The BSA A7-A10 Forum
Technical (Descriptive Topic Titles - Stay on Topic) => Lucas, Ignition, Charging, Electrical => Topic started by: chaz on 18.10. 2010 23:12
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Ive looked through many web sites and dealers pages in search for the answer.
1956 A10 looking to convert to 12v, negative earth system, possibly Boyer ignition but which one, or is there a better option
around the same price as Interspan too expensive, or is a Hawker ok?
Ive tried a twin Hawker Cyclone dry battery set up on a road rocket but is there any advantage or disadvantage against a wet cell battery ,
Generator whats best
finally is there a loom available or is it a case of stripping back and modifying? does any wre need upgrading?
few years ago I did this on a A7 but cant find the paperwork now
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Sealed batteries are a must on motorcycles and you will not get a better one than the Cyclones as they do not make complete spiral batteries to fit motorcycles ( we are too cheap to make it worthwhile ).
ignitions , no. Boyers are the cheap & nasty alternative and they only get better & more expensive from there on.
If you fit a Boyer, remove all of the cheap & nasty bullet terminals and replace them with better quality crimps or solder them. They will give you grief the only variable is when.
As for looms I can not find any that I would be bothered fitting.
The cloth covered "original" looking ones don't quite fit and only come as a mail loom which is the bit that dose not usually need replaceing . The bits that give you grief , headlamp sub looms etc are not usually supplied and no loom has been improved to have a common earth fitted.
I always make my own. They will not look original but otoh they will work properly and never fail.
I also use relays and spade terminals in gang blocks and run separate earths to the head lamp & tail lamp.
Fit a Led tail lamp to make life easer for your poor old generator
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You're going to trust your dynamo then Chaz? Or is it that you haven't got a mag?
Agree sealed batteries are good, although I have some that aren't and haven't had any problems. Nor have I yet had probs - maybe just my good luck so far though - with Boyer ignition.
The Boyer or any other system will take a bit of power, so I'd say your charging is going to have to be right up to the mark if you want lights as well on a 60W dynamo. You will be able to get a bit more than 60W without overloading the field (up to about 80 in fact) if you retain the standard armature and field coil and just use, eg, a DVR regulator at 12v. If you swap the dynamo guts for fine-wound bits sold as so-called '12v' by the likes of Feked (they are nice for maintaining low cut-in rpm) you'll be limited to those 60W. If, say, the Boyer or equivalent is going to use 25 to 30 watts or a couple of amps plus (I'm guessing but it has to be around there). . . . I'd say it's all a bit marginal, and maybe an Alton alternator would be a good idea if your pocket's deep.
At 12v your wires could be thinner and your fuse(s) if you have any lower-rated because there will be half the amps flowing around. So no wiring changes needed. Just battery and bulbs. Plus whatever loop and switchgear is needed for whatever modern ignition system you end up with. But a mag would be my first choice, by a country mile.
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I've stuck with 6 volt on the A7 although I very rarely ride at night so lighting isn't a huge consideration.
But I fitted one of the Burlen dry cell batteries which sits there demanding absolutely no attention and keeps it's charge from the standard dynamo even if the bike isn't used over the winter. I often ride with the headlight on in daylight especially in traffic so the demand is reasonably high. The battery sits inside a dummy case which looks the part as well.
The regulator is a Lucas original which was bought new and fitted maybe 25 years ago !
I think I've had the Burlen set up for 5 years now, no trouble at all !
http://www.amalcarb.co.uk/ProductDetail.aspx?id=1225
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Agree with Trevor & Bill. I use sealed gel batteries which fit inside a rubber imitation battery case - I had 12V on my Velo and currently 6V on the A10 - like these (http://www2.westfalia.net/shops/batteries/rechargeable_batteries/lead_acid_batteries/6_volt_lead_acid_gel/682704-lead_gel_battery_for_alarm_systems.htm?vbSESSID=4eea5d731f2f5695b194e9b11780e1aa) .
