when to switch to synthetic

[John Biccum]

I'm running a Gerbing heated vest and grip heaters on my A16, with the stock charging system. I have a voltage indicating LED (poor mans voltmeter) and the Odyssey battery. The stock charging system can keep up with the electrical load of both the vest on high and the grip heaters on high at all engine speeds above about 1500 RPM. At idle I just turn the vest down a bit until I get a green light on my LED voltmeter. Surprisingly having the turn signals flashing at idle pull down the voltage so I'm consdering an LED converison for them. Given the spotty reliability of the Electrex stator I'd rather stay with the OEM stator and just keep an eye on the voltage.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Svantwuyver" To: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 8:38 Subject: [DSN_KLR650] RE: Electrex > Keep in mind that Electrex makes a lot of > unsubstantiated claims. They have nothing that proves > their claim of 280 watts. They used to claim 100 > watts more than stock which was total BS. Ask them > for a voltage/current/RPM graph or anything that > proves this number isn't hype. When I installed the > Electrex stator, it could NOT even keep my battery > charged. Electrex blamed it on the KLR's marginal > wiring. I put the stock stator back in and use heated > grips and a vest. The battery is now 5 years old and > still starts the bike just fine. I'd steer clear of > their hype and stick with the stock. Learn to live > with its limitations, at least the stock stator works. > -svt- > ================================== > Happy->trails site, there is an Electrex > stator/rectifier combo for $350 that increases the > output to around 280 watts. Has anyone attempted a > stator upgrade and what was the outcome? What about reliability? > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > Archive Quicksearch at: > http://www.angelfire.com/ut/moab/klr650_data_search.html > List sponsored by Dual Sport News at: www.dualsportnews.com > List FAQ courtesy of Chris Krok at: www.bigcee.com/klr650faq.html > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > >

[Svantwuyver]

I know several people who all had unpleasant experiences with the Electrex stator. Electrex made lots of claims about how superior their product was and how the stock stator was overated. I know Fred sells the latest incarnation but I have yet to read any reviews here about any raving about them except RM. RM's unit was installed by the Electrex and who knows what they did during installation. I know that I soldered all my connections and even fabricated a the rubber gromet for the case. Electrex made lots of baseless claims in the past. To my knowledge they still can't provide any verifiable data that shows if their latest unit is equal to or better than stock. I believe the stock KLR has either 11 or 13 poles on the stator and every position is wound - two poles provide current for ignition. The original Electrex unit only had four poles wound, so I should have been able to see that it wouldn't perform as well, except I believed Electrex. Also Electrex's stator plate thickness was 5 mm thicker than stock. They provided no new hardware and if you used the OEM mounting screws, there was a very high probability you would strip the threads. This happened to several people. Perhaps Electrex has fixed their problems since. Apparently they have come out with two newer versions since I was a victim of rev 1. As someone else pointed out, unless you can figure out how to wrap more wire in the same space, any new stator cannot generate more power than stock. I suppose you could weigh old vs new, but then you would have to know how much mounting plate weighs. I suppose Electrex could be using a thinner guage wire but I would think that could affect reliability. Anyway, several people were burned by this company in the past. To me Electrex was dishonest and left me stranded - five years since I still happy running my stock stator with all its limitation. So I have a hard time swallowing Electrex's newest hype. Perhaps all the happy owners of the latest stator can report back how many more electrical gadgets they are running. -svt- __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com

[RM]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 23:40:18 -0800 (PST), "Svantwuyver" said:

>I know Fred >sells the latest incarnation but I have yet to read >any reviews here about any raving about them except RM.

I have Rev 1, not the latest incarnation.

>RM's unit was installed by the Electrex and who >knows what they did during installation.

Nothing special. I watched the whole thing. They did do a "home run" from the output of the RR to the positive batt terminal, though.

>Electrex made lots of baseless claims in the past. To >my knowledge they still can't provide any verifiable >data that shows if their latest unit is equal to or >better than stock.

