Dual regulators?

So the idea is to run a 12v AC regulator prior to a 12v DC reg/rec. I want to eliminate any voltage spikes coming from my baja designs reg/rec. The dual regulators would do a pretty good job regulating the voltage and protecting my battery and electronics. A cheap $15 dollar AC regulator seems a better choice over a $60 dollar capacitor.

Thoughts on that? I figured 14v coming from an AC reg going to a 12v DC reg/rec won't be a problem at all. But I don't know diddly about electrical systems. Particularly AC.

Cannot see it doing any harm myself, but I am wondering why you think the first reg/rec won't do the job ?, after all that's exactly what they are made for regulating and rectifying the voltage from the AC stator ?.
Have you stuck a meter on the smoothed side of the regulator and seen what voltage is coming through ?.

Bad idea, as any regulator needs UNregulated input. KIS, just mount the DC-unit, the rest of the world rides with them.

Thats what I'm afraid of doing. All I have now is a DC rec/reg and the voltage coming from it is all usually okay but once in a while its all over the charts. 8-15v DC regardless of RPM's. Thats enough to deplete my battery down to the point my GPS thinks its been unplugged from its power source and so much voltage that it would damage my battery pack.

I'm kind of an electronics nard so smooth clean power is important to me and really important to my expensive electronics. I really really really don't want to have to add little 12v switching power supplies to the power sources of all my electronics to provide clean power. They always have a few very small draw and will completely drain a battery if its not unplugged. I did that when I added a USB charger.

Is clean dependable power to much to ask!

Would have thought your stator was knackered if the AC drops that low that the DC is down coming out at 8v's ? have you checked the stator to the book ?, is your stator the fully wound version ?.

Its a brand new 200 watt Ricky Stator (dual 100 watt coils is the configuration I'm running). I think that my baja designs rec/reg and battery have gone gunny on me. It gets really hot, I know they get warm but this seems excessive and would explain the sporadic voltages. Also overcharging NiMh batteries is a no-no in the RC world. That's a good way to destroy your battery pack.

I called and spoke with Baja Designs and Ricky Stator, both agree there's no harm in running both regulators if I want to stay with a dual DC system. If I were planning/wanted a halogen headlamp forever, Baja Designs sells a harness/relay #12-9010 that breaks the headlamp out from DC and runs power to the headlamp directly off an AC reg. Down side to that is if I want to put my HID kit back in its AC and will need to be converted back to DC anyway.

I'm starting to figure out talking electrical is like debating religion or politics.
I won't be touching this subject again. Ever.
Kind of feel like a and don't even know why.

Would have thought virtually any rectifier would be good, maybe get 1 with a higher current rating would suit the Ricky stator ?, so you have dual coils 1 for AC lights and the other for DC ?, only the DC side needs rectifying but both need to go through the regulator ?. I would get a dame big regulator and then use a stock rectifier or the BD 1 for the DC side ?.

Sounds to me like the RR is too small for the 200W stator - try dual DC-RR's on separate circuits, I believe 1 per 100W winding? But then, get the RS-RR, it apparently has a surplus of heatsinking which is what you're after if you don't use the power all the time.

The Ricky stator is a dual lighting coil stator with each coil being 100 watts. You can jumper the coils together for one big 200 watt output but I'm not doing that, I'm only running off of one of the 100 watt coils which is going directly the the BD Rec/Reg which then goes to my battery and the rest of the bike. The other coil leads are currently taped off and not in use.

The bad part is I bought and installed an HID kit. It was a piece of cake and went very smoothly. With the bike off you turn the headlights on and boom, there was light. Very bright blinding white light. Got the front plate all buttoned up and tested it again, worked great. When I started the bike and turned the headlight on you could hear the ballast protesting with a loud click click click then a poof and that was that. The HID ballast is now toast.

I've heard it all, "Its on a Rec/Reg it should have been fine.", "The battery is bad.", "You should run a CAP.", "Your Rec/Reg is bad.", "You installed it wrong." whatever the argument is the fact is I'm getting some serous surging out of my Rec/Reg and its destroyed my HID ballast and my new 10 cell 1.7A NiMh battery pack. My Multi-Plex wiz bang RC battery charger won't even recognize it as a battery anymore. I know it was a good battery pack. I bought it new and cycled it three times before installing it on the bike.

I wish I had an oscilloscope...

But if you run the HID off the battery and no where else then the battery being DC should only put out it's designed max current and voltage...in effect work as a rectifier...your stator charges the battery so it shoudl keep it topped up ?. I can understand that if you ran yor HID from the stator directly that there might be a surge/spike that could kill it ?.... we used to fit a large smoothing capacitor but you know that already lol.

Mauser wrote:But if you run the HID off the battery and no where else then the battery being DC should only put out it's designed max current and voltage...in effect work as a rectifier...your stator charges the battery so it shoudl keep it topped up ?. I can understand that if you ran yor HID from the stator directly that there might be a surge/spike that could kill it ?.... we used to fit a large smoothing capacitor but you know that already lol.

Exactly.

Its very frustrating. Without the bike running the HID would run until the battery died I'm sure. Once the bike was started and the reg/rec began charging the battery, that's when things went bad. When I spoke with the guy at Ricky Stator I asked him about the capacitor (they sell all this stuff) and if you run a battery there's really no need for one.

http://www.rickystator.com/catalog/other-parts-c-23.html?osCsid=036d89560a90b1137714f7bc517d85e5

I was talking with a buddy during lunch and he had a pretty good idea. I had asked him about this oscilloscope I was looking at buying. (I could use one for all kinds of PWM and IC projects) But he said before I buy one try my voltmeter again but instead of DC which measures Vrms turn it to AC for Vpp then measure the DC voltage. The idea isn't so much to measure the voltage but to look for a fluctuation. If the rec/reg is bad there should be a significant amount of fluctuation when compared to measuring a 12v battery.

Figure I've got nothing to lose so I'll try it.

I has assumed (yeah, dangerous I know) that you'd already done that, as you mentioned large spikes.
But that BD r/r has different leads for batt and users doesn't it? Needs to be connected like that too if it has them, and I know some don't do this. Just my 2c's before you pull wool over me ears bru

BuRP wrote:I has assumed (yeah, dangerous I know) that you'd already done that, as you mentioned large spikes.
But that BD r/r has different leads for batt and users doesn't it? Needs to be connected like that too if it has them, and I know some don't do this. Just my 2c's before you pull wool over me ears bru

The BD r/r has four wires. Two yellow from the stator, a red and a black. The red and black go to the battery then everything else that needs 12v goes to that. I was able to see the large spikes using the voyager while riding not an actual multimeter. It's ratings are 12V RMS-150V Peak AC and 12V-60V DC and I can monitor the input volts on a user menu.

It's not something silly like where you have taken the supply for the HID's from is it ?, if you took it from the stator feed to the battery rather than from a feed from the battery then maybe without the engine running it would back feed to the HID's but when the engine is running the juice is flowing to the HID's rather than to the battery ?.....hope that makes sense just trying to figure out what is going bad. My old tester used to have a peak voltage feature where it would only record the highest voltage received, maybe you could borrow 1 and see what sort of volts your actually getting @ the HID's

I would put chokes in, each sensitive piece of equipment its own one. You know the current draw of each, so smooth things per consumer I'd say.