White wire, headlight, elctrical stuff

[jasonh]

Really it depends on exactly how are little black box functions. My guess is that it charges on the + and discharges when it gets a -. If this is the case then simply putting the coil 180 degrees out, and also rotating the magnet 180 degrees out would probably work.

What I would do is before changing anything, take a timing light to the motor and get yourself a reference mark on the small sprocket on the clutch side. (mark a white dot on the sprocket, start motor, trigger timing light, make a mark on the motor case where the timing is) This way you'll know if your timing is out of sync or not, and if any small adjustments need to be made.

I had also been thinking of something like you're suggesting, but I was considering removing some material from the motor case so I could position some beefy coils on the top and bottom of the rotor.

 

[Creative Engineering]

I just finished destroying a coil to get the numbers.

Coil 1) 300 turns of 26GA., (inner coil), connected to the White wire 6V.

Coill 2) 3,600 turns of 35 GA., (outer coil), connected to the blue wire.

Coil 2 should be producing about 70V.

Coil 2 takes up the majority of the room. Coil 1 could easily be doubled, (600 turns), and still fit nicely directly across from the gnition coil.

This is definitely doable.

Jim

 

[jasonh]

I guess I had it backwards then, lol. I didn't have wires attached when I pulled it apart.

You really counted 3600 turns? That must have sucked.

26ga will give you the ability for 2.2amps. so at 12v you could run 26.4w worth of stuff.

I wonder if you could fit 600 turns of 22-24ga in the same spot. That would help power bigger lights.

22ga - 7a
23ga - 4.7a
24ga - 3.5a
25ga - 2.7a
26ga - 2.2a

 

[Creative Engineering]

I guess I had it backwards then, lol. I didn't have wires attached when I pulled it apart.

You really counted 3600 turns? That must have sucked.

26ga will give you the ability for 2.2amps. so at 12v you could run 26.4w worth of stuff.

I wonder if you could fit 600 turns of 22-24ga in the same spot. That would help power bigger lights.

22ga - 7a
23ga - 4.7a
24ga - 3.5a
25ga - 2.7a
26ga - 2.2a

Yeah it sucked...and you can figure +/-5% on the accuracy.

I think you could fit 600 turns of a larger gauge wire in the case. I can wind this coil here on the lathe, so i'll try it.

The other coil I'm not even going to attempt...the gauge is so fine that I know i'll break it. I'll have to find someone that has a coil winding machine.

Jim

 

[jasonh]

The other coil I'm not even going to attempt...the gauge is so fine that I know i'll break it. I'll have to find someone that has a coil winding machine.

Jim

Which is why I'm redoing the ignition. I figure if I can get enough 12v juice out of the thing, then you just need a tiny little coil or hall sensor to trigger an ignition similar to a car's, instead of having to generate ~70v on that coil.

Heck maybe we can help each other out. If you can finagle enough turns of 20ga (11a) or 18ga (16a) to get 12v at idle, I can solve the 2nd coil problem and we get 12v with decent power, and a better spark.

 

[Creative Engineering]

Sounds like a plan,

Here at the shop I have 22, 26, & 30Ga. magnet wire. I'll try the 22GA. and see how it goes.

There has to be a way to reconfigure this to make it more useful, without making it expensive.

Jim

 

[jasonh]

I'm sure there is.

I mean, heck, 2 300-turn coils one on top and one on bottom would do it. You'd just need to figure a new way to mount the stock magneto in the current position, and possibly hog out a little aluminum. That would certainly alleviate any timing problems and allow the stock ignition to be retained.

22, 26, 30...lemme guess, the combo pack at radioshack?

 

[Creative Engineering]

I'm sure there is.

I mean, heck, 2 300-turn coils one on top and one on bottom would do it. You'd just need to figure a new way to mount the stock magneto in the current position, and possibly hog out a little aluminum. That would certainly alleviate any timing problems and allow the stock ignition to be retained.

22, 26, 30...lemme guess, the combo pack at radioshack?

You got it! I bought this wire along with one of thier 300 in 1 project breadboards to do some experiements years ago. I pulled it out the other day.