This was my concern as well. The testing that we did with extra lights and such was informal. I do think that the Rev 1 G45 is stronger than stock, but I can't say by how much. It might only be 20-30 watts, in which case it's not worth having. Maybe if I'm feeling extra motivated, I'll show up at a Julian tech say and we can solve this question once and for all with some careful testing. RM

[Chris]

> From: "RM" > Subject: Re: RE: Electrex > > Maybe if I'm feeling extra motivated, I'll show up at a Julian tech say > and we can solve this question once and for all with some careful > testing.

I've got access to some big-ass power resistors if you want to use them as a load. I'll check them out and see if any of them are appropriate. Krokko -- Dr. J. Christopher Krok Explosion Dynamics Laboratory John Lucas Adaptive Wind Tunnel Caltech MS 205-45, Pasadena, CA 91125

[E.L. Green]

Chris wrote:

>>Maybe if I'm feeling extra motivated, I'll show up at a Julian tech say >>and we can solve this question once and for all with some careful >>testing. >> >> > >I've got access to some big-ass power resistors if you want to use them >as a load. I'll check them out and see if any of them are appropriate. > >

At my company's lab, to do some power testing, we didn't happen to have some big-ass power resistors handy but needed to do some battery load testing (to see how long it took to take a 12 volt laptop-style battery from full charge to shutdown under a given load, in order to detirmine whether its real specs met its advertised specs and thus made it suitable for our application). But we did have an auto parts store next door. The lab is now more brightly lit than before. Note: light bulbs, while they are big-ass power resistors, do have one drawback -- they have a large initial inrush current and said current doesn't stabilize until the bulb is at operating temperature. However, in a motorcycle application you can basically use the battery as a big-ass capacitor for this situation. (and in our case, we were running 72 hour tests, so the initial 5 minutes warmup time was not an issue). The other big issue is that the KLR's regulator-rectifier is a stone age design. It wastes an inordinate amount of energy as heat, and would burn up if you had a rotor-stator pair that put out more than the current setup. The good news is that it is childishly simple to design a 400 watt regulator-rectifier that is much more robust and much more energy-efficient such that it would not burn up underneath the KLR's seat. The bad news is that fitting such a thing into the tiny space under the KLR's seat is not easy. I guess my point is that the design is marginal for the current load on it and if something claims to put more juice out, I wouldn't use the current regulator-rectifier to test it. -E

[mikehailwood63119]

I believe we've gone far afield of Tony's original dilemma -- weak spark. Looks like we are fearful, though, of using Electrex as an economical replacement for an OEM stator. I assume this stator has the exciter coil as a component. And unfortunately for Tony, we are not sure a new stator will correct his problem. Back to an earlier request, can anyone out there test a properly funtioning KLR for exciter coil resistance (and maybe boltage output ahead of the CDI) so Tony can compare? How long have you had this problem Tony? Mike

[Krgrife@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/8/2005 10:16:58 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, kirnschmid@... writes: I believe we've gone far afield of Tony's original dilemma -- weak spark. Looks like we are fearful, though, of using Electrex as an economical replacement for an OEM stator. I assume this stator has the exciter coil as a component. And unfortunately for Tony, we are not sure a new stator will correct his problem. Back to an earlier request, can anyone out there test a properly funtioning KLR for exciter coil resistance (and maybe boltage output ahead of the CDI) so Tony can compare? How long have you had this problem Tony? I did so and sent the impedance I measured to Tony. It was 140 ohms on the one I measured which is within spec. I believe the one he measured was 70 ohms. Kurt [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Tony JONES]

> I believe we've gone far afield of Tony's original dilemma -- weak > spark.

a) Isn't that always the way? Thread drift b) I kinda did it myself so no worries.

> Looks like we are fearful, though, of using Electrex as an > economical replacement for an OEM stator. I assume this stator > has the exciter coil as a component. And unfortunately for Tony, > we are not sure a new stator will correct his problem.

I don't think this is true. The generator portion is still fine, but I'm almost certain that 75 ohms is a good sign that my exciter coil is dead. Your 140ohm value confirmed it for me. I don't think I need anyone else to test theirs at this point. I was about to order the Electrex when the guy on the phone pulled the "50/50 chance it will blow your OEM regulator" out of his hat. It reminded me of dealing with them in the past, smoke and mirrors, hard to pin them down. Like I said before I e-mailed them asking for a clarification in writing. No reply so far.

