Shindengen R/R update; S4 fitting annoyances and lithium battery info

[spuggy]

So, I had to do a bunch of googling to address my problem "correctly"; hopefully there'll be useful info that might save folks having to start from scratch.

There's the most excellent thread by Kato, here: http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/s...ad.php?t=46708, which covers how bad the stock rectifier/regulator is, and how to easily replace with a MOSFET shunt instead of the SCR shunt, which overheats and kills itself.

I did some research (mostly summarized here http://ukmonster.co.uk/monster/showthread.php?t=53879), and figured that if I ever needed to, I'd go with a Series R/R (as these only draw as much power as the circuit actually needs from the alternator/wiring), rather than a shunt - which pulls 100% of alternator output all the time and just shunts it to ground.

Which, even though MOSFETs run considerably cooler than SCRs, still strikes me as frickin' stone age. And neither do anything to help bikes prone to get crispy stator windings and cooked alternator wires - like many Japanese bikes.

There are also guys with infra-red cameras/thermometers and dyno tests who swear that their bikes with a series R/R make more power to the wheels by not running the alternator flat-out - and run lower oil temps to boot.

(I found a fascinating thread regarding Aprilas, which suddenly started buring out alternator - the guys had video of brand-new stator windings turning crispy brown within 30 seconds of running up on the test bed... Seems Aprila spec'd/need 1200 guass on their rotors, but they switched suppliers and started getting rotors that measured ~2600 guass - so their alternators were putting out over double the rated power. Instead of fitting a series R/R, which would have addressed all the problems handily, Aprila apparently turned down the rotors to increase the air-gap/limit output - which resulted in them not putting out enough power at idle to charge the battery... On a brand new bike. You couldn't make this stuff up...)

But anyway, neither of my 900s seemed to have an issue with the factory-fitted R/R. So I wasn't really motivated to do anything about it.

Fast-forward, and enter my new-to-me S4 stage right... Battery would go flat, and re-charging it didn't last. After a short-ish ride (15 miles or so), the tach would go crazy - or just stop working altogether. AlanC confirmed my suspicions that this was almost certainly the VR...

Jack at RoadsterCycles (who sells Shindengen regulators and wiring kits) posted a useful YouTube video explaining how to spot a fake Shindengen :


https://youtu.be/TYxtCC330Xg

After watching, realized that Flea Bay is awash, positively neck deep, in fake Shindengens - and, from user feedback, that most probably aren't even freakin' MOSFETs, so no better than the original unit - plus you have to screw with the link cable. (And by the way - the Japanese lost their production facility in the Fukushima earthquake in 2011, so they haven't built a FH0012 since then - anything that purports to be a "new FH0012" is either new old stock - or more likely, not an FH0012 at all).

The weasel words are "fits", "replaces" etc. If it doesn't have the lumps on the heat sink, it's not a Shindengen (as all except the SH847 have those). You can buy one for 15 quid, which should be a pretty good indicator of quality, right there. And ones which are visually indistinguishable can be marked up as high as 90-100 quid (think auto factors). But still fakes.