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the manual says its single phase. it is. I say its three phase. it is. honda twins says its single phase. that whole site is wrong on this. spirit66 banned me for saying the way I deal with this bike is three phase and deleted my posts there. you can not fix this bike single phase period. skip all the theory on the first read. you can read it later. skip down and read money green first.

electircal posts are never anwered on that site on posts that are up for years. voodoo mantra is how they deal with the electrics. voodoo does not work. I do wear voodoo colors. don't see any downside from wearing black on saturday and red on tuesday. wearing green on payday can only help and is a good idea.

deep theory you don't need to know.

there is a machine called an ocillicope. it is a small tv to look ac or dc current on a screen graph. you can see voltage and shapes. dc is a flat line. ac is a sine wave. the cdi pulsar trigger is saw tooth. honda twins have three stator wires. 6 coils in series attached to 2 coils in series. where they are attached is the pink stator wire. the 2 coils is yellow. white is 6 coils. if you take a look with a scope the picture on the screen will be an ac sine wave on each of the wires. the stator coils are arranged in such a way that all of the ac sine waves line up with each other. the pink wire is 180 degrees out of phase, the scope pic is the same. this is single phase. who cares. the engineers of the day did. thats why they put each stator coil where it is. it was done on purpose. the reason is that regulators of the day ran  differently then today. it is also the reason why the yellow wire going to the high beam (also a white wire)(voodoo) is in the handle bar. wire colors don't always have a meaning.

deep theory lite recap

what does all that mean. on the little tv the picture all the ac sine waves line up single phase. the voltage coming out of each is the only difference. yellow is 2 so its the lowest, pink is 8 and the biggest and white is 6 has the middle voltage.  three stator wires single phase with different voltages. stock honda twins are designed to run on two stator outputs, the pink and white and a battery. yellow comes on with the high beams.

thats why the kohler r/r thread persists on the honda twins site even though its fucked up from post #1 for the last 7 years. the way the guy has it wired is the same as stock by skipping the yellow and running a battery. won't run without a battery this way.

money green starts here.

why am I the only person riding a honda twin with out a battey with the stock stator. it's because I know two facts written here and only found on this site with the fix.

1: honda twins barely have enough juice at idle without a battery.
2: because there is not enough voltage at idle the headlight dims. when this happens the resistance of the headlight decreases. this decrease in resistance shorts out the bike making the headlight an automatic relay. kill switch at idle.

here is the fix to problem #1. use all 3 stator outputs in a way where they are run in series to get maximum voltge at idle. this is done by running all 3 stator wires through the r/r. this will rectify and add all the voltages. 2+6+8 coils in series. this is reality and not voodoo and it is called 3 phase rectification. the fix has to be with all three phases. cn/ch250 honda uses a 3 phase r/r and is the most modern fix. its wiring is obvious even for the most electrically challanged. 

the fix to problem #2. get rid of the automatic kill switch. led's do not short out the bike at idle because the resistance does not change at lower voltages. it will flash a little when the voltage gets too low but it won't kill the bike at idle. change out all incondescents to led's and the stalling stops.

This July 3rd from 7-10pm we will be celebrating America with a very special collaboration between Triumph Brooklyn and Left Field NYC and a group ride across America! Come by for refreshments from The Brooklyn Brewery, music, food, friends, and to meet Mark Hunnibell and his 1919 Henderson 4-cylinder motorcycle before he embarks on his cross country journey.

105 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249

I read your thread on how to wire a motorcycle. I saw that you posted on the thread about a  b108 universal ignition and how that could be a cheap solution to my potential bad coil on my RD350. Obviously it needs a custom mount but is everything pretty much straight forward with that coil? I have a set of EMGO coils that I believe one of them may be on its way out.

the emgo coil I tried first did not work. bought it on ebay with the search '12v points ignition coil'. had a sentra coil from a car I owned. no issues for the 3 years I rode on it. emgo has mixed quality. some of their products are fine. others suck.

