.com/Ohm%27s%20Law.htm, it's near the bottom of the page.
;)

[supervision]

Rick, over on Honda 305 forum, many people replace the stock rectifier with Radio Shack # 276-1185   It is only 2 phase in my way of thinking, as their are only two a/c wires coming to it. the three coils are tied together to make it only two.  That part only costs $4 

[motoracer8]

The old Honda charging systems were single phase, 2 wires to the rectifier, the third wire coming from the generator went to the ign, or headlamp switch so when the lights were switched on, it put 3 more coils in the charging system so it could keep up with the load. I have a Honda CB77 that I put a solid state single phase RR on. I combined the third wire, the pink one in this case, with one of the wires that went to the rectifier, so I still have two input wires for my single phase RR. This set up has been on that old Honda for over 20 years and has worked fine. It puts out 14.2 volts, and is capeable of 10 amps. The RR I used is from a HD Sportster before they went to 3 phase. It was made by the Tympanium corp.

  Ken G.