Making a loom is very easy provided you can solder (which is easily learnt). I know some people use crimps but unless you have an industrial quality crimper, solder is better - and more original if that matters to you.
Vehicle Wiring Products (http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/VWP-onlinestore/home/homepage.php) have everything you need.
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I don't have much "positive" advice.
Running a Boyer on a dynamo system is a hopeless losing battle.
Any ignition system, except maybe points and coil, will probably give you many more failures than a good magneto.
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And unless you solder regularly, crimping will give you a better joint.
Most "occasional " users of the soldering iron, get the wires too hot, use too much solder and let it run too far up the wire.
I am using a cheap uninsulated terminal crimper with no problems after I shaved a bit off so that it closed a bit further than it used to as the new wire is a lot thinner than the old stuff and the terminals seem to get shorter with every order.
I also have a ratchet crimper which is a bit better as it gives a consistent crimp every time.
Add 2 pieces of heat shrink and you have a joint that will out last you.
Do not use the insulated terminals with the blue or red sheaths unless you remove the sheath and crimp it with the uninsulated terminal crimper. If you do so then the blue ones will come closer to fitting the old Lucas terminals but as stated previous I use spades in gang blocks.
As for batteries Pressure Valve Regulated lead Acid ( PVRLA ) will give you the best service but like most things that are good quality & value they will not be cheap.
Next best are the spiral wound gel cells ( Cyclone )
After that there is a big gap way down to rectangular gel cells
And finally there are standard wet cells but if you pay less than £ 30 for it then you will have bought trouble and the battery will fail mechanically.
If you are going to go the electronic ignition route then a very good battery is an absolute must.
No joy being 100 miles from home in a heavy down pour and your £ 10 battery collapses so you have a long wait in the rain to be rescued.
Also you will have to replace the regulator with a modern solid state one as the old mechanical regulators are not up to the job.
They were designed to do nothing more than keep the battery topped up and have great difficulty handeling both ignition & lighting.
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I have recently exhaustively discharged the 6V Cyclone battery in the A7 (over a week or so) with a stuck brake light switch (crap, I put the canvas cover over the bike and didn't notice the brake light was on *problem*)
I was surprised that it still would take and hold a charge after that. I can't tell what damage has been caused though, because I haven't measured the residual capacity, but it appears to be fine.
Great stuff, most of the cheapo lead-gel-batteries would be up the swanee after such a (mis)treatment I guess.
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i'm not sure but with the modern led bulbs these days,why not stay 6v,they use less amps and dont blow,and a well built mag is always better than electronic,dealer told me the other day tahat the guys who run pazon actually worked for boyer before moving to NZ,and have developed the ignition's a bit more since leaving.
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Oh boy, yes, to Trevor's point, you can't get a half-decent battery on the cheap.
Good makes cost money but are much better value. I was quoted 230 Euros for a good new one for my modern, although a Chinese thing could be had for half that, and it's the same all the way down the range. I've had good service from Bosch ones (wherever they might be made), and from Japanese ones (ditto), and I always get the biggest amp-hour capacity that'll go in the space. Can't remember getting one that seemed any good for less than about 60 Euros, call it 50 GBP or, these days, an enormous sum in USD.
I have never used Cyclons myself, but for no good reason and friends have them. I do believe, though, that their internal resistance is very low and that they can therefore load a dynamo's field coil rather heavily for a bit if part-discharged. Quite what their ability is to withstand a good flattening, I don't know - but sounds good Marcus!
Was being polite TT about running electronic ign on a dynamo machine - a Boyer or equivalent will stretch early alternator systems to the limit and beyond, let alone a dynamo: where I've got elec ign I have high-output single phase alternators and appropriate regulation/rectification. Horses for courses. Maybe one of these expensive BTH spark generators is the best non-K series option for a dynamo bike, but hell of a price. As are Altons if you look at it the other way about and start with a decent charging system.
