what the heck keeps a motorcycle battery charged

Message

slimcolo · Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:51 am

My Yamaha uses a magnito for both the charging and ignition circuits. The charging circuit goes through a rectifier to change voltage and current. this is wired directly to the ignition switch and thus to ignition coil. Other side (DC) of rectifier goes to lights.

Johnj · #22 Unread post by **Johnj** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:31 pm

Uh...OK, and this system is used on how many models?

slimcolo · #23 Unread post by **slimcolo** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:02 am

Not sure how many. It was used on the Rotary valve 2 strokes that came out in the late 50s and are still being produced but not imported to NA. (I think) Lifian and some of the other smaller Chinesse and Tiaweneese bikes and scooters still use this system also. Never saw this set up on anything larger than 125cc.

mydlyfkryzis · Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:37 am

slimcolo wrote:My Yamaha uses a magnito for both the charging and ignition circuits. The charging circuit goes through a rectifier to change voltage and current. this is wired directly to the ignition switch and thus to ignition coil. Other side (DC) of rectifier goes to lights.

A magneto puts out a DC voltage spike. No rectifier needed. The coil on the bike produces the high voltage spark directly. 200 gadzillion Briggs and Stratton engined lawn mowers can't be wrong.

You may have both a magneto and a charging circuit. This way the bike runs even if the 12V systems crashes.

Most, if not all, small aircraft use magnetos for this reason. In fact, they usually have 2 magnetos for redundancy. They also have a separate alternator system for powering the instruments and lights.