I had one of these motorcycles and this alternator was the first thing

to go. (after 15yrs).  took me the longest time to figure out where the
heck the alternator was and how it worked...

Dave Leonard

Jim and Lucy wrote:

I got a  71bsa a65 and a 71triumph tr6r and the lucas electrics are still
original except the electronic ignitions I put in them 15 years ago.
I am not sure how many watts they put out but mine have been reliable
through all the years. These (ac generators) were regulated by a zenair
diode and then made dc by a funny looking (timpanium)? rectifier wich
looked like a bunch of plates with diodes on them fixed to a central
mounting bolt. The only problem I ever had with them was the central
rotar magnet was steel magnets in an aluminum housing with a steel inside
keyed collar that slid over the end of the crankshaft. The old british
bikes engines lurched and galloped a bit at idle and this caused the
rotars to become loose in the joint between the keyed collar and the
aluminum in the rotar. It was very slow to fail so you could here it
knocking at idle (like a screwdriver taping on the case sound)
long before failure. Most of the old bikes were messed up simply by
installing the battery terminals reversed. This usually caused years
of intermittent problems with the stators for some guys.
I could run with no battery and I did it alot. At night you would
need to keep blipping the throttle to keep it running at idle.
Modern harleys still use a simular system but with a solid state
finned box that takes care of the power conversions.
I often wonder about using something like this for power in my
engine but I have recently learned that a regular alternator can
be made to run without a battery with a capacitor. I need to find
out more about this. Any body know more about this please tell me.
 My idea is to use 1 battery wich would back up the alternator if
it fails. If the battery fails I would like to be able to run on
the alternator alone using this capacitor idea. If i ever get this
plane built flying vfr only all I need to keep running is a fuel
pump and 1 of the ignitions. The harley I had would run 6 hours +
with the alternator unpluged. So I hope for 2 hours on two of these
sized batterys. I am not sure how much power my crane xr 700 ignition
will draw yet.

Jim Pollard
ch601hds ea 81
Merlin Ontario
Mavbe rotary someday.

 
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