My recipe for happiness is: dynamo and DVR2 (preferably at 12v) and a mag plus 35W halogen light; standard alternator (110W or so) for standard coil ignition and halogen 35 max 45W light; high output stator plus Podtronics reg/rect for electronic ign, with any light you like.
Apart from a recent unexpected condenser failure on one mag that had been expensively rebuilt (Sod's law but sorted fast with a ?/I hope better ceramic condenser fingers crossed touch wood), no electrical problems in a lot of miles. There's just no virtue in running at the outer end of the capability of fragile systems, IMHO. The memsahib (the putative rescue trailer driver) agrees. It's worth a modest investment to avoid that *****-off look that comes over the fair features when she sees my mobile calling up reinforcements.
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you can't get a half-decent battery on the cheap........
a Boyer or equivalent will stretch early alternator systems to the limit and beyond, let alone a dynamo: .....
My recipe for happiness is: dynamo and DVR2 (preferably at 12v) and a mag plus 35W halogen light.........
Sounds like you've learned the hard way too!
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why not stay 6v,they use less amps and dont blow,
They use double the amps. Staying 6V might still be a good idea though.
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too b***** true TT. You and me both.
No short-cuts wiv the 'lectrickery has been my motto these past quite a few years, and it works.
But I was caught out by a mag the other week, and wasn't happy as they're the one thing I swear oaths on . . .
What I'd like to know is what is the tech spec for an ultimate capacitor, if anyone knows. My failure was at about 15000km with a RIFA PME271M series (metallised something or another), I put in one of the little jobbies from Independent Ignition Supplies - unmarked and it's great so far (only 1000km to date though), and Bob Kiser of Podtronics fame says you need various specs I won't repeat here which the IIS one may match.
But for all that, an actual spec is hard to come by . . . . there is quite a lot on especially the Velo owners forum, some from the Vincent people because they have their own probs with uneven firing (and precious few modern options with Miller dynamos) but despite all that I'm still not sure what AC voltage rating, voltage swing speed, dielectric etc is the most fail-safe . . . . Doug Wood in Pa. USA probably has an ideal spec, as does Dave Lindsley no doubt, and others who actually do their own rewinds, but I'm beginning to think it's a jealously-guarded trade secret. Get there in the end I expect, just a question of pestering people long enough and learning stuff.
What we really need is a modified K series with the cap. up the easy end. Not impossible, there's room just about, but if it was that easy I s'pose Uncle Joe would have done it! Or would he?
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on the chop, Im using standard acid battery, lucas rita ignition and a Japanese bike sealed reg/rec with home made loom, on something more 'standard' Im looking at a normal set up with the advantage of better lights and stronger spark as mentioned first.
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200mf, 400v@6000v/u sec.
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Understand all that worthy ambition Chaz.
But there are Big Buts . . .
Point One:
a)You don't want and can't have a rectifier with a dynamo - you're producing dc already because that's what dynamos do, thanks to the commutator, which is a mechanical rectifier.
b) Rectifiers go with alternators, which don't have commutators and produce AC which needs converting because there's no such thing as an AC battery even if sparks and lights can run off it.
c) You want a dynamo regulator and cut out.
d) The simple fact that you're negative earth is not a reason for putting a Japanese alternator system part in there. It won't work, I promise. A dynamo regulator manages the dynamo's output (D) by controlling the dynamo's field coil input (F). Dynamos are very elegant devices in that they serve up power according to demand rather than according to simple rate of rotation, so the regulation has to be designed to match output to electrical demand. Totally different principle from an alternator, whose output, unregulated, would be solely dictated by rpm. The means of regulation in an ac regulator are completely different from a dynamo's.
Point Two: the idea of getting better lights when the dynamo's going to be overloaded because of ignition loads doesn't stack up.
You have to start from first principles.
Your DC system produces a nominal 60 watt maximum safe output.
That's 10 amps at 6 volt, 5 amps at 12. Yes, fewer amps with higher voltage because watts equals volts times amps.
