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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 1:45:10 GMT -5
Look at those schematics you posted again. The first one is a good example for the generic type 50cc scoot wiring. It could be used to wire up most China scoots. Unfortunately the headlights are DC. Check the schematics for voltage regulators, also available on the internet. Some of those schematics are actually pretty good, others are not. The second schematic is a good example of a full wave three phase rectifier circuit in the regulator providing two DC outputs. One for the battery charging circuit and the other for the headlights. The yellow wires don't go anywhere near the headlights but people claim the headlights are AC? -WTF! It is far simpler to just read the schematics and use a good meter that is not fooled by ripple. That voltage ripple and people's inability to use a meter properly is why the 'AC' voltage readings reported by the majority of enthusiasts vary so widely and in no way would operate a light bulb, either incandescent or LED. A simple capacitor will show the true nature of the headlight feed, even to a cheap digital voltmeter, approximately 14VDC. People that don't know how to use a meter should not connect them to systems and definitively pronounce the 'reading' as accurate. Just having a digital VOM does not make a person an instant electronics wizard. Having a PC does not make anyone an instant 'hacker' either. Hell, the $$ LED headlight bulbs are probably polarity protected, and most probably have a built in rectifier to avoid people returning them as 'defective' when they hook them up backwards. I have designed and built enough automotive and industrial electronic devices to know to do that and so do other professionals. Professionals also know to protect circuits from load dump transients that are common in automotive systems.
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Post by gsx600racer on Mar 19, 2017 1:58:24 GMT -5
Well Iv high-lighted the the run from the stator to the headlight. Yellow run, Red high-lighted. Technically its from the stator to the dimmer switch(hi/low beam) then to the headlight. I understand the same run is taped into the auto enricher and the regulator. The regulator is tied in to bled off excessive voltage. Ya know when you keep blowing head light bulbs, what do they tell you to change ? The voltage regulator...
So you are going to say this video is wrong too ?
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 2:32:03 GMT -5
Exactly!! A blown regulator will blow the headlight bulbs and try to cook the battery if the scoot runs a long way with a blown regulator. The regulator shunts the negative AC from the stator to ground and limits the average positive voltage to about 14V. It ends up looking like a really crappy square wave at higher RPM. That square waveform and the varying frequency with engine speed drives the digital VOM meters completely nuts. The little uP in them doesn't know what to think so it creates that SWAG meter display that varies from meter to meter and time to time. I saw that AC too when I first connected a digital meter but I knew that couldn't be right due to the voltage I was seeing. I connected my good old fashioned analog meter and bingo, 14VDC. Connecting a 1000uF capacitor I had handy showed the 14VDC with the digital meter. The battery side of the regulator shows a nice DC voltage with that giant Bat-acitor in the circuit. There is usually a voltage divider network sensing the battery voltage that controls the shunt regulator circuit. The regulator circuits are not all the same but there are enough similarities. Burned out headlight bulbs can also overheat the regulator circuit and blow it. The scoot electrical system is not fault tolerant at all.
In reality all those China scoots should be subject to a recall. I don't think the NHTSA has any intention to force a recall since only 'poor' people ride scoots. Now if a congressman's son was out riding one and a headlight bulb burned out and the other headlight bulb failed a moment later and he was struck and killed by a truck something might get done....
That second schematic shows an optional headlight switch that connects the headlight circuit to a resistor when the headlights are turned off to avoid frying the regulator. We have to take what those schematics show sometimes with a large quantity of salt when tracing out wiring harnesses.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 2:38:12 GMT -5
That video is correct. The stator output is NOT connected to the regulator so the waveform is not being 'disturbed' or regulated by the regulator voltage regulation circuits. The readings produced with that test method can vary widely with the type of meter though, but it is just showing an output from the stator windings.