Jim

 

[jasonh]

haha. I had one of those 300-in-1 things when I was a kid. Wish I still had it, it would totally help with some of the electronic things I've been trying lately.

I'll have to look at my magneto when I get home, but I'm wondering if you could just "roll" it over so the legs are pointing towards the front of the motor and figure out a way to mount it there (maybe have to cut the legs short) and you could put 2 300-turn coils where the legs were. That would probably be the easiest solution I'd bet.

 

[jasonh]

I'm also wondering if the two coils sharing a ground is part of the issue of too much power = no spark. Might be a good idea to not have the 12v coil(s) grounded to the motor.

 

[Creative Engineering]

I'm also wondering if the two coils sharing a ground is part of the issue of too much power = no spark. Might be a good idea to not have the 12v coil(s) grounded to the motor.

Exactly: at first I thought it might be an inductance thing causing a voltage drop on coil 2, but after tearing it apart and seeing how it's configured...the shared ground is definitely the culprit. That's why the white wire that attaches to coil one can also serve as an engine kill. Attach a high current draw item to the white wire and you're essentially creating a partial ground for coil 2. A weak or non-existent spark is the result.

There should be an isolated ground terminal block for the coil that will power lights...etc. I have a feeling you know a lot more about this stuff than I do so i'll stick to the electro-mechanical stuff and leave the "real" electronics to somebody else.

I'll be the first to admit I am world renowned for letting the smoke out of IC's.

Jim

 

[xPosTech]

Hi guys

Sorry I had to leave the conversation. Duty called.

Jim if you were to use a jam nut instead of the one currently holding the rotor (assuming you're gonna use the stock rotor) then shim the rotor up with a spacer washer and machine another cover (to match the clutch actuator cover) I think there would be room for the additional windings.

The existing coil is not taking up all the space in the housing as it is. There is room for some additional windings without a deeper cover now if the rotor were moved up a millimeter or two.

Ted

 

[xPosTech]

Exactly: at first I thought it might be an inductance thing causing a voltage drop on coil 2, but after tearing it apart and seeing how it's configured...the shared ground is definitely the culprit. That's why the white wire that attaches to coil one can also serve as an engine kill. Attach a high current draw item to the white wire and you're essentially creating a partial ground for coil 2. A weak or non-existent spark is the result.

There should be an isolated ground terminal block for the coil that will power lights...etc. I have a feeling you know a lot more about this stuff than I do so i'll stick to the electro-mechanical stuff and leave the "real" electronics to somebody else.

I'll be the first to admit I am world renowned for letting the smoke out of IC's.

Jim

Just separating the two coils' grounds would help a lot. Since they are interactive, I wonder how much the CDI is dragging down the white side?

I have also seen references (maybe on the other forum?) to actually getting 12V on stock coils. I'll see what I can rustle up.

This guy (I hope) gilesthealmighty is getting 8V at idle and 12V half throttle.

Ted

 

[Creative Engineering]

Hi guys

Sorry I had to leave the conversation. Duty called.

Jim if you were to use a jam nut instead of the one currently holding the rotor (assuming you're gonna use the stock rotor) then shim the rotor up with a spacer washer and machine another cover (to match the clutch actuator cover) I think there would be room for the additional windings.

The existing coil is not taking up all the space in the housing as it is. There is room for some additional windings without a deeper cover now if the rotor were moved up a millimeter or two.

Ted

Good thinking Ted...you are one step ahead of me.

I know on the bike we had, there was about 1/2" clearance between the pedals and this side of the engine. I've had one clutch kit customer tell me that his pedals came really close to my housing and it only sticks out .050".

In General: I certainly don't want any one to think that I am belittling past efforts to accomplish this, (I've read the posts),but I really don't think it's going to be that difficult.

If a fairly substantial coil can be added separately form the igniton coil...lighting will no longer be a problem.

Jim

 

[Creative Engineering]

Just separating the two coils' grounds would help a lot. Since they are interactive, I wonder how much the CDI is dragging down the white side?