Your Rita/Boyer/what the hell? ignition option will consume 2 amps at least at 12v.
That's 40% of the dynamo's current rating (amps) and will leave you with a mere 3 amps or 36 watts of power, at full 'regulated' rpm, for everything else.
The tail lamp and speedo take maybe 8 of them, leaving 28.
If the sidelight up front stays on with the headlamp, that's another 5W-odd gone, so 23 left.
(LEDs can reduce this a bit, but not enough.)
At engine rpm between about 1000 ('cut-in' rpm) and below about 1800 ('regulating' rpm) the dynamo is feeding the whole output from D into the field coil, F, unregulated.
Under full load, ie lights on and ignition on, that's a lot of load on a small generator.
Above about 1800rpm the regulator, if you had one, would manage the field input to prevent a meltdown in the armature, but it wouldn't maintain system voltage because the loads are too high for the dynamo's capacity.
The battery would gradually lose charge as it would be making up the difference.
The 'big question' here is not how to pick from some mix and match menu of attractive-looking options regardless of what you've got, but is whether the basic electrical system on your machine can properly support what you want to do. It can't, it really can't.
You need a good dynamo, a decent voltage regulator and cut-out, whether mechanical or solid state and I favour the latter, and, for choice, a magneto (or other independent spark generator). Or, you need an Alton alternator with its own built-in regulator, if you want to have powerful lights plus electronic ignition. 12v on its own is no magic solution, nor is a solid state regulator, and least of all is electronic ignition. Which is not, IMHO, likely to do anything useful for a '56 A apart from flatten the battery and maybe fry the dynamo.
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Thanks a lot Wilko.
AC volts? Any tips on who makes? I read elsewhere .22mf dV/dT greater than 1000, dF less than .05%, etc and avoid metallised polyester as the dielectric will fail at some point . . . . Self-healing being a finite thing. A mystic art. Fingers crossed for the ceramic things I've now got in 2 mags (which are working fine so far). IIS say they've sold 6000 of these expensive things they sell, and zero failure they know of. Anyone in a position to contradict that?
Have another ceramic one coming from the US to compare - but the prob is can't tell when they're going to fail till they do! All good fun. But far easier were the armature redesigned to allow routine replacement (like on some of the single cylinder mags), but about 60 years too late!
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In reply or addition to Groily's last post, you can get more than 5A and thus more than 60W, from an E3L dynamo regulated to 12V, but at 12V it doesn't do any useful charging below 2000rpm, which of course means the battery goes flat in traffic.
I found you can run a dynamo quite successfully at 12V, so long as you have a front pilot light for in town and so long as you are not depending on it to power electronic ignition. You might get off with powering points with a dynamo and battery.
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if you dont mind, Im sitting in the wings reading the debate, very enlightning *respect*
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Ive looked through many web sites and dealers pages in search for the answer.
Well you did ask.....
There are (at least) as many opinions as there are people to give them. I can only say what's worked for me for 40 years. But I know there are other equally valid solutions.
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You did Chaz, as Ian said! And there are lots of options, some of which have been mentioned, which work really well. That particular one won't.
TT you're dead right as usual. As I think I might have said earlier on - 80W odd are available without overloading the field if we're talking 12v-converted original Lucas windings. And of course you're right about the cut-in speed, iffy in town . . . but I have one such, which works OK because I'm a country bumpkin. Fine-wound coils sort that, but we're back to 60W safe max.
Having said which, what total utter complete moron crushed a pair of alternator wires between a pair of primary cases this morning and made such a b**** of everything he couldn't go for the planned blast. . . ?
His excuse is he was looking for something interesting to do. She didn't really manage more than half a smile.
Luckily, by end of day it was sorted.
But it's going to rain tomorrow.
And France has no Gas/Petrol or any other combustible materials, so that helps no end.
What are the penalties for pouring central heating oil into a diesel car?