80's coil packs rock. posted the b108 coil because the thing has an external resisor. you will need it with an rd. coils wire exactly the same. the only issue is the connection to the spark plug wire. ultra black is an easy way to form silicone insulators. be creative. better than new for cheap. this coil pack is for a vw dune buggy.

If the emgo wire and cap are in good condition you can cut them off and use them on the new coil.



thanks for reading my post.

Been reading on many forums. seems to be common elements in all. this is my observation.

*craigs list junkie, always brings home the next project after consulting his dick and not his brain. pays 2500 or more for an r5 when an r6 in the same search can be had for under a thousand.

**dude who only uses the 'right parts'. delorto carbs, basinni pipes, mbz. these threads start go on for years and the project never gets done finished. endless scavanger hunt.

***do it yourselfer that can't do. taken apart never put back. some dudes get over their head quick. will go to great legnths to bag and box and label each removed part and the whole project is up on craigs list. boxes bags and all. this is how I buy all my bikes.

****healthy obsessed. checks cl often. buys junk and fixes it for reasons that might not make sense but are not problematic. this type of person is looking for obsolete vehicles that have some kind of fun factor. could have done a ninja but you did a dt250. you can justify rebuilding a dt250  because of the fun factor but not performance. It always will be a paint shaker.

think of is as a spectrum of disease. you can suffer from parts or all.

last Thursday of the month. free parking in front of the hard rock in times square 43rd st. monthly gig. details on the nyc motorcyclist website. mostly custom big bore bikes. any excuse to hang out on the duce is a good one. boy that area was hopping in the 80's.

took like 1 hour per bolt. cant believe it was that difficult. almost impossible to get your hands on tools. ratchet went 1 click at a time. can not believe the level of difficulty to replace such a simple part. took 1/2 hour to remove the old pump once the bolts were out. finally used a breaker bar to push an ac line out of the way.

http://nycmotorcyclist.com/gallery_SLDG.html

cheap regulator/rectifier upgrade we are going to change the name of the post to 'the cheapest regulator/rectifier upgrade!' I'm going to post in decending order of cheap.

I upgraded my rectifier on my bike using the radioshack rectifier upgrade, which i've used on both my bikes, and was very happy with it. however, I am only running a 4ah battery on one of my bikes and didn't want to trust the stock regulator to keep my battery from being cooked, so i started looking at upgrades.

I saw the single unit upgrades from charlies place and oregon parts, but they are bit out of my price range. I noticed that one of the units was identical to a reg/rect I had installed into an old riding mower. that unit had only cost me $45, so I started looking at those. after a bit more research I found a good, small unit. I was lucky and got mine in an auction for $10, however all the other units i've seen online sell for right around $25-30.

the unit is typically used for Kohler or John deere engines, its rated for a 12v15a system. these honda twins (as far as i know) only get about as high as 8a, so the 15a is plenty.

here's a link to one example.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/REGULATOR-RECTI ... 1881wt_568

the kohler part number is 25-755-03

now for those of you who have already upgraded to the radio shack rectifier, installing this will be a breeze, as it only has three terminals. AC1(yellow) AC2(pink) and battery+ (red or red/white) and it grounds out through frame, or you could bolt it on using a ring terminal. basically you just unplug the radio shack unit from the wiring, plug this one in, and remove the stock regulator.

here's a comparison shot.


and here's a shot of my wiring.


now, the hard part will be mounting it. for me, I installed this on my cafe 500t, so it was all custom mounted anyway. I would think it could almost be mounted where the stock regulator went however, only being bolted on with one bolt.

and while i installed this on my 500t, it will work for all honda twins with a 12v system and this kind of charging system

basically you just unplug the radio shack unit from the wiring, plug this one in, and remove the stock regulator.

this is total bullshit, you need the rectifier. no one at honda twins saw this and the post has been up 7 years.

wonderful let's start by correcting the post. then I will give 3 other cheaper methods in decending order of cheapness. this is not a flame of honda twins. I've read all 49 pages of this thread and none of them get it. do not waste your time. 2sw is the place to score good dope. here is your fix.

theory:  ac current is generated and needs to be turned to dc. the dc voltage needs to be regulated. this is the way it was done on the stock bike. we want all 3 stators wide open at idle. this is a pic of where we are starting from. 3 stators. the colors are white, yellow and pink. this is a modern rewire. forget about running the yellow wire to the handle bar light switch. yellow goes directly to the rectifier with this mod.



