White wire, headlight, elctrical stuff

2door said:

Hahahaha, "Old School", Jason certainly has me pegged. I'm still running points and condenser in my hot rod; partly because I like the dependability and partly because an HEI distributor would hit my forewall.
At least when someone drops the bomb my car will be the only thing still running.
Just kidding. I have no doubt that the electronic components will lend themselves better to the confined space we're dealing with. However, I'll have to bow out because my knowledge on that type of system is much too limited. I'll just sit back here, (in my rocking chair) and wait 'till you guys figure it out then I'll copy your design.
Revisiting on board batterys. I run a 6 volt system with a gel-cell battery, like those used for backup power for a fire alarm panel. I've checked it several times and I can get a good solid 90 minutes of respectable light, both head and tail from a full charge. Nevertheless, I'm still saddled with the burden of hooking it up to the charger after an evening's ride. I'd like to be able to charge the battery with the white wire or I've given some thought to buying one of those little wheel driven dynamos that are designed for bikes and see if it can be used to charge. "Bingo" Hey, could one of those dynamos be mounted so it would be engine driven? I know where they sell them, think I'll pick one up and do some experimentaion. Meanwhile...you guys keep working. I'll be watching.
Tom

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Only problem is those dynamos only put out a few watts of power, just like our white wire.

You can add a diode to your white wire and then use it to trickle charge your battery. When the motor is running and lights are off, it should charge it up, slowly. Might extend the amount of time you can use your lights.

As for points being reliable, that's not quite what I've been reading, but I'll take your word for it ..until they wear out or get wet or go over 6000rpms or...

Well, It would be nice if there was another power output on this engine. It would be nice if the solution was simple (maybe still is), but Its gonna take some serious thoughts to make this happen. Is it possible that we can make a diagram of the coil/magneto. I'm stupid, I know, but I see the fork with a coil that has two wires hanging out of it and then a bare wire coming out from the coil that is soldered to the fork. What the heck am I looking at here in terms of how this darn thing works? I understand the principles of an electric generator or even a dc motor (how magnets can be used to create electricity). I understand how a step up and down transformer works. Please help me understand the basic functionality/functions of this component. Does it need two coils on the fork to fart sparks out the CDI? Why are the two coils connected? and why is there a bare wire soldered to the dang fork? If someone could point me to the answers to these questions (animated examples, or step-by-step diagrams would be nice) it would be much appreciated. Thank You for your tolerance with me, I'm just trying to comprehend what's going on. Thanks.

I found this link to a CDI Diagram

http://eu.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/4347.pdf

Has anybody tried connecting their headlight to the blue and white wires?

hey guys i know this is off topic a bit but might help with some peoples lighting problems.
I made this unit at skool as a project.
It is a in-car VHF radio unit that runs off a 12V car battrey. So what i did is got a small 12V motorbike battrey and a 12V solar charger.
i now trickel charge the battrey with the solar charger and run the radio off the battrey.
I am thinking of just replacing the solar charger with the white wire, so im charging the battrey from the engine and replacing the radio with lights or any 12V car assessories.

Down_South,

Let's see if this helps explain what you're seeing....

There are 2 coils, one wrapped around the other. The inner coil produces about 6v at idle, the outer coil produces about 60v (I measured the other day). The bare wire you're seeing is the ground wire for the coil. It is soldered to the core (the steel "U") and the core is screwed to the motor, which makes the motor ground. Since the motor is connected to the frame, this should make anything groundable to the frame - though in my opinion, not an ideal method.

The 2 coils share a ground. We don't yet know if this is for a specific purpose, or just a matter of convenience of design.

When the N pole of the magnet passes the coil, the outer coil sends approx +60v to the CDI. This charges up some capacitors and other junk. Then the S pole of the magnet passes the coil and it sends -60v to the CDI. This negative pulse signals the CDI to send the stored power through it's own little coil and into the spark plug.

The inner coil is for the white wire. You'll get a 6v AC signal from this wire. In my opinion, it's pretty useless for powering anything but maybe a small LED taillight. Because of the shared grounds, we believe this is why putting too much of a load on the white wire can kill your spark.

I don't know if Jim's started working on this or not, but I unfortunately have not had the time. I have a design I'd like to use, but I most likely won't be able to work on it till March since I am getting ready for a move.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Jason!!! That Helps a lot!!! Thank God I'm not losing it!!! I saw that Rick Shi has a headlight for these kits. View it here "...connect to Blue and white cable from the engine..." and "...will bright the bright in the night..." (chinglish LOL) Has anybody tried these?

Never seen it before.

Honestly I would NEVER connect a light to the blue wire. first it puts out 60v at idle so any normal driving light isn't going to handle it unless it has a built in regulator (which I doubt since it's $10). Second and most importantly, the blue wire provides the voltage for the spark. In order to get this high 60v, the wire in the coil is very thin, and will NOT handle much current at all. Stick a light on there and you will most likely lose your spark, and probably fry the coil.

You guys probably saved me from a lot of pain and suffering with this discussion...

I was about ready to hack on a home built LED based lighting system and power it off the stock 5-6v AC from the white wire without a AC to DC conversion rectifyer circuit. For the time being i am going to just run these circuits off a recharable battery pack untill i get the parts to build a new circuit.

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View my personal projects site at MDKLEGIN ONLINE

Creative Engineering said:

Finfan,

Does what I'm talking about make sense? I have only a limited knowledge of electronics.

It would seem to me that a secondary coil would be the way to go. A bridge rectifier could also be put together for the benefit of getting a DC output. Also cheap!

Jim

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Hello guys,

I found a rather interesting site you guys may want to look at in order to rig up a lighting system for your rides. Something on the line of building a rectifier as a way to convert a AC current into a DC current similar to what you would find in a modern day alternator. The URL is JP7 M/cycle Trike Wiring.

u should be able to seperate the white wire fromgrounding out the blue one by disconecting it from the ground on the bar and running a new wire out so that u end up having the blue and black the same and then the white and a secent black for ground to the light

It still steals power away from the coil. How do I know? Because the secondary coils you get off ebay do that very thing. I'm in the process of rewinding one to see if there's any way of getting it to work.

BTW don't buy them. I took mine apart and couldn't believe how redneck these things are. The plates are nothing more than galvanized ductwork tin cut out with snips and the plates are not interconnected like they should be. The coil is wound very sloppy.

So far I've cleaned all the zinc off the plates, compressed them together and welded a bead along the edges (like they should be), rewound the coil with the same gauge wire and the same amount, 52' of #26 wire. So far it's an utter failure. I get the same resistance off the secondary coil as I do the white wire and the funny thing is they both produce about 2v at idle and 4v at WOT.

I have relatively no experience working with magnetos, but...

I noticed someone (I think it was Creative Engineering?) wanting to put the magneto on the opposite side -- 180 degrees -- from where it is stock.
If that causes issues with timing, couldn't you just use an inverting op amp to put it back into phase? However, I suppose you'd have to use power from the lighting system for the Vcc...


Edit: Oops, sorry for reviving this didn't look at the dates.