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Post by gsx600racer on Mar 19, 2017 3:00:08 GMT -5
Exactly!! A blown regulator will blow the headlight bulbs and try to cook the battery if the scoot runs a long way with a blown regulator. The regulator shunts the negative AC from the stator to ground and limits the average positive voltage to about 14V. It ends up looking like a really crappy square wave at higher RPM. That square waveform and the varying frequency with engine speed drives the digital VOM meters completely nuts. The little uP in them doesn't know what to think so it creates that SWAG meter display that varies from meter to meter and time to time. I saw that AC too when I first connected a digital meter but I knew that couldn't be right due to the voltage I was seeing. I connected my good old fashioned analog meter and bingo, 14VDC. Connecting a 1000uF capacitor I had handy showed the 14VDC with the digital meter. The battery side of the regulator shows a nice DC voltage with that giant Bat-acitor in the circuit. There is usually a voltage divider network sensing the battery voltage that controls the shunt regulator circuit. The regulator circuits are not all the same but there are enough similarities. Burned out headlight bulbs can also overheat the regulator circuit and blow it. The scoot electrical system is not fault tolerant at all. In reality all those China scoots should be subject to a recall. I don't think the NHTSA has any intention to force a recall since only 'poor' people ride scoots. Now if a congressman's son was out riding one and a headlight bulb burned out and the other headlight bulb failed a moment later and he was struck and killed by a truck something might get done.... That second schematic shows an optional headlight switch that connects the headlight circuit to a resistor when the headlights are turned off to avoid frying the regulator. We have to take what those schematics show sometimes with a large quantity of salt when tracing out wiring harnesses. This is a page out of the honda service manual. (page 91) www.49ccscoot.com/manuals/Honda_SK50_Dio_Service_Manual.pdfItems of interest high lighted in red. Why are they telling you to set the testor to AC ? Unless......... Or the people that wrote the manual are wrong too.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 3:20:55 GMT -5
I can't tell from that writeup what they are trying to measure. They are talking about an ammeter and then talking voltage. I have to say that the manual may be loosing something in translation and proves nothing about scoot headlights being AC. Their meter may be some sort of specialized service equipment which again says nothing about AC or DC. I have tried to explain what is happening in the regulator to you but you fail to understand. You don't even understand why that video is correct and why a person would get those readings WHEN THE REGULATOR IS DISCONNECTED, -MEGA DUH!!! Go ahead and believe all scoot headlights are AC if you want. You might want to go back to a good school on how to read electronic schematics and wiring diagrams though. It is obvious that I can't dissuade you from your wrong thinking and misunderstanding. Most enthusiasts believe as you do because they have a 'magic' digital meter that MUST be correct in their hands. Please accept my apologies, but I am not going to argue with you any more on the internet, that is just plain impossible. I have other things to do.
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Post by gsx600racer on Mar 19, 2017 3:26:11 GMT -5
I totally understand how it all works. You just discredit service manuals, wiring schematics, and vids. Its in black & white & color. LOL
No worries, when these folks plug in their led head lights and the don't work, you can explain why.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 3:53:22 GMT -5
I totally understand how it all works. You just discredit service manuals, wiring schematics, and vids. Its in black & white & color. LOL No worries, when these folks plug in their led head lights and the don't work, you can explain why. Nothing wrong with the Video, nothing to discredit. Your understanding of what it means is flawed. The regulator is NOT hooked up so it WON'T regulate and the vid shows the raw AC voltage changing without regulation, -DUH! The schematics are correct but you can't understand them. You don't understand ANYthing and can't read and UNDERSTAND service manuals and schematics.... I am sorry but you are beyond hope. I have spent a lifetime designing, building, and troubleshooting electronics, electrical systems, and machines. From huge dams, to computers, to controllers, to industrial motor control centers both AC and DC. Machines from bicycles, to aircraft instruments, and controls to locomotives to cars. But like Ron White says, you can't cure ........ I have helped anyone that has asked about LED light upgrades and scoot wiring.
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Post by gsx600racer on Mar 19, 2017 4:04:02 GMT -5
When an LED bulb can be connected to a scooter head light socket without any special circuitry or power conversion box and they work, I will be a believer.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 4:26:41 GMT -5
hehe, believe then because mine are... I had some diode switch circuits originally to light only one for LOW beam and both for HIGH beam but they are both wired straight now. Dual 27W LED lights instead of the original 18/18W halogens. They are terrible lights because they don't have DOT or Euro light cutoff patterns. I have another Harley headlight to mount that was to get a Silverstar but will now get a new LED bulb since it is a DOT light.
My scoot wiring is just about as plain Jane as it can be except for a 12V power port hot off the battery through a 10A breaker and a direct jump connector so I can jump start my scoot with micro jumper cables from a car if necessary. I did replace that 7A system fuse with a 10A circuit breaker after I blew the fuse with my electric fuel pump (damn China switch shorted internally).