I have also seen references (maybe on the other forum?) to actually getting 12V on stock coils. I'll see what I can rustle up.

This guy (I hope) gilesthealmighty is getting 8V at idle and 12V half throttle.

Ted

And I think Ted may have just found the ultimate, "zero cost", work around for this lighting problem! Somebody's got to try it. I have a customer in Palm Harbor, I'll give him a call.

Yes exactly!!! remove the coil...cut the heavier gauge wire away from ground and solder a lead to it. You wll now have a positve and negative lead going to the headlamp.

To maintain the kill switch simply solder a lead to the fine gauge wire that is the ignition coil.

Then we will find out if inductance comes in to play when coil 1 is loaded.

Jim

 

[jasonh]

There's really no need to solder an additional lead to the ignition coil seeing as just grounding the blue wire (+ from the coil) will kill it anyway. I wonder if that's one of the reasons why the stock kill switches are notorious for crapping out...if the ignition coil is ~70v the switch may not be rated for that, however little the amperage is.

 

[jasonh]

Ok so here's a quick crappy chop of what I was thinking would be a way to go.

Basically you'd cut the "legs" off the stock magneto, just leaving the mounting holes closest to the coil. Then you would have room for 3 4v coils of a heavy gauge on the other sides of the magnet.

For mounting, I've drawn in little tabs for the stocker to connect to the cover mount points, but I also think you could make a new cover that allows you to mount all the coils to the cover, so the only thing that would be present with the cover off would be the rotor.

So no rewinding that ignition coil, and it would be in the same location, so no worries of timing. Just make 3 new coils and wire them in series and a way to mount them, cut off the legs of the stock coil, ignore the white wire, and bob's yer uncle.

 

[xPosTech]

I've thought (y'all will come to hate it when I say that) about this some more. Even though there are two separate windings, to the CDI they probably act as one. In other words the voltage induced in the white wire circuit is electrically added to the blue wire circuit.

When a common tap is used on two windings on the same core, the voltage between the outer taps is a combination of the two coils. They get either added or subtracted. One or the other.

When they are added, they are said to be in phase. When subtracted, out of phase. That's why speaker phasing is so important for those of you with surround sound systems.

If we break this connection we will lose the voltage induced by the white wire circuit in the total voltage going to the CDI. That's the bad news.

I don't know how good the good news is. The white wire voltage is 1/12th of the blue wire voltage. Put another way when we drop the white wire circuit off the voltage going to the CDI we will only furnish 66V instead of the theoretical ~72V. I don't know how much this will degrade the spark.

I have an old EICO oscilloscope I inherited from a friend. It's not the Tektronix 465 that I used for decades but it should tell me something. I'll have to go to town tomorrow and pick up a couple of probes.

One good thing. We'll get there eventually. Together.

Ted

 

[Finfan]

I love this place! Mad Science at its best!!!!!

 

[jasonh]

I've thought (y'all will come to hate it when I say that) about this some more. Even though there are two separate windings, to the CDI they probably act as one. In other words the voltage induced in the white wire circuit is electrically added to the blue wire circuit.

When a common tap is used on two windings on the same core, the voltage between the outer taps is a combination of the two coils. They get either added or subtracted. One or the other.

When they are added, they are said to be in phase. When subtracted, out of phase. That's why speaker phasing is so important for those of you with surround sound systems.

If we break this connection we will lose the voltage induced by the white wire circuit in the total voltage going to the CDI. That's the bad news.

I don't know how good the good news is. The white wire voltage is 1/12th of the blue wire voltage. Put another way when we drop the white wire circuit off the voltage going to the CDI we will only furnish 66V instead of the theoretical ~72V. I don't know how much this will degrade the spark.

I have an old EICO oscilloscope I inherited from a friend. It's not the Tektronix 465 that I used for decades but it should tell me something. I'll have to go to town tomorrow and pick up a couple of probes.

One good thing. We'll get there eventually. Together.

Ted

I guess it could have some sort of effect similar to a regular coil, where voltage is inducted and multiplied depending on the turns. I think with the way I was just suggesting, we would keep that white wire coil in tact, just in case.