Sourcing a Regulator/Rectifier

[Phaedrus]

Hi,

I just traced a faulty R/R to a discharged battery in my 2013 VStrom 650 with 20,000 miles.
I asked the parts dept. in my London dealer and they have to order it to Europe - 7/10 days - and the price is 202£'s. This looks a bit stiff for a simple, and no so good, R/R. I also looked in Amazon and they have some for 30£'s. Probably Chinese knock outs.

Any suggestions where to source it?

Thanks

[Hondaman]

Ebay, Wemoto, Electrex etc.
To be fair, unless it is a genuine item, you probably won't know wether it's a chinese item until you buy it.

[greywolf]

It's rare for a R/R to fail. Stator failure is much more common so I would double check. The R/R can be replaced by a series type which is better for stator life. http://www.vstrom.info/Smf/index.php/topic,20426.0.html

[Phaedrus]

Thanks for the tips.
Electrex looks like the best option for parts on this side of the pond.
Greywolf, your comment on the R/R made me review the numbers. I used the attached table from the Service manual. The upper numbers were all within spec. The ones marked as asterisk on the table supposed to be 1.4v (or equivalent to the tester's battery). In my case they were all zero, which makes me take another round of measurements with a different tester, available in a couple of days. I also measured the resistance of the generator and I got 1.3 ohms for all three phases, slightly higher than specs (0.2-0.7). At least, the group was not shorted.
Hopefully with the 2nd Voltmeter, I'd be able to isolate the culprit. I hope it's the R/R because is much easier to fix.   
My theory on what cause the problem in the first place, other than just statistics, is that I sometime run with the high beam on, but without the fuse, to allow for a better charge of the battery. I'd read this may cause overheating of the R/R.

[greywolf]

You could try putting a new battery in the tester. Do you mean you run on high beam with the high beam fuse removed, I.E., run with no headlights? That is hard on the stator. If the stator is okay, doing that will not help charge the battery. The R/R will limit the extra power not used by the headlights by turning it into heat in the stator.

[Phaedrus]

Yeap, no headlights. The theory was that the energy consumed by it would go instead to the battery. So much for that! Regarding the tester it got fresh batteries. I'd just wait for tester #2. Patience it is...

[joderest]

I fitted a switch to my Wee, as same as you, thought running without lights during the day would help out battery. Since GW's warned me that could cause issue, just use switch to start engine, then turn headlights on.
Worked well on my old BMW, must have been a different set up.

[greywolf]

My old BMW R90S had a wire wound stator and rotor, much like most cars, not a magneto. Voltage regulation was done by adjusting the power to the slip rings creating the rotor magnetic field rather than always being at maximum and dumping unneeded power as heat. Still, that bike was one of two I owned that required fixing the charging system on the road. A wire in the rotor must have broken from centripetal force on a high speed run. At least the bike had a stock voltmeter that made the fault evident and a big battery that got me to a dealer so I wasn't stranded.

[Phaedrus]

Problem Solved! Thanks for your help.

I got the parts and installed both the Stator and R/R. It charges as per spec and after 200 miles there is no oil leaks.     
The most troublesome was to get out the air filter box, specially the front cylinder rubber clamp! I sometimes wonder if the engineers ever work on their pretty blue prints.

[Phaedrus]

I forgot to post some learnings out of this experience.

- SOLAR BA7 Battery and System Tester. I got a new toy while dealing with this problem from Amazon. This is a tester for the battery based on internal conductivity of the cells, in theory more accurate to gauge the status of the battery than traditional methods such as voltage and load tests.
See more details here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8sUE9XCgA
- Stabilant. This is an interesting product to help improve the conductivity of connectors. Yet, it also helps create a barrier to isolate the connector from the environment to reduce oxidation. Sort of "have your cake and eat it too". Apparently the conductivity is activated by the electricity. More info here.  http://www.stabilant.com/
By the way this is quite the opposite of dielectric grease which is normally used for such cases.
Obviously cleaning the connector with a good contact cleaner (Deoxit D5) prior to use Stabilant is necessary. I'd found that sometimes there are faulty codes in modern bike due to poor connections. And just by unplugging, cleaning and re-plugging connectors is a simple way to solve those issues. Now, I have a better weapon to deal with such events.
- Torque small bolts. The alternator case have small bolts that require only 10Nm (7.4ft-lb) of torque. That's way too low for most meter - even if the tool shows the reading. I have stripped more than one such bolt by using regular torque meters. So, instead of buying a fancier tool which I'm sure there are, I devise my own "home made" approach. I used a bolt similar to the one in question and set it against a piece of scrap aluminum with a nut on the back. I tried several times with the torque wrench set at 10 Nm and measure the angle required to reach the "click" after it's settled against the base. Interestingly the readings went from slightly less than 1/2 turn to just 1/8. No very accurate and probably the reason I stripped those bolts in the past! So, I just used just 1/8 turn after the gasket was compressed and some blue loctite. Problem solved
- "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Mathew Crawford. This little mechanical exercise remind me of this book. It explains the pleasure of craftsmanship and why is so difficult to find the equivalent in the traditional corporate job. Worth reading.