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Post by 90GTVert on Mar 19, 2017 11:32:02 GMT -5
When an LED bulb can be connected to a scooter head light socket without any special circuitry or power conversion box and they work, I will be a believer. I have had 3 different LED headlights on my Triton. They flicker at idle, but work fine. These are headlight assemblies and I make no claims of knowing what circuitry is in them. I literally just hooked up 2 wires and they work great. I tried one on the TaoTao, just a quick hookup, not mounted. It doesn't even flicker at idle, again with only a quick test. I use LED tail lights on all of my scooters, which are connected to what I have always considered to be AC power because it's only on when the scooter runs. They all work fine, though again some flicker at idle. One is a trailer light, one is a whole universal assembly, the other is an 1157 LED replacement (which I've used variations of, and all worked fine). I don't know that any of that proves anything at all though. I did try to connect an "AC" HID setup to my TaoTao once. That was before I realized that they meant it supplied the bulb with AC rather than what at the time was said to be more common DC. I didn't get that it still required a DC power supply. That one most certainly did not work as I hoped. It make all sorts of scary crackling noises when connected to my headlight power on the TaoTao (same connection that the LED spot light works fine on). I could see some sparks as well. It really didn't seem like a good idea. lol I'm electrically dumb, so I can't tell you what's right. I can only tell you my experiences. I will say that if Frankenmech is correct, and what we call AC is really DC, it would be easily misunderstood by people like me that just use a meter or go on experiences. Even if DC ends up at the bulbs, you could call it an AC system and not be incorrect in all regards. The lights will not work on what I'd call an AC system if the scooter is not running, because it needs the AC from the stator rather than being supplied by the battery's DC.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 19, 2017 18:06:47 GMT -5
The battery will supply DC when the scoot engine is not running. The stator will try to supply AC power to the regulator when the engine runs but the regulators I have looked at are a type of shunt regulator that grounds out the negative portion of the waveform and passes a voltage limited or truncated positive portion. I believe that is why 50cc scoot regulators are generally referred to as half-wave rectification systems. The battery acts as a giant capacitor and smooths out the voltage waveform. The regulator senses the battery voltage and uses that as a reference voltage. Scoots will run without a battery but it may play hobb with the regulator. I would suggest running a capacitor from the red wire to ground to run without a battery. The yellow wire has that truncated positive voltage which will show up as an AC voltage to digital meters due to the ripple wave form. Digital meters are cool and really cheap but they lie because the uP samples the voltage across the leads fast and slowly displays what they 'think' is going on due to the program. Microprocessors are cool but they are very dumb when compared to a human brain. A dumb analog meter will show the average voltage as DC though which is why I got mine out when the digital readings didn't look right to me due to my experience. A capacitor connected to the yellow wire and ground will also show a DC voltage to a digital or analog meter. I have used several capacitor values to smooth out that ripple from 250uF out to 2200uF at 50VDC. I did try some calculations at one point for the capacitor -vs- ripple values but with the varying frequency and load conditions I just settled on 1000uF as a working value, but in reality it could be much less. The ripple varies frequency due to engine speed. In Brent's video the stator voltage shown can get quite high at higher RPM. I would also measure that with a digital meter with a peak hold function. The stator raw voltage is higher than the 50V cap will take but the regulator limits that voltage to that ~14V average. If that high voltage is not clipped/shunted or truncated by the regulator all the light bulbs would go off like flash bulbs.
The stator does not put out enough power at idle so lights flicker but maybe a capacitor would help. I have not experimented with that. My LED headlights did not flicker as much as the incandescent bulbs did at idle.
I have not worked directly with HID lights but I have heard the HID lights require an AC current like the AC CDI power winding to pump up the voltage. I have no knowledge of how the HID power supply is set up. Someone could try unhooking the yellow wire from the regulator and wiring it to HID light power supply directly, -but don't blame me if something smokes.