Method 1: cost about $13. radio shack is gone. let's use a different rectifier. one that did not exist when this thread was written. the kbpc3510 2 phase rectifier costs $2 shipping included.



yellow and white stator wires go to the ac terminals on the onan/kohler. the center terminal marked B goes to the battery and the case of the kohler/onan gets grounded to the frame.

the pink wire goes to an ac terminal on the kbpc3510 rectifier. positive goes to the battery and negative to the frame.

done.

method 2: cost $10. the modern 3 phase r/r is the honda cn250/ch250. it could not be simpler to wire in. the 3 stator wires (pink yellow white) get wired to the 3 yellow wires on the r/r. the green wire goes to the frame and the red to battery. done.



method 3: cost $4.74. someone on 2sw turned me onto this. there is a dude on this site running a scoot r/r on a powerdynamo.  its scr runs on AC and costs $2.37 each. we will need 2 of them. If you run the stock headlight you need to run a battery. 4.5 ah is a plenty. if you change to led's you can run a battery eliminator. economy sells them. it wires in just like a battery.







method 4: costs under $3. roll your own. got a tip on this site for Irfz44n n channel mosfet. looked up how much this part costs. they cost 10 for $1.79. jim knows his shit. you will need 2@$.36 a zener $.20 insulator with bushing $.25. one 10k resisror$.15 and a $2 rectifier. I'm going to skip the details.

Let't drag mark into another thread. I have the upmost respect for mark. He is an amazing mechanic and fabricator. I am niether. I am a good mechanic and an awful fabricator. thats why my sig is bracket maker. taking a bracket and drilling holes in it is my fab skills. I know my place. my skill is in re-writing almost 50 year old manuals to use modern electrical parts.

what makes mark really special is he could care less what I do. I have the freedom on this site to say why and how. uncensored. he does not agree with me on occasion, and is cool with it.

mark has an r5 bone stock with a mechanical regulator. I said I skeve mechanical regularors like they are roaches. I live in nyc. our roaches are especially nasty. If I see one I will kill it bare handed. we don't agree.

why? marks r5 runs perfect bone stock. why complain about it. well here's why. it starts with knowing how a part works and what it does.

An antique bike that runs a mechanical regulator has 2 modes only. at idle the bike is not charging. the regulator is off. at idle all antiques runs off the battery and not off the charging system.  at about 2k rpm the charging system starts working. from 2k to redline the bike is charging. at about 4k the regulator turns on because the voltage is above battery charging voltage 14.3v. this works till about 5k then the 2nd antique regulator kicks in. It's called the big ass heavy battery. above the charging voltage the battery resists charging any more by boiling off water. It was normal at the gas station in the '70's to have battery water available. yup distilled water in a goofy container sitting ontop of the gas pump. the dude at the staton would open up the individual battery cells and add water as needed.

as a mechanic I always want better after I do a repair. the electronic regulator that was made possible by the transistor is a better repair. It is because it works differently.

the electronic regulator starts working exactly the same as the mechanical regulator. at idle it is turned off because antiques work by running off the battery at idle. at about 2k the electrical regulator kicks in and keeps the voltage charging at 14.3 till red line. with a electronic regulator the battery does not do any regulation!

what does all of this mean. An antique bike with a mechanical regulator works fine bone stock. it also means no tiny batterys. you are forced to use heavy old fashoned batteries that have access to the cells to replace water.  a scoot agm battery will work for a time but will burn out quick on the highway. as bruno says to his gaybay oj, running a lithium battery with a mechanical regulator is a nitch nitch. eventyally you will roast your nuts. led's are also nitch nitch with mechanical regulaors. the led that runs flawlessly 10,000 hours at 12v will last 5 hours at 16v. cheap led's come without a driver.