> request, can anyone out there test a properly funtioning KLR for > exciter coil resistance (and maybe boltage output ahead of the CDI) so > How long have you had this problem Tony?

Oh about 18 months I spent a long time thinking it was the carb and had the carb apart more times than I'd like to admit. In hindsight it should have been obvious that it was spark and I'm sure people on the list told me this (sorry!). Oh well, it's been a learning experience and I didn't break anything in the process. [Aside: I'm not sure having my own timing light would have helped me. The mechanic who's light I eventually used said he liked it as it was ultra cheap and was really good at not lighting when the spark was weak; he had two other more expensive ones which he said tended to always light in the presence of any spark -- of course maybe I should have done the ohmmeter test a lot earlier, never dawned on me as I could see a spark when grounding the plug] Thanks for your help Kurt. Best Tony

[E.L. Green]

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, Mike Frey wrote:

> I'll tell you the KLR oil analysis I've done indicates the oil

does get

> sheared rather quickly. > --- long winded reply ---- > To Jeff: > > Since you are one of the few who I know of that has tested the oil

from the KLR, do you have any test results from cars? If so, how does it compare? I don't know about cars, but somewhere around here I have results of oil analysis from a Jeep Wrangler with the 4.0L I6 engine. Basically: At the 6,000 mile recommended oil change interval, the oil has not significantly changed in viscosity, whether it is regular or synthetic. The Jeep I6, a descendant of the old Rambler I6, doesn't appear to be very hard on oil at all. The only interesting thing that oil analysis found was that this old engine does NOT like synthetic 10W30 oil. The iron numbers go up significantly compared to a "regular" 10W30 oil. But then remember that this engine was designed to run 10W40 oil back during the Paleolithic, and that 10W30 dino juice eval'ed as thicker than 10W30 synthetic (presumably assuming it'd shear down slightly). There is no such problem using Shell Rotella T 15W40 dino or 5W40 "synthetic". Before you whine that these oils are "too thick" for this engine, the exact same engine in the exact same vehicle sold in Mexico City came with a sticker advising to use 20W50 oil... so apparently gas mileage is the only reason not to use a thicker oil with this particular engine. I currently use the Rotella-T 5W40 in the Jeep because oil analysis numbers say it protects well, this keeps me from having to stock two different kinds of oil in my garage (one for the bike, one for the Jeep). But if I wasn't interested in oil commonality, I'd just use a regular good quality "regular" 10W30 oil from a major oil company like Texaco, Shell, or Chevron and call it a day. In short, there's a world of difference between this car engine and the KLR in how badly it treats oil. The KLR just eats oil up, in more ways than one...

[Chris Norloff]

Greg Frazier rode around the world with an Electrex 400-watt unit, which was a deciding factor when I bought one. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that there is that level of reliability anymore in the Electrex units. And I hate the idea of killing my bike (and my trip) because I tried to 'upgrade'. Chris -----Original Message----- From: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Thor Lancelot Simon Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:06 PM To: Zachariah Mully Cc: dsn_klr650@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [DSN_KLR650] Glen Heggstad-"Locked Up Abroad"

On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 03:32:47PM -0500, Zachariah Mully wrote: > > Probably broke the KLR subframe. No surprise there. If he's riding a > GS, I believe the subframe is welded to the frame, hence it should be > far, far stronger. Either of the other problems (I can't remember, but > I think he was running an Electrex?) are well known, and he should > have fixed them before leaving. Seriously. I wish I could count how many times someone had popped up here and announced that he was about to leave on an N,000 mile trip but all would be great electrically because he'd just installed one of those fantastic Electrex upgrades. With that company's reliability record, it's hard to say much but "Oops"... The funny thing is, we seem to have a distinct lack of trouble reports linked to _failure_ to shell out for the stator upgrade... List sponsored by Dual Sport News at: www.dualsportnews.com List FAQ courtesy of Chris Krok at: www.bigcee.com/klr650faq.html Member Map at: http://www.frappr.com/dsnklr650 Yahoo! Groups Links