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Post by gsx600racer on Mar 19, 2017 19:33:02 GMT -5
When an LED bulb can be connected to a scooter head light socket without any special circuitry or power conversion box and they work, I will be a believer. I have had 3 different LED headlights on my Triton. They flicker at idle, but work fine. These are headlight assemblies and I make no claims of knowing what circuitry is in them. I literally just hooked up 2 wires and they work great. I tried one on the TaoTao, just a quick hookup, not mounted. It doesn't even flicker at idle, again with only a quick test. I use LED tail lights on all of my scooters, which are connected to what I have always considered to be AC power because it's only on when the scooter runs. They all work fine, though again some flicker at idle. One is a trailer light, one is a whole universal assembly, the other is an 1157 LED replacement (which I've used variations of, and all worked fine). I don't know that any of that proves anything at all though. I did try to connect an "AC" HID setup to my TaoTao once. That was before I realized that they meant it supplied the bulb with AC rather than what at the time was said to be more common DC. I didn't get that it still required a DC power supply. That one most certainly did not work as I hoped. It make all sorts of scary crackling noises when connected to my headlight power on the TaoTao (same connection that the LED spot light works fine on). I could see some sparks as well. It really didn't seem like a good idea. lol I'm electrically dumb, so I can't tell you what's right. I can only tell you my experiences. I will say that if Frankenmech is correct, and what we call AC is really DC, it would be easily misunderstood by people like me that just use a meter or go on experiences. Even if DC ends up at the bulbs, you could call it an AC system and not be incorrect in all regards. The lights will not work on what I'd call an AC system if the scooter is not running, because it needs the AC from the stator rather than being supplied by the battery's DC. Brent, This vid might help you have a better understanding of how it all works. Basically taking a +/- ac sine wave(from the stator) and using diodes making it all (+ DC) cleaning the signal/current up with capacitors(removing ripples) and making dc (+) currnet. Here is another vid(on a scooter no less) and using a variac(fancy word for variable AC power supply) to control ac adapter voltage to simulate the engine running. LED's are light emitting diodes. When the forward voltage is met power will pass thru the diode, and it will give of light or "When a suitable voltage is applied to the leads, electrons are able to recombine with electron holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. This effect is called electroluminescence," They also will block reverse voltage. So lets say for example you have 12vac, @ 60 hertz(a measure of frequency per second) and you supply it to a LED light assembly, chances are you will not see any light because the power is pulsating to 12v+ to 12v- 60 times a second. Basically the positive(forward) voltage will be cancelled by the negative(reverse)voltage and you will not see any light. Now lets slow down the cycles to once a second guess what will happens, the led will be lit for a 1/2 second and off for the other 1/2. Unfortunate most LEDs can not handle fast switching(+to -) like regular diodes and will usually fail / internally short. A regular incandescent bulb does not care if the voltage is AC or DC as long as the voltage is there to light it. If the AC frequency is fast enough you will never see the bulb flicker, just look at the bulb in any house fixture(as long as its incandescent)
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Post by 90GTVert on Mar 19, 2017 20:55:43 GMT -5
I've never actually noticed my incandescent bulbs flickering at idle. They just dim. That's why I plan to keep 2 lights on T2 (plus a backup is a good idea since riding with no lights isn't fun). I switch to the 55W halogen when I'm in town at night so I don't have a strobe light. I just assumed that the filament got hot and didn't cool so quickly under voltage inconsistencies of any sort that it would flicker in a way that I would notice. It can flicker all it wants if it's not perceivable to law enforcement. It is exaggerated by the frame rate of the camera, but the LED assembly obviously flickers as you can see in the chrome of the car ahead of me in the vid below.
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Post by FrankenMech on Mar 20, 2017 0:41:53 GMT -5
The generic 50cc scoot regulator does not use diodes to rectify the output from the stator. It uses a shunt regulator. Like the one shown in the second video. The negative spike in that regulator did get to unreasonably high negative voltages before it was shunted to ground for some unknown reason. The positive pulse was truncated normally but the output voltage shown on the meter was low probably due to that negative spike confusing the meter. His meter is a true RMS meter which essentially integrates the area under the curve for the voltage display. I have thought about "loosing the earth in the stator (like heard in the video)" in order to use a full wave bridge rectifier and my own regulator. That would about double the power output available from the stator instead of shorting that power to ground and getting the regulator hotter. My LED and incandescent lights flickered at idle but the LED units probably have an internal capacitor in the power regulation circuit. If I keep my idle RPM up I don't notice the flicker except if the engine stumbles. The halogen bulbs were way to dim to see with at night. A regular incandescent bulb on house current in the USA flickers at 60Hz, the eye is just not capable of seeing that flicker rate due to persistence of vision. If I remember correctly flicker is only visible at something less than 20 cycles. The old silent movies were 16-18(??)fps but was increased to 24fps to avoid that flicker. Even at 24fps the old movies bothered my eyes and would give me a headache. Actually a LED connected to 50-60 cycle AC (with an appropriate current limiting resistor) will light up as long as the reverse voltage withstand is not exceeded which would cause the diode to short. You won't be able to see a flicker. Many power ON indicators work that way. LED's will pulse very very rapidly and are widely used for communication especially before bluetooth and other RF communication systems were licensed. They are used for TV remotes and IR headphone sound systems. They will also take incredible currents when pulsed very briefly in a low duty cycle application. I used an IR LED array successfully for 19,200bps serial communications in an outdoor environment where I had to compete with full sunlight and bright 60 cycle lights at night. They used to make two pin R-G-Y LED lights that were color controlled using PWM reversing voltages, but three pin R-G-Y or R-G-B LEDs are more common now. My scoot has two LED clearance lights running off the battery side aimed slightly outward to be very apparent to drivers approaching an intersection from the sides. They don't make enough light for me to see but they can be seen at night by others. I am looking for a replacement 150cc engine with a proper three phase alternator to squeeze into my scoot.
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