no one on this site needs to be an engineer to make these repairs. buy a plug and play regulator from economy cylce, run a cheap light agm scoot battery and save money in the long run. throw out the battery tender and use the extra room in the battery box to carry oil, not lead. with a modern regulator you can run led's and save even more. you will not believe how much less gas is used at idle till you back out the idle screw youself after changing the headlight. 1157 cob leds for the tail are plug and play. just unplug the relay behind the horn on an rd. as a city boy I spend a lot of my riding time at idle waiting for vision zero lights. you don't want to know.

lots of talk about mosfet regulators. what is it? why is it better? mosfet is just a type of transistor. nothing else. it serves the same purpose as any transistor. it's an electric switch that amplifies voltage. a tiny electrical signal turns the thing on and allows lots of current to pass through the thing. it's an electric solenoid.

so does that mean the bjt transistor is antique. no way. it has properties mosfets don't have. bjt's can be wired emitter follower. emitter follower regulator is the led driver.

so why are all the modern regulators mosfet. all the reasons are practical. cost, they are much cheaper to make than bjt power transistors. they pass more current. the irfp250 25 amp mosfet costs like 5 for 5 bucks. they are easier to heat sink. the t03 case on the power bjt needs 5 precision holes to mount and an insulator with special bushings. the mosfet needs only 1 hole to mount and is electrically isolated. no insulator needed, still needs a bushing though but only one. the bjt needs 4 nylon bushings.

like all electronics the newer mosfet transistor is cheaper, easier, stronger but not better.

                   
   

this is what iv'e been up to. the project is finished. these pics taken at idle and the bike has no battery. I rewired in a modern way. I used the 3 phase sql40a rectifier. it allows for full current output at idle. the thing is stupid fun to ride. put db killer baffles in the pipes. they are the shit for 4t's the turn signals work perfectly. ice cube relays switch between modes. the turn signals are integrated front and rear.

anybody can do this on any honda twin even old ones like the '68 cb77e 305 superhawk, with plug and play parts. keep the stock harness. the rewire happens at the rectifier.

mark likes to keep it stock, so do I to a point. I skeve mechanical regulators like they are roaches. besides the led's I've done my best to make this bike look period correct. I kept all the bar switches so they look like they actually work. only turn and horn work. every oz of dead weight has been removed. there is nothing left to strip out. the best part of riding this turd is the reaction the nyc police give me. its like being on the enterprise with shields at 100 percent. every one here knows I'm a lane splitter street cross rider. the cops wave to me and I wave back. they are too busy with 2t's and stuff without plates. I'm legal and inspected.

restomod is a type of build. its the art of using new parts on an antique in modern ways. it also means people can't see what you did till you start the bike. this is how I restomoded my cb360 to run batteryless.

posted at one popular honda site, they thanked me by banning me for life. do the was a waste of time. that site works on bad karma. one person kicks you down then everyone steps on you. more politics then facts.

these are some of the parts I used to run batteryless. ebay is a strange place. if you try to buy a h4 insert for your stock headlight it costs $22.99. buy the whole headlight costs half. If you want to use stock turn signals just change them to ll56's to yellow cob's and dont use the signals in the headlight.

this is the headlight, h4 reflector and front integrated turn signals in the pic.




                                           
this bulb uses very little current. throw away the free 30watt bulb and change to this bulb. you can not run without a battey with out this part. run it on high and no need to switch the headlight. the bike will start fine with the led on high with one kick.




this is the 1157 red cob led I used in my taillights.
                                             
         

I don't think anyone would deny that I can make a bracket. I am so jealous of people who have space to keep a stable and machine tools.

got tired of trying to explain electronics to enginear. so during the down time I wrote a non technical post how to wire any motorcycle with 5 cheapo generic parts. please read and comment its in the tech section when you log in. chop cult got nice chopped wiring diagrams, read them all. now 2sw has nice chopped diagrams. posted generic parts not on any forum.

made this post and got banned at the nats forum. glad 2sw is back.

joined ddt after lurking for the last 10 years. so suprised they are as cool as they are. I always thought that they wanted bikes that would do the ton (100mph). not like that at all. anything loud and stinky goes there.

thanks for being back in action.
ben